Foreword—I spent more than 1/2 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. 
101. TO THE REFRESHING OF THE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT (by Geoffrey F. Nuttall; 1959)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR—Geoffrey F. Nuttall is Lecturer in Church History at New College, University of London. During the Spring & Summer Terms of 1958 Dr. Nuttall was Pendle Hill’s visiting lecturer. Among his books are: “The Holy Spirit & Ourselves”; “The Reality of Heaven”; “Studies in Christian Enthusiasm” (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #41)
FOREWORD—For one who is not a member of the Society of Friends to put out something like an open Letter to the Society may seem presumptuous. I am an English Congregationalist minister who through association has learned to love Friends and to share many Quaker convictions. The purpose of these studies is to recall Friends to some things most surely believed and to invite them to consider afresh certain issues near Quakerism’s heart. If anything here speaks home to them, I hope Friends will take it seriously; all else will they overlook?
“Whatever temptations, distractions, confusions the light doth make manifest & discover, do not look at these [worldly intrusions]; but look at the light which discovers them, and makes them manifest; with the same light you may feel over them, to receive power to stand against them.” George Fox
Dangerous it were for man's feeble brain to wade far into the doings of the most high; who though to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not, …neither can know him; our safest eloquence is our silence. Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity
CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT—The 1st Christians were so sure that in Jesus light had come to them and to all the world, that they could speak of one another as children of light. The phrase is use in 4 distinct places in the New Testament (NT). It is a natural expression of Friends’ belief that in them primi- tive Christianity was being revived. For a time it seemed as if Friends were going to adopt it as their regular appellation. George Fox, London Friends, the Elders at Balby (Yorkshire), & Nottingham Friends wrote journal entries, pub- lished declarations, and wrote letters using the phrase. Other radical Puritans, such as John Goodwin, Gerrard Winstanley, Giles Randall, Sir Harry Vane, and Continental Anabaptists also used the phrase.
2 NT passages are in the Epistles, & 2 are in the Gospels. In Eph. 5:8f (“you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord; as children of light walk; & have no part in fruitless things done in the dark …). Children of the light here are the saints, whose good deeds men see, & seeing give glory to God. In I Thes. 5:2f. (“You brethren are not in darkness that the day should come upon you like a thief; for all you are children of light & day …”), the reference is to the coming [“endtimes”]. The phrase ‘children of…” or “sons of…” is a common Hebraic idiom used frequently in the OT. Commonly it refers back to a source of inspiration. In the NT passage it is used to look forward. Those who have received Christ have become children of God & the light & in His light they will watch.
In Luke 16:8 (“His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”). [Here Jesus shows some impatience with the starry-eyed]. The ‘children of light’ are the same as the ‘children of the resurrection. In John 12:35f (“While you have the light, be- lieve in the light, that you may become children of light”), C.H. Dodd interprets “a grave warning that for a brief space they are in the presence of the Light, [but] the Son of Man is to be “lifted”; the moment of opportunity to enter into the knowledge of God will [soon] pass.”
George Fox drew inspiration from the 4th Gospel's writer. The ethical emphasis is there, as is George Fox’s principle of loving forbearance. “The Day of the Lord” is a phrase often on Fox’s lips. [In his words] Fox is reflecting the tension of the “now” and “not yet,” the “Thy kingdom come,” and “Thine is the kingdom,” which runs throughout the New Testament. Fox yearned so to speak, and so to live, in the light of Christ, that men might rightly respond & be set free from the shades of their prison house.
This, rather than an “an emphasis on inward life and personal experi- ence” & rather than any equation of the Light with reason or conscience, is the context of faith and experience in which Friends’ use of the name “Children of Light” can best be understood. Light awakens, reveals exposes, liberates, and enlivens. George Fox’s untutored seizing on the phrase “Children of Light as summing up much that's most essential to the tradition is another example of his genius. What is [prescribed] is a serious and purposeful approach to life, & the self-discipline that such an approach requires.”
FRIENDS & FORMS—In 1662, The Act of Uniformity came into force, by which all ministers in England and Wales were required to have been or- dained by a bishop, and to have declared their unfeigned consent & assent to everything in the Prayer Book; Friends’ meetings for worship were made illegal. It was a long struggle, but conscience & courage won the day. Within Christian worship there is room for many forms.
Where things are done in right ordering, there will often be an element of formality; but in worship itself the less formality the better. To Nonconformists, Prayer Book worship seemed too formal, too much a vain repetition of other’s prayers, with no place for prayer inspired by God’s Spirit. Friends refrain from any pre-arrangement of these forms of worship, other than in having silence as an all-inclusive context, out of which any form may issue & into which it will die away again. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of life and creativeness, unpredictable & uncontrollable. It is still a form of worship. There can be no con-joint worship without one.
All forms are dangerous; yet some form is necessary. Anyone who at- tempts to think knows that one must pay close attention to the forms of his thinking, his language & reasoning. We may have intuitions without the formal steps of logical argument, but to carry conviction that what we have seen is true to others, we have to depend largely upon the normal forms of logical presen- tation. The forms in which we think and express ourselves are to a consider- able extent shaped and controlled by the time in which we live & by the coun- try to which we belong. The history of thought quickly reveals that there are no “absolute” thought-forms. Every artist, like every thinker, knows that, though he may discard the traditional forms, he must find, accept and attend to some form.
Friends will do well not to say that they have no form of worship but to study the forms of worship they have & how to keep their worship a living form of worship. Ulrich Zwingli proclaimed the non-necessity of any particular form. The Spirit of God is a free Spirit, able to reveal Himself without perceptible mediation & not confined to any form. [When men worship in a dead form, the Spirit creates new forms].
Universalism [of salvation] is as untrue to the facts of life as is uniformity. If everyone were born at the same time and place with the same opportunities, life would be fair; it is not so. God has set all within many variations and limita- tions (i.e. history & personality). The Gospel is that God comes to meet us where we are, & as we are. The Gospel is that in fact God has done this. God is not tied to form, but of God’s own free love God deigns to use these forms.
George Fox battled with the tendency of excessive repudiation of forms on several fronts at once. The type of person who would object to the divine revelation in the Bible of Jesus as limiting must be guarded against if the infant Society was not to break down into an unattached vague mysticism. Fox also helped provide the forms of discipline, self-government & mutual aid. If Friends will realize what they have gained through these forms, they may have a better understanding of the form’s place in religion.
JOY TO MAKE MENTION—The overflowing heart & mind are so evi- dently a mark of primitive Christianity that it would be strange if they didn't reap pear in seeking after a “primitive Christianity revived.” The Christian overflow was in words that might bring others to share in the joy of what had happened. Jesus’ life-purpose was made up of seeking those being lost & saving those wasting themselves away. [Service has a central place in Christianity]. The word's commonest use is to denote simply ministry in all its manifold forms. [Jesus also used words & asked others to do so]. Go home & tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee, in having compassion on thee. Though commanded not to speak, the apostles ceased not to teach & to preach.
George Fox could be silent for 3 hours & could speak for 3 hours. It is unfortunate when Friends retain an experimental emphasis but not the refer- ence to a higher control. George said to a priest: “Experience is one thing, but to go with a message & a word from the Lord, as the prophet & apostles had & did, …this was another thing.” Throughout the Bible, being sent with a word from the Lord is a prime and continuing element. Those who are to minister, to do service, do it not as unto men but unto the Lord.
For regular & sustained ministry only some are called & given the right gifts. The ministry of gifts degenerated into a ministry only of function, status or profession. [Friends sought to] depend once more on a ministry genuinely & solely charismatic; it was, once again, part of “primitive Christianity revived.” The “recording” of ministers bore witness to the Society’s belief in this form of ministry. The desire to distribute responsibility for vocal ministry as widely as possible betrays secular influence, or a misunderstanding of this ministry as God-given.
William Penn said: “The ministry needs to be held, preserved & conti- nued. Nor is it enough that we've known the Divine gift, have reached to spirits in prison, & have been used to convince others, if we keep not as low & poor in ourselves, & as depending upon the Lord as ever.” Today it is laid upon all to come with minds as well as hearts prepared.
Neave Bradshaw said: “Our way of worship & concept of ministry gives [us] no excuse from our prayer and love, our watchfulness & expectation being less than [a non-Quaker minister].”
Caroline Stephens writes: “The result we look for is the fruit of a devout intelligence, 1st purified and then swayed, by the immediate action of Divine power.” Violet Holdsworth adds the idea that ministry, or preparation for it, will cost something. There won't be water or wine, unless there are willing-hearted servants to draw it.
FRIENDS, THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH—[In the 2nd half of the 20th century], it is biblical religion, the biblical revelation of God, which attention is given, a living integrated complex of faith and experience; and it is a whole with Christ as the center, touchstone and key. Jesus’ message makes intelligible & gives authority and unity to the different parts of the Bible. The Church is seen today as an expression of the direct purpose of God, who calls men out of the world, to live together for His glory.
[It is best when] Bible and Church are held together; the Bible as the People of God’s book, and the Church as the company of those who live by biblical religion. We find God in Christ, and through Christ, come close to us & drawing out the best in us and damping down the worst or overcoming it. Christ’s authority alone gives Bible or Church any authority over our lives which they possess; but insofar as it is His, it is an authority which claims us.
In the movement to use the new understanding of the Bible for nour- ishing the inner life, Friends should be taking a lead. George Fox wrote: “Men could not know the spiritual meaning of [anything in the Bible] or see through them into the Kingdom unless they had the Spirit and light of Jesus. [With the Spirit and Jesus] they read and understand the Scriptures with profit and great delight.”
Friends still say they believe in continuing revelation; to what purpose save as they believe in Christ’s revelation. [Many “Fox” passages] show that for Fox the Light Within was the Light of Christ, & the Christ whose Light shone within was one with Jesus of Nazareth, found in the NT. [As powerful as the Light is, it isn’t personal]; it doesn’t constrain; it doesn’t call to action, move our wills or evoke obedience. [For that St. Paul, George Fox, & James Naylor] heard a voice. [Friends need to show] utter, present commitment & devotion in the things of everyday to the Lord, & reverence to Scriptures & the Church for Christ’s Light & Voice to be found in them.
How can Friends make their distinctive contribution of Christian Pacifism within the World Church? Fox 1st directed men to the light of Christ, that men may “see their Savior Christ Jesus, their way to God.” [Friends gifts to Non- Friends include]: a strongly personal quality in Friends worship; Friends sensitivity to the Spirit’s movement; Friends seeking to answer that of God in every one; Friends discerning of others’ condition; Friends faith in finding a way of God in every situation.
Not one of those gifts is possible save as, besides being sensitive to the light of Christ, we are also obedient to His Voice. The 5th Query in the Christian Discipline of London Yearly Meeting is: Do you maintain a steadfast loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ? A Quaker poet wrote: “O Lord and Master of us all,/ Whate’er our name or sign,/We own thy sway, we hear Thy call,/We test our lives by Thine. [For some] they are familiar; [for all] they are worth dwelling on.
102. From one to another (by Norma Jacob; 1959)
About the Author—Norma Jacob was born, educated & married in England; she joined the Society of Friends in 1935. She & her former husband represented the Friends Service Council in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 the Jacobs came to America. They spent 2 years at Pendle Hill, & experimented 4 years with an intentional subsistence community in Vermont. She now lives in the Philadelphia Friends Self-Help Housing Project, and is currently administrative assistant for PA Mental Health, Inc.
About the Author—Norma Jacob was born, educated & married in England; she joined the Society of Friends in 1935. She & her former husband represented the Friends Service Council in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 the Jacobs came to America. They spent 2 years at Pendle Hill, & experimented 4 years with an intentional subsistence community in Vermont. She now lives in the Philadelphia Friends Self-Help Housing Project, and is currently administrative assistant for PA Mental Health, Inc.
Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other… He watches for a Yes which allows him to be and which comes to him from another. It is from one to another that the heavenly bread of self-being is passed. Martin Buber
[Introduction]—In the care of the mentally ill, science has rediscovered that someone who cares for another & shows it, can give help that drugs & surgery cannot give. True recovery, acceptance of himself & society’s accep- tance of him as a healthy person [comes with “tender, loving, care.”] The sick person who suffers the special misery which mental illness brings has always [inspired in] the Churches a special care, a [recognition] that the unfortunate have a claim on people who seek to practice religion in the more difficult & thankless ways, [Quakers more so than others]. What will Quakers do with the new possibilities of service [in the mental health field]?
[History of Quaker Approach to Mental Illness]—An Inward Light can't in its nature be extinguished while the body which harbors the soul still lives. From their earliest days as an organized group, they have been especially ten- der of the mentally ill. George Fox said to Lady Claypole about her apparent mental condition: “Whatever temptations, distractions, confusions the light doth make manifest and discover, do not look at these [worldly intrusions]; but look at the light which discovers them, & makes them manifest; with the same light you may feel over them, to receive power to stand against them.”
Quaker beliefs inhibited the fear of possession by an outside diabolical force, stronger than the person’s natural & God-given strength. The group psy- chosis so hideously documented in MA history couldn’t find in PA a spark to light it. When William Penn came to the New World, the best that had been thought of to protect the sick person & his community, was to place him in a tiny house, where he endured as long as his body would last.
Friends were pioneers in the establishment of the rehabilitating prison. It was the prison which received the violently insane person. Quakers, like other rulers shut him away, but they did it with respect for his individual dignity. There was a realization that the person who was mentally ill was ill, not bewitched or perverse. [Early proposals for hospitals were not followed through on until 1750], when weighty Friends led by Benjamin Franklin made an actual proposal for a hospital in Philadelphia. The PA Hospital officially opened in 1752. The mentally ill were relegated to the basement, [where they received better than average, but still horrendous treatment. Records show that lunatics were the group from which few or none had been discharged at the calendar year’s end.
Friends were pioneers in the establishment of the rehabilitating prison. It was the prison which received the violently insane person. Quakers, like other rulers shut him away, but they did it with respect for his individual dignity. There was a realization that the person who was mentally ill was ill, not bewitched or perverse. [Early proposals for hospitals were not followed through on until 1750], when weighty Friends led by Benjamin Franklin made an actual proposal for a hospital in Philadelphia. The PA Hospital officially opened in 1752. The mentally ill were relegated to the basement, [where they received better than average, but still horrendous treatment. Records show that lunatics were the group from which few or none had been discharged at the calendar year’s end.
Benjamin Rush, Father of American Psychiatry, was a [relatively] kind and humane man, who [nonetheless] ordered bleeding, flogging, and other vio- lent interference with the body of the patient when he believed the long-range effect would be good. The Quakers in England appointed Dr. William Tuke to be head of the York Retreat in 1791. This hospital has consistently among the world’s leaders in caring for the mentally ill. In 1957, it was among 10 or 12 hospitals in the world to adopt the “open door” policy, where patients remain of their own free will. PA was among the 1st among the modern US to experiment with an open hospital.
The York Retreat was designed for members of the Society of Friends, though members of other churches would not be automatically excluded. The York Retreat sought to provide kind treatment in a sheltered environment, & encouraged patients to keep small animals as pets as a means of appealing to their better instinct. The York Retreat was the model for the Friends’ Asylum opened near Philadelphia in 1817. This hospital was “to furnish such tender sympathetic attention and religious oversight as may soothe [the patients’] agitated minds and under the divine blessing facilitate their restoration to the enjoyment of this inestimable gift.”
These pioneer hospitals were all privately owned with paying patients. Those who had no money were still herded into prisons and almshouses under frightful conditions. A reigning monarch (George III) was subjected to threats, beatings, chains, and starvation in an earnest attempt to restore his wits. After Friends’ Asylum and Bloomingdale Hospital, the Quakers seem to have rested on their laurels for 100 years. Dorothea Dix’s state hospital movement across the country had little or no support from the Society of Friends. The enormous majority, well over 90% of all those who became mentally ill, remained in the state and county hospitals in appalling conditions.
The York Retreat was designed for members of the Society of Friends, though members of other churches would not be automatically excluded. The York Retreat sought to provide kind treatment in a sheltered environment, & encouraged patients to keep small animals as pets as a means of appealing to their better instinct. The York Retreat was the model for the Friends’ Asylum opened near Philadelphia in 1817. This hospital was “to furnish such tender sympathetic attention and religious oversight as may soothe [the patients’] agitated minds and under the divine blessing facilitate their restoration to the enjoyment of this inestimable gift.”
These pioneer hospitals were all privately owned with paying patients. Those who had no money were still herded into prisons and almshouses under frightful conditions. A reigning monarch (George III) was subjected to threats, beatings, chains, and starvation in an earnest attempt to restore his wits. After Friends’ Asylum and Bloomingdale Hospital, the Quakers seem to have rested on their laurels for 100 years. Dorothea Dix’s state hospital movement across the country had little or no support from the Society of Friends. The enormous majority, well over 90% of all those who became mentally ill, remained in the state and county hospitals in appalling conditions.
Friends & the other historic peace churches produced in the early 40s, part of a group of young men who refused military service & found themselves serving as attendants in state mental hospitals. [One described his experience in a pamphlet (We are Accountable; PH Pamphlet #24, by Leonard Edelstein; 1945)]. [These young men] determined not to accept the continuation of con- ditions repugnant to any who believed that man was made in God's image. [In renewed medical research it was discovered that there are many different ill-
nesses which may attack the mind, with different causes, symptoms, treatment, and hope of cure].
[State Hospitals and the New Mental Health Care Approach]— Quakers failed often in helping sick people, because their knowledge was insufficient; but they sometimes succeeded where failure might have seemed almost inevitable. They have made a beginning in helping patients in public mental hospitals, but the full potential of what they have to give is still very far from being realized. Friends refused to accept that any man or woman could be irrevocably cut off from awareness of God and fellowship with God’s children. A new approach, using new drugs along with patience and perseverance, has brought some 30 and 40 year resident-patients home. Others, though they can't leave the hospital, can mingle with their fellow-patients and do productive work.
Doctors are beginning to say that the hospital itself, its expectations or rather its failure to expect good of the patient, its rigid organization, its lack of personal satisfaction may be standing in the way of better health for those it serves. No one who has visited a state hospital can ever forget the long halls with their lines of hard wooden chairs, where people sit, mostly silent, expres- sionless and unresponsive. Nearly half of the PA patients never have visitors. Why should these people feel that the world wanted them? Why should they try to get well? There is nothing to do. This in its hugeness & hopeless- ness is more frightening than [any abuse by attendants].
[Mental Health Caregivers]—Ward attendants are the people who spend day after day, year after year in close contact with the patients. In the past few years attendants have started to win more understanding of the importance of what they do, [even when] poorly paid and little respected. There is a wide need for more and more concerned young people who will enter such service for its own sake, because they see it as a way of discharg- ging an obligation to their fellow men.
In the past the state hospital service [has been heavily] involved in politics. More and more states are extending civil service to cover all the people who work in hospitals. Friends might think about the special opportunities of the psychiatrist at this time & in the years immediately ahead. Not so many years are needed to become psychologist, a psychiatric nurse or a psychiatric social worker. Here too the rewards in terms of satisfaction may be very great. Both the state and federal governments [see the need]; scholarships & fellowships to help in the cost of training the right kind of people are being provided.
[Open Doors and Volunteers]—Astonishing things, hopeful things, are beginning to happen in public mental hospitals, even those with ancient & crumbling buildings, out-worn equipment, & a chronic staff shortage. Something which has not happened in many places is the opening of doors. Everybody, including the community outside was afraid. [Physical walls, and] spiritual walls are crumbling. An American psychiatrist visited the open ward of an English hospital. He spoke of this as one part of the picture of mutual respect & accep- tance which he found—good relations between patients & staff & good rela- tions between the hospital & its community.
Clifford Beers recovered from his own mental illness without, or even in spite of, the help of the hospitals of the 1st decade of this century. He was the founder of the citizens’ mental health movement. He founded the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene in 1908, and the National Committee for Mental Hygiene the next year. [The progressive attitude of the Connecticut Society towards Non-Restraint, patient privilege, visitation of the friendless, and over- seeing attendants, sprang directly from Clifford Beers’ own hospital experi- ence. He knew that the mentally ill are not a category forever doomed & set apart. They are people who can live in the world again if we don't deny them the chance to come back.
Clifford Beers’ small movement has grown into the National Association for Mental Health, with divisions in over 40 states & territories. Those respon- sible for this achievement desire to be friends to the mentally ill. The volun- teer side of the movement is strong & growing stronger. The strongest link be- tween the hospital wards, open or closed, & the community outside is the volunteer. They range from “regulars,” who come every week or more, to those who never see the inside of the hospital at all but are willing to undertake some job as undemanding as collecting & wrapping Christmas gifts.It is not so much what you are able to do as how you do it. A scientist said: “It has been reasonably demonstrated that expectations have a great deal to do with the curing of patients.”
A woman volunteer at PA’s state hospital listed some of things that were done: different kinds of monthly parties, from themes to outside talent, to birth- day parties; take patients out for rides; teaching painting & ceramics; news- sheet. A doctor said: “The volunteer movement showed that change in a posi- tive direction at a state hospital is possible, & that it is primarily a matter of emotional rather than intellectual understanding. As a rule, volunteers come from the local mental health association. An increasing number of such local associations now have a paid executive and a secretary. A modest amount of money comes from the community chest or from a fundraising drive in the spring. The paid executive carries out the program the volunteer board has worked out for itself.
[Community Support of Former Patients]—A MA survey of employers and unions revealed that they would welcome back the former patient, but that the other party probably wouldn't. Fantastic fears were expressed of what might happen. Government offices would refuse to hire them until they had been out a year. In a Canadian prairie town, talking about the possibility that former mental patients, their own friends and neighbors, might recover & come home stirred up an anxious, fearful alliance against the unwelcome idea. Dr. Paul Hoch writes: “If the community is rejective, if its citizens have the feeling that these people should not be among them because they are not 100% cured, this will influence not just the patients already in the community but the chances for discharge of those still in the hospital.”
The woman volunteer mentioned earlier said: “Now we know that [going home] is a crisis … Could ordinary citizens help here, after the patients go home? Could foster homes be found for them to bridge the span between release & return to family surroundings?” The ideal ex-patient group is one whose members steadily drop away as they find themselves more & more accepting & accepted by the ordinary struggling world again. It is in part Friends’ lack of love that is condemning to years of imprisonment, people who could live again in the real world. To deprive a human being of his right to develop freely as a member of a living community is a fearful thing.
[Academy of Religion and Mental Health/Conclusion]—In 1955, The Academy arose out of the growing feeling that religion, must deal with him in that rather hazy territory where body and mind shade off into each other. Above all they were concerned for a better ministry to the mentally ill. They said: “We [seek to] help bring healing to the minds and souls & bodies of the Children of God who are walking this earth in pain, fear, guilt, anxiety, sorrow, loneliness, and often in utter mental darkness. In 3 or 4 years it has demonstrated that mental illness and the things which go with it are objects of deep concern to great many people who in an earlier time [would have left the treatment of it to] doctors and attendants who professed to know little about treatment.
Churches are starting on a courageous effort to show by their actions that “we are all children of one father” is more than a pious platitude. [The same Quaker beliefs that led us to treat the mentally ill differently than most, with less brutality], should lead us to join the people who are working for what to them, is a new goal, to bring the mentally ill into full fellowship with their brothers. There must be a place for us, now more than ever, among those who are making the door of the mental hospital a door into life rather than a door into death.
103. The Character of a Quaker (by Henry Joel Cadbury; 1959)
About the Author—Henry Joel Cadbury is Emeritus Professor of Divinity of Harvard where he taught for 27 years. He is a student and writer on early Christianity & the history of Quakerism. He was on the committee who prepared the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. He is a birthright member of Phila- delphia YM.
A Quaker is a scroundrel Saint of an Order without Founder, Vow, or Rule, for he will not swear, nor be tyed to any Thing but his own humor. He Vapours much of the Light within him, but no such Thing appears, unless he means he is light-headed. Nothing comes so near his quaking Liturgy as the Papistical Possessions of the Devil, with which it conforms in Discipline exact. His Devotion is but a Kind of spiritual Palsy, that proceeds from a Distemper in the Brain. The general Ignorance of their whole Party make it appear, that whatsoever their zeal may be, it is not according To Knowledge.— Samuel Butler (1612-80), Characters and Passages from Notebooks.
[Introduction]/ Characteristic/ Selection by Attraction—What makes a good Quaker? Some pamphlets of each Friends' generation have attempted to set forth an answer. William Penn wrote a short, unpublished (?) piece called “A Description of a Good Quaker, where he says “what kind or manner of people are they who obey the Light?” Here I will deal with the question directly and indicate the criteria that have emerged in our history.
In a bibliography of the 17th century, I find about 15 which either are or might be called “The Character of a Quaker. They are hostile, and belong to “Antiquakeriana.” 3 of the earliest begin: “A Quaker is a vessel of fanaticism. A Quaker is an everlasting argument. A Quaker is a spawn of anarchy.” We should cherish honest criticisms from sincere and temperate sources [(e.g. Baron von Hugel, Bishop Henson, Bishop Wand), which would help us with] our own complacency as to the value of our denominational traits.
Early Friends were convinced not birthright members. They found Quakerism by their own seeking, [& went from] seeking to finding. Adherence wasn’t a formal matter: it was the recognition by oneself & others of an accomplished fact, [how the message fit] the inner experience & conviction. The function of the Friend to the non-Friend was to discover what was already there, not to change or persuade but to disclose. Fox told his followers that their lives should speak, that their conduct should answer that of God in others. The anti- Quakers answered “What makes a good Quaker?” superficially & inaccurately. Pro-Quaker answers are often equally unsatisfactory.
Criteria of Membership/Conflict and Contrast with the World—For nearly a century no systematic method was used for identifying its adherents; there was no such thing as formal membership [before 1737]. Non-Friends, & some Friends fall into historical errors when they ignore the long absence of formal membership. How was a true Friend recognized in the days of Fox & Penn? There were external evidences of convincement—“speech, behavior and apparel.” Such marks of Quakerism are recognizable—too easily recogni- zable, I think. We need in ourselves the qualities behind [choosing those marks]—sincerity, integrity, dedication.
In some ways the reasons behind Quakers’ persecutors are as hard to understand as are those behind the persecuted. One can almost say that our criterion of a good Quaker in the last half of the 17th Century was whether he was in trouble with the authorities. [The list of things that got him into trouble was long]. Joseph Besse in 1753 condensed Original Records of Suffering & similar material into 2 large folio volumes of Sufferings.
It is the index of these volumes with over 20,000 names & similar vol- umes that are the nearest thing we have to membership lists of Quaker adults in the century. The sufferings recorded were those recognized as “for the cause of Truth.” During the Revolutionary War Friends who refused to pay war taxes or handle the money were not counted as suffering by their monthly meeting. The recording of suffering showed: what persons were regarded by Friends as members; whether their loyalty when tested stood firm; & what actions counted as suffering “on Truth’s account.”
Admitting/Disowning Members—The terms under which people have been admitted or rejected in applying for membership or have been dismissed from membership might provide definitions of at least a tolerably good Quaker. Disownment goes back to the 1st decade of our history. [Whenever a person somehow associated with Quakers did something that seemed scandalous even in the eyes of the world, faithful Friends “disowned” him]. Disownment for marrying a non-Friend was not done for public relations. The disowned person could continue to attend meetings for worship and could continue to espouse the bulk of Quaker practices and testimonies.
[The question of right standards for admission to membership never arose in the early days]. Even today clarity & unanimity of practice aren’t to be found. The membership applicant takes the initiative. His own judgment of the Society’s suitability to his needs & aspirations is the initial & frequently decisive factor. Since a member joins & belongs to a Monthly Meeting, [& secondarily] to Yearly Meeting & the whole Society, uniformity of standard isn't to be expec- ted. Much less than in the past are new members expected to have already attained final certainty. The Society of Friends can be looked upon as the favor- able place in which individual & corporate growth may be expected to take place. Inactive members neither offer to withdraw from membership or welcome the suggestion that they do so.
Queries/Changes in Queries—Queries have had a long & influential if varying role in our past; Catholics list questions in their manual of devotions, while Protestants have nothing like them. Very early the Society became orga- nized in a framework that permitted or invited the collecting of information, [used for contemporary & later historical use]. Monthly meetings were asked for their history. A series of questions gave guidance for the desired answers’ contents. [The 17th Century saw practical & statistical questions asked along with]: “How Truth hath prospered … since the last Year Meeting & how (far) are Friends in peace & unity?”
Slowly the list was enlarged to refer to matters of personal faithfulness. The Queries of London Yearly Meeting have been revised, I am told, 14 times since they were 1st printed in 1783 in the Book of Discipline. Between 1859 & 1928 questions beginning “Are Friends …” now began with “Are you …” Modern changes in the queries include an emphasis on the positive side.
The whole function of the queries has undergone a changed understan- ding. Beginning as a technique of collecting from all localities information that would permit knowing the condition of the parts, they became an inquiry to the local meeting's authorities with respect to their duty of keeping the membership in line. Now that written answers are frequently dropped the reading of the queries has come to have exclusively the intention and effect of a reminder, a “silent confessional.” In all their varying forms & functions they have served as a partial definition of Quakerism and some of its special requirements.
Advices/Lives of Individual Friends/ Variety—Another condensed section of Quaker books of discipline is called the Advices. The Advices don't cover “the whole duty of man,” nor is their content exclusively Quaker. They generally inform their readers of what is expected of a Friend.
Some were expressed metrically (e.g. (4) Be strictly honest in thy dealings/Discouraging all greedy feelings/ And do not speculation choose/Or thou wilt very likely lose. (8) On furniture and dress expend/ No more than may become a Friend/ In all thy actions lay aside/ Whatever tends to worldly pride. (10) Let living plain and thinking high/ Be the good rule thou livest by/ And, if thou shouldst prepare a feast/ Ask not the greatest but the least. (11) So, when thy earthly course is run/ And all thy work below is done/ By living thus thou yet may’st end/ A “tolerably consistent Friend.”
One of the most effective criteria for Quakerism’s definition is the exam- ple of individual Friends, both living & long deceased. This acquaintance with Quaker ideals is illustrative rather than prescriptive. The older Quaker Journal, the modern biography & the living example have been effective molders of Quaker character. I have the feeling that the purest influence has often been the unplanned by-product of conscientious spiritual living.
A particular asset of Quakerism's biographical definition is the variety which it permits; variety should be tolerated and even encouraged. The earliest Friends weren't all alike. We ought to admire some Friends more for their way of balancing the prevalent type than for their conformity to it. While old duties remain, new ones may be more important to anticipate and prepare for.
Quakerism as Worth Loyalty—Within Quaker membership there are those who see no special function that justifies our continuance; [for them church bodies are interchangeable] because they claim “a higher loyalty.” [On the other hand, fully convinced Friends] can be loyal to the Society & to larger Christendom. With Whittier we can say, “The world needs the Society of Friends as a testimony & a standard.”
Rufus Jones helped more than one generation of Friends come to an understanding of a possible role for Quakerism in the contemporary world. The good Friend recognizes the classical significance of this particular section of society and sees the importance of maintaining it—its inner harmony and fellowship, & its adaptability to the needs of our time. He will not despair of the Society; he is alert to its unrecognized opportunity at various levels. A high theology about the Church is abroad in the institutional, dogmatic bodies, & in the “Free Churches” that is not especially appropriate to our tradition. In the present mood, [developing] a theology about the “Body of Christ is not likely to replace or strengthen the kind of loyal belief in the value of our Society.
2 Strands in Quakerism—There is today in some Quaker circles a strong emphasis upon a high Christology, or Christo-centricity in the modern sense, a definition of the place of Christ. This evangelical viewpoint has long been present to Quakerism. It has always had in Quakerism an alternative or rival emphasis. The alternative emphasis often called “Inner Light” is not really negative. It has been positive. It too goes back before the rise of the Society. It can find sanction in the Bible and in notable figures or movements in Christian history.
What needs to be observed of these 2 strands in Quakerism is that they are both compatible with the character of a good Quaker. After the Great Separation of 1827-1828, the 2 sides reduced their positions to polemic or to catchwords, and even today they have not thought their positions through. If the need for a Quaker theology is to escape partisanship it must deal with both strands and the relation between them in the following 3 ways:
1. We shall need to recognize that both of them are part of our heri- tage. Several notable figures shifted position on these strands. George
Keith went from universal immediate revelation back to Anglican orthodoxy. John Wesley 1st accepted, then rejected William Law saying: “The strongly evangelical person is seldom happy with the mystical emphasis.” The Unitarian James Martineau admitted: “The literature to which I turn for nurture & inspiration are almost exclusively orthodox versions of the Chris- tian religion.”
In our own time we have 2 simultaneous movements, due to our
emergence from sectarian and provincial seclusion. Our relief service has shown us how much we have in common with non-Christian social & religi- ous philosophy. Our contact with ecumenical or un-denominational Chris- tian bodies, have reminded us of our common Christian heritage.
2. We need to recognize that “Christ Jesus” is an ambivalent term. Evangelicals can say that the Inner Light is the Light of Christ; Inner Light folk can say that Christ is Christ of the Inner Light.
3. We need to recognize that Christo-centricity is also of various sorts. The NT itself is regarded as centered in Jesus or Christ, but be- tween its several writings & even within them there is a diversity of Christ-
relatedness.
Each side tends to criticize the other as wrong-headed, or at least mis- sing the highest. I think both parties would feel less anxious if they could see the nature of religious expression & their several relations to it. [The sides are using different symbols and different emphasis in their imaginative construc- tion of experience]. Perhaps the “demythologizing” of biblical-religious staging needs to be carried into the Quakers’ imaginative construction.
Independence/Economic Order/Ministry/Conclusion—[There is in] good Quakerism today a sense of independence and a willingness to be different. Along with this willingness must go the judgment as to where to be different. [And without conformity as guide] we must be obedient to individual duty as though we were conforming to broad standards. I have a feeling that our preoccupation with problems of war and of racial injustice, have prevented us from as continuous attention to economic order as it deserves. Improvements have been made, and the problems that remain are partly the result of success: excessive possessions, consumption, and leisure. Neither more state inter- vention nor escape into detached communities can provide the whole solution; imaginative penetration into these issues is called for.
The ministry in our meetings for worship is inadequate; it is often too chatty, too casual, too superficial. This does not mean more prepared sermons, but the spoken and silent effect of lives and minds at leisure from themselves. Thoughts of spiritual interpretation and application should resolutely be cultiva- ted [by all]. Individually and collectively this worship is the symptom and the result of really good Quakerism.
My purpose has been to suggest that “what makes a good Quaker?” should be taken to heart by all of us. “If we ask what our society inspires in the way of high performance we are led to the conclusion that we may have … lost the gift of demanding high performance of ourselves. Emerson said: ‘Our chief want in life is someone who will make us do what we can.” [From The Pursuit of Excellence, Rockefeller Report on education, 1958].
104. Psychoanalysis & Religious Mysticism (by David C. McClelland; 1959)
About the Author—David C. McClelland received his Ph. D from Yale (1941) & is now Professor of Psychology at Harvard. He has served at The Ford Foundation & on national & international committees in the field of psychology. He has written the books, Personality, and The Achievement Motive. This pam- phlet's substance was given as a Philips lecture at Haverford; its present form was used in a lecture at Princeton Seminary.
[Introduction]—It is part of the scientist's professional role to remain in a state of suspended judgment & objectivity so far as many of life's most seri- ous issues are concerned. Very few intellectuals in my circle take Christianity seriously except as an historical or social phenomenon. It is apparently just as inconceivable for a US President to be irreligious as it is for a professor of psychology to be religious. Even undergraduates have a similar attitude and a reluctance to talk about their religious convictions.
I have had to overcome considerable internal resistance to reveal even a little of my personal religious convictions. In talking about the unconscious religious assumptions of psychoanalysis, I thought it only fair to reveal my own, and whatever bias I might have, so that it might be discounted & corrected by others. My carefully nurtured spirit [has roots in] my Huguenots and Presby- terian ancestors, my Covenanter mother, my Methodist minister father, and my own beliefs as a convinced Quaker.
[Psychoanalysis and Christianity for Intellectuals]—Psychoanalysis is enthusiastically accepted, or at least taken seriously by the same men who ignore or despise Christianity. In Cambridge where I live it's difficult to spend an evening without discussing some aspect of psychoanalysis. It is not overtly a religious movement, but it is a social movement, and its leading practitioners have charisma. They are looked up to, admired and seen as being beyond ordinary humans, much as ministers and priests have been at various times in the past. Psychoanalysis heals. It has many of the characteristics of a religious movement.
Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain describes Dr. Krokowski, a lecturing psychoanalyst: "He was standing ... with his arms outstretched & his head to one side ... like Christ on the Cross. It seemed [that] with open arms he sum- moned all and sundry to ... 'Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden' ... [To him], all those present were weary and heavy laden, [and could be redeemed with] the power of the analytic." That kind of missionary zeal is not altogether dead among contemporary psychoanalysts.
[Psychoanalysis & Jewish Mysticism]—Psychoanalysis didn't spring full-blown from Freud's mind. It drew heavily on traditions of Jewish mysticism, particularly Hasidism. In David Bakan's Sigmund Freud & ... Jewish Mysticism, he argues that leaders in psychoanalysis, being predominately Jewish, secular, & in rebellion against orthodox Judaism, nevertheless borrowed heavily from the mystical traditions in their formative milieu. Mysticism [& Hasidism in parti- cular] represented a revolt against Rabbinical [minutiae] & "legalism," [which was somewhat discredited by continuous persecution from the 17th century on].
Hasidism's healing qualities & emotional release replaced the cold, hard, rational, orthodox legalism. In Freud's image, one is born into a matrix of other individuals, & must obtain release from a tragic social existence. Psychoanalysis is the instrument for obtaining release just as mysticism obtained release from oppressive Jewish orthodoxy. For both, the problem was self-fulfillment as over against oppressive social forces, much like those found in Calvinistic Puritan circles.
[Peculiarities of Psychoanalysis]—Psychoanalysis has never had much success among delinquent or working-class people. Many in these groups have an absence of well-defined moral standards. Psychoanalysis targets op- pression by excessive moral demands. Psychoanalytic practice usually refused to have anything to do with anyone else in the patient's milieu. Problems arise that affect the mental health of those around the patient, like a husband reali- zing he needs release, divorce from his wife. She may need analysis, but the husband's analyst may refuse to see her, because he may feel that the pa- tient's family isn't the analyst's responsibility.
[Peculiarities of Psychoanalysis]—Psychoanalysis has never had much success among delinquent or working-class people. Many in these groups have an absence of well-defined moral standards. Psychoanalysis targets op- pression by excessive moral demands. Psychoanalytic practice usually refused to have anything to do with anyone else in the patient's milieu. Problems arise that affect the mental health of those around the patient, like a husband reali- zing he needs release, divorce from his wife. She may need analysis, but the husband's analyst may refuse to see her, because he may feel that the pa- tient's family isn't the analyst's responsibility.
Psychoanalysis originated as an individualistic revolt against legalistic Judaism's oppressive orthodoxy. Jewish mysticism adopted the Jewish religious scholar's exegesis of the text, but in a looser, more metaphorical manner. Jewish mysticism drew on centuries of cabalistic writings & the direct inspira- tion of its chief writers to produce the Zohar, allegorical reinterpretations of religious traditions, the Jewish mystic's Talmud.
The Zohar uses allusion & metaphor; psychoanalysts do the same as "free association." Imagination, interpretation of free association, dreams & metaphors releases people from traditionalism, & oppressively rational, moral obligations. Freud felt that sexual knowledge of human nature's unconscious, irrational forces ultimately gives one control over them. While sexual associ- ations to knowledge had been present in all Jewish traditions, they were most highly developed in the Zohar, [which emphasizes the sexual in Jewish reli- gious tradition].
Freud & the orthodox analysts rigidly adopted the view that real under- standing of the world must be sexual. He saw the sexual instincts in a sense as the root of all evil. There is evidence Freud felt that by exploring the under- world of the mind he could gain control over the evil forces within it. Psycho- analysis was a secular outgrowth of the Jewish mystical tradition. It fit in readily with American intellectuals' spirit of revolt against Christian orthodoxy, and with the New England temperament which had been shaped by a similar Puritan emphasis. Echoes of Calvinism can also be found in Freud's determi- nism. Psychoanalysis provided many of the values which religion had provi- ded, but without consciously posing as religion; it was presented as science.
[Psychoanalysis and its Religious Roots]—Freud reports how dis- turbed he was that psychoanalysis was largely a Jewish movement in its early days. Leading psychoanalysts in Europe and the US were for a long time nearly all Jews. Both secularized Jews and Protestants may not realize how strongly colored their life view is by their religious background. For Freud to admit that there was anything Jewish or religious about psychoanalysis would undermine its scientific status. With the vicious anti-Semitism sweeping Europe, it certainly would not help a new "science" to be associated with mysticism, occultism, & cabala.
My intent is to show that psychoanalysis was successful in part because of its religious roots. One can admit that a movement was religious in origin without implying that it continues to be religious. The new ideas that are afloat in advanced medical centers highlight how psychoanalysis meets religious needs in slightly different ways from religious movements. [Note: Ironically, Freud may have created an unconscious religion, a "Church" functioning like one in most respects except in the recognition that it is one].
My intent is to show that psychoanalysis was successful in part because of its religious roots. One can admit that a movement was religious in origin without implying that it continues to be religious. The new ideas that are afloat in advanced medical centers highlight how psychoanalysis meets religious needs in slightly different ways from religious movements. [Note: Ironically, Freud may have created an unconscious religion, a "Church" functioning like one in most respects except in the recognition that it is one].
In one modern variation of psychoanalysis, the patient's key problem is needing love. Neurosis develops because the person feels one can no longer trust people. The therapist can't get away with pretending one cares; there must be genuine respect. Psychoanalysis' concern for the individual today has deve- loped into the mystic's concern for "that of God in every man."
Freud's instinct seems to have been correct when he refused to yield to those insisting that sexuality was a mere metaphor. For him the sexual nature of humankind represented power; especially the power to heal. Whatever ima- gery the patient uses, it must have power. The religious mystic has testified continually about one's direct emotional experience of a power beyond oneself, usually called God. For Freud, the sexual image succeeds in conveying the power of the inexpressible.
Whatever image is used must carry the emotional impact of contact with a power beyond self, whether it be life principle, libido, positive growth force, or God. The neurotic begins to get well when something happens which one experiences emotionally as "outside self." An inescapable fact is that one didn't do it oneself—some power outside did the moving [and changing]. Some psy- chiatrists don't think it is possible to consider an individual's health apart from the health of those around him; [all affected need treatment]. The traditional religious concern for group has begun to creep back into psychiatric practice.
When Freudianism came to America, it tended to get more optimistic— [too optimistic in the minds of many European analysts]. [Some argued that people are neurotic because they are brought up incorrectly. One only had to provide proper child-rearing and to "retrain" the incorrectly raised patient. Mo- dern psychology seems to be moving away from Freud's easy pessimism or easy "American" optimism. It regards humans as having great potentialities for good and evil. The Quaker mystic recognizes humankind's serious existential limitations, and has struggled for and sometimes found the Divine spark in others and oneself.
[Intellectual, Social, & Personal Aspects of Mysticism & Psycho- analysis]—What is the best definition of religion? Religion has to do with the transcendental, with a power [from] beyond. Religion functions in the intel- lectual, social, & personal spheres of life. Intellectual meaning in life is provi- ded by theology. Ethics & moral principles are provided by the social sphere of religion. In the personal sphere, religion or God has been invoked to describe experiences which seem beyond the normal; the New Testament covers all these spheres.
[Intellectual, Social, & Personal Aspects of Mysticism & Psycho- analysis]—What is the best definition of religion? Religion has to do with the transcendental, with a power [from] beyond. Religion functions in the intel- lectual, social, & personal spheres of life. Intellectual meaning in life is provi- ded by theology. Ethics & moral principles are provided by the social sphere of religion. In the personal sphere, religion or God has been invoked to describe experiences which seem beyond the normal; the New Testament covers all these spheres.
Throughout its history Christianity has sometimes emphasized one or another sphere of religion. 100 years ago [i.e. 1850's] it was religion's theologi- cal aspects that excited Christians; [differences led to splits throughout Protes- tantism]. Today it is difficult for different Christian denominations to have enthu- siasm over theological disputes. Around the turn of the 20th century', ethical questions assumed paramount importance. Ethics became the royal road to the discovery of God as theology had been earlier.
With world wars, Fascism, Communism, & the potential for nuclear anni- hilation, the ethical emphasis in Christianity is losing some of its enormous ap- peal. There is an alternative: to find God in the "healing power of the analytic." Psychoanalysis provides [the intellectual] with a theology, with a view of the nature of existence. Psychoanalysis also has something to say about ethics, about [human inter-relationships].
With world wars, Fascism, Communism, & the potential for nuclear anni- hilation, the ethical emphasis in Christianity is losing some of its enormous ap- peal. There is an alternative: to find God in the "healing power of the analytic." Psychoanalysis provides [the intellectual] with a theology, with a view of the nature of existence. Psychoanalysis also has something to say about ethics, about [human inter-relationships].
Modern therapeutic technique is nearer to the mystical tradition; it does not concern itself with particular ethical problems but with the basic attitudes that lie behind [human inter-relationships], with the "changed heart." Psycho- analysis is above all a continuing testimony to a "power not ourselves that heals." Psychoanalysis as a secular religious movement, fulfilled an historic religious function which the church was not fulfilling.
[Psychoanalysis & Protestant Ministers]—Protestant ministers are less important in the community now than they used to be. Once, the minister was God's representative [whose involvement with after-life was in having superior knowledge of or even some control over it, a "gatekeeper"]. As ethics replaced theology as [life's focus], after-life became less & less important. The minister became someone who just had ideas about how life should be lived. A doctor who keeps you in this world became more important as human inte- rest shifted to this life. The doctor-psychiatrist inherits some of the physician's control over life and death; one also would have some of the minister's power- charisma. One is connected to manifestation of God's power which is the power to heal.
The Protestant church's pastoral counseling [doesn't facilitate healing power as much as it provides another social service]. Are ministers willing to undergo 3 to 7 years required for psychoanalysis? Only by prolonged self- examination can one understand & work with the healing powers one must be prepared to represent. Are ministers willing to spend years in preparation & seeking sensitively for the leadings of the Divine Spirit as Jesus did?
[What should be done about] psychiatrists representing religion unconsciously? Why do intellectuals attach a stigma to organized religion? The church became insensitive to the [current] revelations of God, sticking to former revelations which have lost their meaning & no longer fulfill their original function. Creeds, doctrines, rituals must be created anew in each generation.
The mystic believes that religious images are always attempts to express the inexpressible, & one will draw on ones most profound psychological expe- riences to clothe the inexpressible with the meaning it deserves. Jews & Puri- tans were strict disciplinarians about sexuality in children. They should be more likely to invent & approve of sexual theories of disease which characte- rize psychoanalysis. Many find sexual images "true" & compelling, & in fact the only way in which the inexpressible can be expressed for them. The only mis- take, according to the mystic, is to worship images, to regard any revelation as final.
The mystic believes that religious images are always attempts to express the inexpressible, & one will draw on ones most profound psychological expe- riences to clothe the inexpressible with the meaning it deserves. Jews & Puri- tans were strict disciplinarians about sexuality in children. They should be more likely to invent & approve of sexual theories of disease which characte- rize psychoanalysis. Many find sexual images "true" & compelling, & in fact the only way in which the inexpressible can be expressed for them. The only mis- take, according to the mystic, is to worship images, to regard any revelation as final.
How can the Protestant church give up some reverence for [old] formulas & seek more sensitively for new ones that speak for God to the conditions of our time? How can the Protestant church institutionalize progressive revelation without weakening its foundation? Psychoanalysis' new ways of interpreting existence, [human inter-relationship, & healing powers from outside ourselves have been very meaningful to many thinking people. How can the church absorb enough of the mystical approach to religion to respond more sensitively & flexibly to God's revelations in our time?
[The Church's Reaction to Psychoanalysis]—The Christian church's reaction to psychoanalysis has 2 main currents of thought. 1st, psychoanalysis is obviously a "good thing," because it helps one overcome ones neuroses & move toward [inner self-]perfection and outer [perfecting of] relating to others. Freud's basic assumptions, if properly stated, are very similar to liberal Chris- tianity. Psychoanalysis & Christianity should get together & help one another toward a better world.
In the 2nd current of thought, Paul Tillich believes that psychoanalysis has helped people realize the meaninglessness, loneliness of existence with which one is confronted after waking up from ones "dreaming innocence" of childhood to ones finitude & limitations. Psychoanalysis contributed the disco- very that one wasn't even master in ones inner "household"; one was con- trolled by forces beyond ones knowledge. For Tillich, Christianity represents the faith that estrangement can be healed. Tillich's argument has emphasis on religion's healing & "meaning-giving" functions.
American psychoanalysis and American liberal Christianity [trace the source of humankind's troubles to ignorance & improper upbringing. They fail to recognize as Freud did the inevitability of anxiety & the testimony of psycho- analysis to the healing power of something beyond us all. If the patient and the analyst have brought about recovery, they have done so only indirectly and were not able to force the issue.
The true mystic experiences the gap between infinite & finite, essence & existence in positive terms, as affirmation, joy, wonder, belonging, supra- existential meaningfulness. Psychoanalysis is more profoundly religious in its positive implications than liberal Christianity realizes. It gives testimony to direct, mystical experience of a "Power beyond ourselves that heals." Chris- tianity was itself a response of mystical, individualistic, Judaic elements to Pharisaic orthodoxy. How has psychoanalysis, with its individualism, mysticism, & opposition to religious orthodoxy, provided a new reli- gious movement out of Judaism? How is it ironic if God has chosen secular Jews to produce a new religious revolt against orthodoxy, this time of Christian making?
Biographical Notes—Phillips Ruopp joined Friends in England while at Oxford. [After WWII, he was an active world federalist, & has participated in the world government movement's congresses]. He was associated with ef- forts to encourage [private investment in] community projects in less developed areas. His continuing concern with problems of world order, & their bearing on his religious commitment are [shown] in this pamphlet.
[Introduction]—The competing images of world order advanced by the [US & USSR], interwoven with their rational assessment of national interest, may cause a world inferno. [In pursuing this policy], the intellect … is divorced from the concrete contemplation of the facts.” They speak of permissible doses & minimum losses. Edward Teller said: “For peace we need weapons & I don't think my views are distorted. I believe I am contributing to a peaceful world.”
To what extent are the minds of statesmen & strategists prisoners of their own & their enemies’ weapons systems? [They are] realistic in recognizing conflicting national interests. [They are fantasizing in the] view that peace can be preserved by nuclear weapons & that weapon technicians are contributing to peace. They are instruments of terror rather than imple- ments of war. If the bomb were ever used, I hope it would kill me, because the moral situation would something that I couldn't contemplate. Nuclear weapons don't make war immoral; they heighten our awareness of the immorality of war.
Disavowal & Avowal: A Private Testimony—My private testimony is that war & totalitarianism must be disavowed absolutely. There are alternatives to violence in [confronting both]. The process of conscious political change has [3] aspects: dissatisfaction with existing political fact; comparison of facts with [possible] satisfactory conditions we have imagined; the choice of those means calculated to be most effective in reaching the end.
My assumptions about morality & freedom are: 1) morality is choosing that act which will serve the highest good in our relations with others. 2) highest good is found in [assessing our values & the consequences of our actions]. 3) all acts are potentially sources of conflict. 4) Freedom is the power of choice between different acts. 5) the free man has to choose between acts & accept the consequences of his action. If one has acted in the light of one’s convic- tions, one has acted morally. It does not necessarily follow that he is right & others are wrong.
My minority viewpoint assumes the only way to avoid the choice be- tween totalitarianism and war is to choose non-violent means. In a nuclear age every soldier must be willing to obey the order to fire nuclear missiles. Every potential soldier should ask: Am I willing to accept responsibility for oblite- rating a city, for contributing to massive suffering [and death]? He can only act morally if he can answer “Yes.”
The nature of nuclear warfare makes the question of using non-violent means in international relations one of great urgency. [Even a British career naval officer holds this view on non-violence]. I experience a just & living God who would have us work toward justice & love. We are at war with ourselves; the capacity for good needs to be cultivated. [The human quality necessary is in Latin caritas (charity or love). If a violent action doesn’t produce a violent reac- tion, but an expression of love for the aggressor, reconciliation’s 1st condition has been achieved. I can accept the regulated use of limited force according to rules acceptable to all; I cannot accept it when the rules have broken down. Then my testimony is that love's force must substitute for lawful force.
The nature of nuclear warfare makes the question of using non-violent means in international relations one of great urgency. [Even a British career naval officer holds this view on non-violence]. I experience a just & living God who would have us work toward justice & love. We are at war with ourselves; the capacity for good needs to be cultivated. [The human quality necessary is in Latin caritas (charity or love). If a violent action doesn’t produce a violent reac- tion, but an expression of love for the aggressor, reconciliation’s 1st condition has been achieved. I can accept the regulated use of limited force according to rules acceptable to all; I cannot accept it when the rules have broken down. Then my testimony is that love's force must substitute for lawful force.
I have no illusions that a majority of the people of any country is willing to make such a commitment to non-violence. I have 2 responsibilities as a citizen in the minority: to be prophetic; to be creative. The prophet speaks truth to power. I can speak [creatively], constructively to my government & fellow citi- zens in a way that may contribute to the reexamination of basic facts & as- sumptions. In what follows, I am trying to speak truth to power.
The New Weaponry & International Conflict/Balance of Terror & Limited War—Americans have always wanted things we thought we could not get without war (e.g. independence; protection of ships; Union preservation; Germany and Japan’s containment. Conflicting interests in South Korea were temporarily settled by splitting that unhappy country at the 38th parallel. Henry A. Kissinger writes: “Peace cannot be aimed at directly; it is the expression of certain conditions and power relationships, [to which diplomacy must be addressed].”
Balance of terror is an apolitical perversion of the contemporary power struggle. Balance of power ensures competition without risk of destruction. Balance of terror is essentially irrational & even anti-political, useful only as a threat. Since nuclear weapons can be manufactured by small as well as large states, they tempt governments with nuclear arms to build them. Attempts to control the production, testing, [and unannounced use of nuclear weapons, will lead to the growth of new international institutions to execute and enforce new rules of conduct.
By the interaction, the interplay of power between sovereign nations, their sovereignty is effectively limited & international equilibrium maintained. In 1914, Britain was in trouble. In Congress some members advocated limited war in defense of liberties on the seas but opposed a general declaration of war on Germany. Military & political strategy made limited war impossible. The post-war settlement imposed humiliation on Germany. In the 20th century the aim was to prove the enemy responsible for the war. The WWII doctrine was that of complete defeat, unconditional surrender through the use of vir- tually unlimited violence.
By the interaction, the interplay of power between sovereign nations, their sovereignty is effectively limited & international equilibrium maintained. In 1914, Britain was in trouble. In Congress some members advocated limited war in defense of liberties on the seas but opposed a general declaration of war on Germany. Military & political strategy made limited war impossible. The post-war settlement imposed humiliation on Germany. In the 20th century the aim was to prove the enemy responsible for the war. The WWII doctrine was that of complete defeat, unconditional surrender through the use of vir- tually unlimited violence.
There seems to be a near-consensus that The US & Soviet govern- ments have abandoned the notion that nuclear warfare is a practical instrument of policy. [Consequently] the “balance of terror” has set limits on the use of power by either side, though we have painful doubts about the stability of the framework. Where force is thrown against force the “cold war” becomes hot even though it remains limited. [In the stalemate that now exists] the threat of direct reprisal is inadequate except in the ultimate sense. There is a growing demand for rapid-response, tactical forces, and the insistence that they be kept clearly distinct from strategic forces. [Limited war is at best an awkward transition] from the 19th century’s world order to some future order & new relations between powers.
The Character of the Totalitarian Challenge—The Soviet Union ex- ploits Western technology to [convert from agricultural to industrial dominance]. They exploit [and redefine] Western slogans to enlist the loyalty of masses in- side and outside the USSR. The architects of the Soviet structure believed wars to be part of the inevitable process of capitalism’s collapse. With the threat of nuclear retaliation, they base their foreign policy on a truce with the West within which limited war for limited ends can be waged. The internal strains on the Soviet System aren't sufficient to cause it to break down. George Kennan sees our containment policy as a way to gain bargaining power which in time might lead to negotiations for disengagement.
The Soviet Union wants to establish and maintain a wall of buffer states to keep hostile powers at a distance. Because of their determination to remain militarily neutral and to uphold their integrity, Finland and Austria live perilously but independently. The Soviets, moved by their fears and by their doctrine of capitalist enmity, interpret the Western posture as aggressive rather than de- fensive. The Soviets continue to seek warm water routes to the high seas through the Black Sea. The Soviet Union feels it has a mission to impose revolutionary values on other peoples. And there is the sheer desire of those who are powerful to become more powerful.
Soviet aggression follows the line of least resistance, focusing on the underdeveloped countries, where stable governments are difficult to achieve. The Soviets can take advantage of antipathy toward the West, social and economic needs, and weakness. Nasser in Egypt does not have a consistent policy of economic development and social change. The number of owner- cultivators is growing at a snail’s pace. While repressing communists at home, President Nasser has sought their help abroad in his effort to unify the Arab world. Nasser rejects subordination while he accepts military, economic, and technical assistance from the Soviet Union.
Poverty is as dangerous to the West as Soviet power, because Soviet power feeds on poverty. The notion that nationalism can be mobilized without social content & political direction is an illusion. Another illusion is that the greatest danger posed by the Soviet Union is direct military attack. [The Soviets actually act indirectly by] aiding and encouraging native movements against vulnerable governments while preserving diplomatic correctness.
Public Policy: Long Range—How are we to respond to totalitari- anism as a nation? Ideas adequate to this condition are desperately needed if American influence on history is to fulfill its early promise. Throughout history, government has been the most effective means of bringing peace. I believe that world government should be a major explicit long-range goal of American foreign policy, guiding whatever policies adopted in the meantime. This would have to be a federal union governed by a representative body in accordance with democratic principle.
Governments both evolve & are created. At some moment in the evolu- tion of a society its government must be treated like a work of art; the aim must be the cultivation of consensus. Its maintenance depends partly on con- sent and partly on enforcement. The US government should promote all forms of regional and world cooperation that favors united action. [Existing] institu- tions should be encouraged. The more important they become as symbols of unity and the more experience we gain in cooperative action, the better pre- pared we will be to create more comprehensive and effective international institutions [and to] call for a world constitutional convention.
The time is not ripe for a world constitutional convention, because the American public is not ready to merge its sovereignty with others, & the Soviet rulers are antagonistic. Western Europe’s interdependence with the rest of the world makes it desirable to belong to a decision-making body that includes the US & the Commonwealth. When the time is right, every effort should be made to include the Soviet Union in the world constitutional convention. A second long-range aim of US foreign policy is a world program to raise living stan- dards to a reasonable minimum [in terms of food, health, and shelter]. [For many], free society is a luxury if it does not provide bread.
Public Policy: Short Range—What short-range policies will contribute to the evolution of long-range conditions of survival in the nuclear age? 1st, a world development authority to provide the investment capital that is necessary to expand production, job opportunities, wages, & consumption. We need to only invest what can be efficiently used, the governments need to assess their birth rate, & their own effectiveness. Americans showing a preference for inter- national action over bi-lateral action would prevent the repercussions of bi- lateral aid. It would challenge the Soviet Union to provide matching develop- ment funds. [Our recent efforts] at getting India & Indonesia to join the Western camp leave us charged with trying to buy what can only be freely given. [Bet- ter to give them aid they need] as an expression of human solidarity [without military pacts or propaganda].
Poverty is as dangerous to the West as Soviet power, because Soviet power feeds on poverty. The notion that nationalism can be mobilized without social content & political direction is an illusion. Another illusion is that the greatest danger posed by the Soviet Union is direct military attack. [The Soviets actually act indirectly by] aiding and encouraging native movements against vulnerable governments while preserving diplomatic correctness.
Public Policy: Long Range—How are we to respond to totalitari- anism as a nation? Ideas adequate to this condition are desperately needed if American influence on history is to fulfill its early promise. Throughout history, government has been the most effective means of bringing peace. I believe that world government should be a major explicit long-range goal of American foreign policy, guiding whatever policies adopted in the meantime. This would have to be a federal union governed by a representative body in accordance with democratic principle.
Governments both evolve & are created. At some moment in the evolu- tion of a society its government must be treated like a work of art; the aim must be the cultivation of consensus. Its maintenance depends partly on con- sent and partly on enforcement. The US government should promote all forms of regional and world cooperation that favors united action. [Existing] institu- tions should be encouraged. The more important they become as symbols of unity and the more experience we gain in cooperative action, the better pre- pared we will be to create more comprehensive and effective international institutions [and to] call for a world constitutional convention.
The time is not ripe for a world constitutional convention, because the American public is not ready to merge its sovereignty with others, & the Soviet rulers are antagonistic. Western Europe’s interdependence with the rest of the world makes it desirable to belong to a decision-making body that includes the US & the Commonwealth. When the time is right, every effort should be made to include the Soviet Union in the world constitutional convention. A second long-range aim of US foreign policy is a world program to raise living stan- dards to a reasonable minimum [in terms of food, health, and shelter]. [For many], free society is a luxury if it does not provide bread.
Public Policy: Short Range—What short-range policies will contribute to the evolution of long-range conditions of survival in the nuclear age? 1st, a world development authority to provide the investment capital that is necessary to expand production, job opportunities, wages, & consumption. We need to only invest what can be efficiently used, the governments need to assess their birth rate, & their own effectiveness. Americans showing a preference for inter- national action over bi-lateral action would prevent the repercussions of bi- lateral aid. It would challenge the Soviet Union to provide matching develop- ment funds. [Our recent efforts] at getting India & Indonesia to join the Western camp leave us charged with trying to buy what can only be freely given. [Bet- ter to give them aid they need] as an expression of human solidarity [without military pacts or propaganda].
2nd, reduction of conflict between the US & the USSR. While partial dis-armament under UN control would have value, really effective control could only come from a [world government]. Nuclear testing needs to be disconti- nued. [Each step in reduction of conflict must be such that] each power believes that it gains as much as & loses no more than the other in concessions. An expanded UN Emergency Force could maintain border surveillance, inter- posing itself between hostile forces so that the status quo could be altered only through negotiations.
One proposal for disengagement is: withdrawal of NATO forces from Germany; Germany out of NATO; USSR out of Germany; Eastern Europeans out of the Warsaw Pact (borders would be guaranteed by the UN Emergency Force). How much independence will the nations of the neutral zone enjoy within the context defined by the powers gathered at its periphery?
Communist China is a fact; it is a fact of [great] importance for the future. Our government should recognize it de facto & stop opposing its admission to the United Nations. We can negotiate with Communist China only if they are admitted to the councils of the UN. The chief danger from the USSR is indirect aggression wherever poverty & anti-Western feelings make people vulnerable to the growth of Soviet influence through military aid, loans and technical assis- tance. I believe that we will have neglected our responsibility as free men if we fail to challenge humanity [with a call to] political organization & economic deve- lopment & with a short-range policy that leads towards [cooperation].
Conclusion: the Vital image--We need the image of an inclusive world order that transcends the fragmented dreams of frightened men, imparting to them purpose and vitality. The man of imagination’s subjective valuations are objectified as they are tested and adopted by others. His testimony is justifica- tion enough for his life.
106. The Way of Man: According to the Teaching of Hasidim (by Martin Buber; 1960)
[About the Author]—Martin Buber (1878-1965) is an important represen-tative of the human spirit. He studied philosophy & art history at the Vienna & Berlin Universities. In 1916 he founded Der Jude periodical that he edited until 1924; it became German-speaking Jewry's leading organ. From 1923-33, Buber taught various religion classes at Frankfurt University. 1938-51, Buber served as social philosophy professor at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He was awarded the Goethe Prize (Hamburg, 1951) & the German Book Trade Peace Prize (1953). Professor Buber has written in the fields of philosophy, educa- tion, community, sociology, psychology, art, Biblical interpretation, [and Jewish subjects]. Buber’s best-known work in America is I and Thou.
[About the Author]—Martin Buber (1878-1965) is an important represen-tative of the human spirit. He studied philosophy & art history at the Vienna & Berlin Universities. In 1916 he founded Der Jude periodical that he edited until 1924; it became German-speaking Jewry's leading organ. From 1923-33, Buber taught various religion classes at Frankfurt University. 1938-51, Buber served as social philosophy professor at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He was awarded the Goethe Prize (Hamburg, 1951) & the German Book Trade Peace Prize (1953). Professor Buber has written in the fields of philosophy, educa- tion, community, sociology, psychology, art, Biblical interpretation, [and Jewish subjects]. Buber’s best-known work in America is I and Thou.
FOREWORD (by Maurice Friedman)—After I & Thou, Martin Buber is best known for his re-creation of Hasidism. [He was inspired by the words of] Hasidism's founder. "I was overpowered and experienced the Hasidic soul ... Man's being created in the image of god I grasped as deed, as becoming, as task ... [as my duty] to proclaim it to the world." Buber spent 5 years in isolation studying Hasidic texts. For more than ½ a century, Buber devoted himself to retelling Hasidic tales & interpreting Hasidic teaching. [He is the one most re- sponsible for] transforming Hasidism into one of the world's great recognized mystical movements.
Of his own relationship to Hasidism, Buber writes: "I couldn't become [i.e masquerade as] a Hasid ... It was necessary, rather, to take into my own exis- tence as much as I actually could of what had been truly exemplified for me there." He goes to Hasidism, more than any other source, for his image of what modern man can and ought to become.
Of his own relationship to Hasidism, Buber writes: "I couldn't become [i.e masquerade as] a Hasid ... It was necessary, rather, to take into my own exis- tence as much as I actually could of what had been truly exemplified for me there." He goes to Hasidism, more than any other source, for his image of what modern man can and ought to become.
Hasidism is mysticism which hallows community & everyday life rather than withdraws from it, [seeking] the joy that can transform & redirect the "alien thoughts," or fantasies, that distract man from the love of God. [For example], despair leads one to believe oneself in the power of sin and hence to give in to it. A great Hasidic teacher said that every mystery has the meditation that opens it. "But God loves the thief who breaks the lock open: I mean the man who breaks his heart for God."
[Our special, self-defining] qualities constitute our special approach to God & our potential use for God. The profane is only a designation for the not- yet-hallowed. We are able to serve God with our anger, fear, love and sexual desire, by becoming "humanly holy." Buber's "The Way of Man According to the Teachings of Hasidism," gives us much of his own simple wisdom. One begins with searching oneself, but one must not be preoccupied with oneself but with "letting God into the world." Sometimes we must direct an evil urge by living a true life "here, where we stand," in order to know our deepest central wish.
INTRODUCTION [by Martin Buber]—Hasidic "cleaving" unto God is achieved by affirming the sensual world & one's own natural being in its God- oriented essence, so as to transform it & offer it up to God. In Hasidism, a divine spark lives in everything & being; each spark is enclosed by an isolating shell. Only humans can liberate it & rejoin it with the Origin, by holding holy converse with the [spark] & using it in a holy manner. In everyone is a force divine, which is to be directed towards its origin. Evil is made when divine force runs direction less, [& seizes on something less than the origin]; if one turns to God, [then the divine force is redeemed]. The task of everyone is to affirm for God's sake the world & oneself and by this means transform both.
INTRODUCTION [by Martin Buber]—Hasidic "cleaving" unto God is achieved by affirming the sensual world & one's own natural being in its God- oriented essence, so as to transform it & offer it up to God. In Hasidism, a divine spark lives in everything & being; each spark is enclosed by an isolating shell. Only humans can liberate it & rejoin it with the Origin, by holding holy converse with the [spark] & using it in a holy manner. In everyone is a force divine, which is to be directed towards its origin. Evil is made when divine force runs direction less, [& seizes on something less than the origin]; if one turns to God, [then the divine force is redeemed]. The task of everyone is to affirm for God's sake the world & oneself and by this means transform both.
I. HEART-SEARCHING—Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Northern White Rus- sia was denounced by anti-hasidic elements & imprisoned in Petersburg. The rav's majestic & quiet face as he meditated impressed the chief of gendarmes. The zaddik said, "God calls to every one: 'Where are you in your world? How far have you gotten? In the story, the gendarme chief quotes Scripture, where the all-knowing God asks of Adam: Where art thou? The hasid gives a reply on a different plane from that on which the question was asked.
The chief wants to expose an alleged contradiction in the Jewish "all- knowing God" doctrine. Instead of explaining the passage and solving the "contradiction," the rabbi takes the text as a starting-point for reproaching the chief's shortcomings. His answer illuminates the situation of the biblical Adam and that of every one in every time & every place. Every one hides to avoid rendering accounts, to escape responsibility for ones way of living; one turns existence into a system of hideouts. In trying to hide from God, one is to hiding from one's self. God wants to produce a [heart-searching] effect in one [with questions like that, so that one comes out of hiding].
Everything now depends on facing the question. Whatever success & enjoyment one may achieve, whatever power one may attain, whatever deeds one may do, ones life will remain way-less, so long as one avoids the Voice [& the question]. [Heart-searching mustn't be the] sterile kind, which leads to only self-torture, despair & deeper [hiding]. There is demonic questioning [that leads to the false conclusion] "From where you are, there is no way out." By repre- senting turning to the way as hopeless, it drives one to living only by demonic pride.
Everything now depends on facing the question. Whatever success & enjoyment one may achieve, whatever power one may attain, whatever deeds one may do, ones life will remain way-less, so long as one avoids the Voice [& the question]. [Heart-searching mustn't be the] sterile kind, which leads to only self-torture, despair & deeper [hiding]. There is demonic questioning [that leads to the false conclusion] "From where you are, there is no way out." By repre- senting turning to the way as hopeless, it drives one to living only by demonic pride.
II. THE PARTICULAR WAY—The "Seer" of Lublin said: "It is impossible to tell people what way they should take ... Everyone should carefully observe what way ones heart draws one to, and then choose this way with all ones strength." The great and holy deeds done by others are examples for us, but they aren't models which we should copy. Even small achievements have value in that we bring them about in our own way, by our own efforts.
Each one in ones own way shall devise something new in the light of teaching and of service, and do what has not yet been done. Ones foremost task is to put ones unique, never-before & never-again capabilities into unique action and deed, not something already achieved. Rabbi Zusya said, "I shall not be asked: 'Why were you not Moses?' I shall be asked: 'Why were you not Zusya?'
All have access to God, but each has a different access. God can be reached by humankind through its multiple advance by all those different, [indi- vidual] ways. [When you do a way to God, you must do it in such a manner that it leads you to God]. The way by which one can reach God is revealed to one only through knowledge of ones own being, the knowledge of ones essen- tial quality & inclination. Naturally, ones most powerful desire rushes in the first instance at object which lie across ones path. It is necessary to be diverted from the casual to the essential, from the relative to the absolute.
There's no thing in the world which doesn't point a way to fear of God & to service of God. Everything is commandment. Hasidism teaches that rejoicing in the world, if hallowed with our being, leads to rejoicing in God. Although de- tachment and abstinence from natural life, may in the cases of some men, be the necessary starting point of their "way," or may mean needing self-isolation at certain crucial moments of existence, it may never mean the whole way. Never should asceticism gain mastery over ones life. One may only detach from nature in order to revert to it again &, in hallowed contact find ones way to God, through hallowed natural acts.
III. RESOLUTION —A hasid of Lublin fasted for a week, & faltered near the end, caught himself, felt pride at passing this test, & nearly abandoned the fast with minutes to go. His only reward, after all his troubles, was harsh disap- proval from his master. The object of the reproof is the advance & subsequent retreat; it is the wavering, shilly-shallying, ["patchwork"] character of the man's doing that makes it questionable. How does one achieve [inner] work "all of a piece?" Only with a united soul.
[It may seem too harsh to judge a vascillating soul attempting an unus- ual work, and being willing to sacrifice the goal in order to save the soul from pride]. The teaching implied by the master is that someone with a divided, com plicated, contradictory soul isn't helpless. The core of ones soul, the divine force in its depths, is capable of unifying it. Unification must be accomplished before one undertakes some unusual work. Asceticism cannot protect the soul from its own contradiction.
Unification of the soul is never final. Any work I do [towards] a united soul acts in the direction of new and greater unification and leads me ["the long way"] to a steadier unity than was the preceding unity. [The more evolved soul still needs vigilance], but it is a relaxed vigilance. "The soul's Unification" is misunderstood if "soul" were taken to mean anything but body & spirit together. The deeds one does should be done with ones whole physical being; no part of one should remain outside. [In this condition] ones work is all of a piece.
IV. BEGINNING WITH ONES SELF—Baal-Shem [Master of the Name] said: "There is thought, speech and action. Thought [is] one's wife, speech [is] one's children, & action [is] one's servants. Whoever straightens oneself out in regard to all 3 will find that everything prospers at ones hands." Everything depended on myself. Hasidic teaching coincides with [psychological analysis] in that it derives external problems from that of internal life. Hasidic conception realizes that isolation of the elements and partial processes from the whole hinders comprehension of the whole. No one phenomena of the soul should be made the center of attention as if everything else could be derived from it; [all are starting-points in their vital inter-connection].
One should realize that conflict between oneself & others are the effects of conflicts in ones own soul. One who doesn't see oneself as someone whose transformation helps towards the transformation of the world, makes a fun- damental error which hasidic teaching denounces. When one has made peace within oneself, one will be able to make peace in the whole world. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow humans is that I don't say what I mean, and I don't do what I say. I must decide that: I will straighten myself out. One must find oneself, the deeper self of the person living in a relationship to the world. [I know where other things are in my life, my world]. Where in the world am I? [I have trouble finding my self].
V. NOT TO BE PREOCCUPIED WITH ONESELF— How about forget- ting yourself and thinking of the world? What is said here will seem to con- tradict everything I just said about Hasidic teachings. Why am I choosing my particular way? Why am I unifying my being? Begin with yourself. The first question says: "Apply the soul-power you are wasting on self-reproach, to such active relationship to the world as you are destined for. Be occupied with the world.
Turning to God means something much more than repentance and acts of penance; it means a reversal of ones whole being, ones selfishness, toward a way which fulfills the particular task for which this particular person has been destined by God. The Rabbi of Ger writes: "One who has done ill ... and thinks about it all the time doesn't cast the base thing one did out of ones thoughts ... one's soul is wholly and utterly in what one thinks and so one dwells in base- ness ... [and is] not able to turn ... What would you do? Rake the muck this way, rake it that way—it will always be muck ... You have done wrong? Coun- teract it by doing right.
Turning to God means something much more than repentance and acts of penance; it means a reversal of ones whole being, ones selfishness, toward a way which fulfills the particular task for which this particular person has been destined by God. The Rabbi of Ger writes: "One who has done ill ... and thinks about it all the time doesn't cast the base thing one did out of ones thoughts ... one's soul is wholly and utterly in what one thinks and so one dwells in base- ness ... [and is] not able to turn ... What would you do? Rake the muck this way, rake it that way—it will always be muck ... You have done wrong? Coun- teract it by doing right.
Judaism regards each person's soul as a serving member of God's Creation, working to transform Creation into the Kingdom of God. Each is to know oneself, purify oneself, perfect oneself, not for ones own sake, happiness, or eternal bliss, but for the sake of the world. Pursuit of one's own salvation is here regarded as self-intending, which is what Hasidism rejects most empha- tically. Rabbi Bunam sees humankind's road to redemption as a process invol- ving 2 kinds of people: the proud; & the humble. Only when pride subjects itself
to humility can it be redeemed; only when it is redeemed, can the world be redeemed. Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk said: "Don't look furtively outside yourself [don't covet]; don't look furtively into others [respect others' soul-secret]; don't aim at yourself [use self as the highest goal].
VI. HERE WHERE ONE STANDS—There is something that can be found in one place. It is a great treasure, which may be called the fulfillment of existence. It's to be found on the place one stands. Hasidism believes it's a greater thing if the streets of ones native town are as bright as the paths of heaven. It is here where we stand, that we should try to make shine the light of the hidden divine life. The secrets of the upper worlds would not allow us so much actual participation in true existence as we can achieve by performing, with holy intent, a task belonging to our daily duties. Our treasure is hidden beneath the hearth of our own home.
No encounter with a being or thing in the course of our life lacks a hidden significance and a mysterious spiritual substance which depends on us for helping it towards its pure form. If we do not develop a genuine relation- ship with the beings & things who cross our path, if we neglect this substance, then we shall ourselves be debarred from true fulfilled existence. Some reli- gions don't regard our sojourn on earth as true life, Judaism teaches that what one does now and here with holy intent is no less important, no less true than the life in the world to come.
Rabbi Hanokh said: "Israel professes that the 2 worlds are essentially one and shall in fact become one." Humankind was created for the purpose of unifying the 2 worlds. Is it not presumptuous to try to "draw God into the world? In Hasidism, God's grace consists in letting God be won by us; God places God's self into human hands. God wants to come to God's world through humans. This is the superhuman chance of humankind. God dwells wherever one lets God in. We can let God in only where we live, where we live a true life. If we maintain holy intercourse with the little world entrusted to us, if we help the holy spiritual substance to accomplish itself in our section of creation, then we are establishing a place for the Divine Presence.
Rabbi Hanokh said: "Israel professes that the 2 worlds are essentially one and shall in fact become one." Humankind was created for the purpose of unifying the 2 worlds. Is it not presumptuous to try to "draw God into the world? In Hasidism, God's grace consists in letting God be won by us; God places God's self into human hands. God wants to come to God's world through humans. This is the superhuman chance of humankind. God dwells wherever one lets God in. We can let God in only where we live, where we live a true life. If we maintain holy intercourse with the little world entrusted to us, if we help the holy spiritual substance to accomplish itself in our section of creation, then we are establishing a place for the Divine Presence.
107. Death and the Christian Answer (by Mary Ely Lyman; 1960)
About the Author—Mary Ely Lyman was the 1st woman to occupy a chair on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary, NYC. She prepared this writing 1st as a lecture sponsored by the Women’s Committee of Union Semi- nary, January 1959. Mrs. Lyman was ordained to the Congregational Christian Church ministry in 1949.
Eternal God, Lord of Life & Death, may we be quickened to seek those things now that are eternal [& beyond our mortal life,] that our hearts & minds may be fixed where true joys are found, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The space age has plunged us cataclysmically into a new universe. New dimensions of thought are called for in this radically different physical setting. [With the speed and volume of change], death is just the same today: the most ultimate of sorrows; the greatest of mysteries. It always has been, it is, and it always will be the ultimate tragic focus of our human existence.
Even though its inevitability is never disputed, & it colors all our exper- ience, we won't think about it; as children we cannot believe it will come to our own small circle. [With all the chances for death, & even the chance that] our whole race might be [wiped out], how utterly strange that one should “never think of it before.” Mature men & women [share] the desire to push the thought to one side. [The prayer containing] “If I should die before I wake” [could not be uttered by most] as the true expression of their mood & temper each night of life.
Why are we unwilling to think of death & become ready for it? 1st, we are all too occupied with life’s unfinished business. [Death does not fit into our plans]. 2nd, death differs from other experience in the sheer loneliness of it. Even in the intimate fellowship of husband and wife, even then the one who goes forth must go alone. When we do not know what awaits us in death, how can we prepare for it?
We have already begun the wise course by looking at the difficulties in the eye, and by avoiding the calling of death by another name to soften its impact, or to disguise its tragic meaning. In a peopled universe what possible alternatives are there? With the monotony of the same old faces or over- population, [None] that look very good. And only when the realization comes that here are limits to our 3 score years and 10, do we begin to discriminate, to choose, to organize for completion what is permitted us to achieve.
The totality of our dearest fellowship is never fully possible within the framework of daily commonplace. It is a value that we should be reluctant to eliminate, however beautiful and precious has been the fellowship of daily commonplace. Death sets measures for our estimate of the great ones of the earth. [Otherwise our appreciation of their endless production of masterpieces would slowly dull and fade]. Surely death has some real gifts to our experience, which we should hold before us, even as we face honestly its tragic meaning.
The Christian Answer—There's no proof for human survival after death that anyone can offer, no evidence that could coerce assent of another mind. The Christian answer to which our subject summons us is determined by the Christian view of God. [Because God is Love,] fellowship with God becomes for both man and God the most prized of all possible values. God’s care for His children is one of the central emphases of Jesus’ teaching.
The Christian Answer—There's no proof for human survival after death that anyone can offer, no evidence that could coerce assent of another mind. The Christian answer to which our subject summons us is determined by the Christian view of God. [Because God is Love,] fellowship with God becomes for both man and God the most prized of all possible values. God’s care for His children is one of the central emphases of Jesus’ teaching.
An infinite God, [creator/parent] to all who have been, who are, and who are to be, is a God whose powers cannot be fully apprehended by finite minds. There is too much that is unfinished in our Becoming for our destiny to be com- pletely realized here; lives are never finished. If the concept of Growth or Be- coming is accepted, then the Christian faith has power to assimilate the philosophical ultimates of truth, beauty and goodness. Under the impact of his partnership with a Heavenly Father he is impelled to bring goodness to pass in himself and in the society of which he is a part.
What kind of immortality is consistent with the Christian view of God & of human personality? [Some mean by “immortality” the continuance of a person’s influence after his death, a slowly fading echo or slowly dimini- shing ripples]. Others think of immortality in terms of the absorption of the indi- vidual into the Absolute, with differing views of how the Absolute should be defined.
The Christian view of immortality has 2 emphases which differentiate it radically from both of these conceptions. All pictures of a static existence in a materially conditioned heaven are unsatisfactory & must be rejected. Christian faith at its highest level does not try to describe, but accepts the great mystery in faith & hope; saying, “It does not yet appear what we shall be.” (I John 3:2)
Christian Faith’s Central Testimony—All that we know of Jesus Christ —his life; life’s meaning that he taught; his death; his continuing presence— together is the heart of our faith that God was in Christ. The conviction of his spiritual presence with those who love and follow him is the cornerstone of the Christian church. The experience of the spiritual presence of Christ has been seen through all the ages since; great souls have testified to the reality of that presence. Some achieve a good death, without fear, with transcendence over pain, & with serene faith that the next step will be adventure as truly guided by God.
Elizabeth Gray Vining wrote: “I have written of the sense that one has from time to time of the continuing companionship of the beloved dead… In a scene of great natural beauty, I've been aware of the presence of one whom I loved and could not see. The joy of the moment and the lasting vivid quality of the memory seem to speak for its authenticity.” When fears of death rise in us, faith answers that we go on beyond death to greater concerns in fellowship with God. [Work and building relationships are] enhanced when this mortal puts on immortality. Of the mystery of death” “we know that we shall be like him.” Of the loneliness of death: Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”
108. A Therapist’s View of Personal Goals (by Carl R. Rogers; 1960)
About the Author—Carl Rogers was born in 1902. He received his aca- demic and professional training at the Univ. of Wisconsin & Teachers College, Columbia University. For many years he was involved in clinical work with children, adolescents & adults. His major interests for many years has been in the field of counseling and psychotherapy, in practice, in research, & in theory development. He seeks a theory of therapy, personality, & interpersonal rela- tionships which seems to fit the observed facts.
Elizabeth Gray Vining wrote: “I have written of the sense that one has from time to time of the continuing companionship of the beloved dead… In a scene of great natural beauty, I've been aware of the presence of one whom I loved and could not see. The joy of the moment and the lasting vivid quality of the memory seem to speak for its authenticity.” When fears of death rise in us, faith answers that we go on beyond death to greater concerns in fellowship with God. [Work and building relationships are] enhanced when this mortal puts on immortality. Of the mystery of death” “we know that we shall be like him.” Of the loneliness of death: Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”
108. A Therapist’s View of Personal Goals (by Carl R. Rogers; 1960)
About the Author—Carl Rogers was born in 1902. He received his aca- demic and professional training at the Univ. of Wisconsin & Teachers College, Columbia University. For many years he was involved in clinical work with children, adolescents & adults. His major interests for many years has been in the field of counseling and psychotherapy, in practice, in research, & in theory development. He seeks a theory of therapy, personality, & interpersonal rela- tionships which seems to fit the observed facts.
“… to be that self which one truly is”—Soren Kierkegaard
The Questions/Some Answers/Another View—What is my goal in life? What am I striving for? What is my purpose? They are old, old questions which have been asked and answered in every century of history; everyone must ask & answer these questions for themselves. [From my work] with troubled & maladjusted individuals I believe that I can discern a pattern, a trend, a commonality, an orderliness in some answers to these questions. Some have answered: “to glorify God”; some answered: “to prepare oneself for immortality”; some sought to achieve, to gain possessions, status, knowledge power; some give themselves completely to a cause; some seek to eliminate desires and exercise utmost control over one’s self.
In a recent important study Charles Morris discovered through factor analysis 5 dimensions of value which appeared to be responsible for the indivi- dual choices: 1) a responsible, moral, self-restrained life; 2) vigorous action, & overcoming of obstacles; 3) self-sufficient inner life, heightened self-awareness; 4) receptivity to persons & to nature; 5) sensuous enjoyment, self-enjoyment. Morris said: “it is as if persons in various cultures have in common 5 major tones in the musical scales on which they compose different melodies.”
Life's aim as I see it coming to light in my relationship with my clients is “to be that self which one truly is.” This seems to mean & imply some strange things. I trust you will look at my views, and accept them only in so far as they ring true in your own experience.
DIRECTIONS TAKEN BY CLIENTS—In my relationship with these indi- viduals my aim has been to provide a climate which contains as much of safety, of warmth, of empathic understanding, as I can genuinely find in myself to give. The trends I see appear to come from the client rather than from me. The client tends to move away from a self that he isn't. At 1st this may be expressed as a fear of exposure. But the very expression of this fear is a part of becoming what he is (i.e. a frightened person hiding behind a façade, not the façade itself).
Another tendency seems to be a moving away from the compelling image of what he ought to be. A patient said: I find it’s not a very good way to be. I thought I had to be that way to be loved. And yet who would want to love a person that wishy washy?” Another patient said: “If you are some- thing which is disapproved of very much, then I guess the only way you can have self-respect is to be ashamed of that part of you which isn’t approved of… [But] I’m not going to feel ashamed of myself.”
Other clients find themselves moving away from what the culture ex- pects of them. The college experience's impact is to socialize the individual, to shape his values so he can fit comfortably into the ranks of American college alumni. A patient said: “I somehow felt so much more than that at some level.” I find that many individuals have formed themselves by people pleasing; when they are free they move away from being this person. Clients define their goal, their purpose, by discovering in the freedom & safety of an understanding relationship, the directions they don’t wish to move. They don’t choose to be artificial, imposed on, or defined from without.
[After establishing some of the negatives], clients seem to move toward more openly being a process, a fluidity, a changing. They are in flux, and seem more content to continue in this flowing current. One client says: “I am begin- ning to enjoy this now, I’m joyful about it, even all these negative things.” Clients move toward being a process of potentialities being born, rather than being or becoming some fixed goal.
[More than being a process, forming one’s self] involves being a com- plexity of process. [A fellow counselor checked with me] to be sure that he was clearly aware of the complexity of his own feelings in a relationship. If he could be all of his complex & changing & sometimes contradictory feelings in the relationship, all would go well; any façade or defense & the relationship would not be good. One of the most evident trends is to move toward becoming all of the complexity of one’s changing self in each significant moment.
The individual needs to move toward living in an open, friendly, close relationship with his own experience. [Opening up] to internal feelings that are not new, but which have never been fully experienced will make them less terrible, and one will be able to live closer to one’s own experiencing, and find that one’s own inner reactions and experiences are friendly.
Maslow says: “[Self-actualizing people’s ease of penetration to reality, their closer approach to an animal-like or child like acceptance and spontaneity imply a superior awareness of their own impulses. Experiencing the basic goods of life [never goes stale for these people]. As a client moves towards being able to accept his own experience, he also moves toward the acceptance of the experience of others. This accepting attitude toward that which exists, I find developing in clients in therapy.
Each client increasingly trusts & values the process which is the client’s self. I have seen simple people become significant and creative in the their own spheres as they have developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings, and express themselves in their own unique ways. Clients move away from being: a façade, either more or less than what they are. One increasing listens to the deepest recesses of his being, & finds himself increasingly willing to be that self one most truly is.
SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS—To some it appears that to be what one is, is to remain static. They see such a purpose or value as fixed or unchanging. But to be what one is, is to enter fully into being a process. It is only as one can become more of one’s self, can be more of what one has denied in one’s self, that there is any prospect of change. Another reaction to being what one truly is that it would mean being bad, evil, uncontrolled, destructive; it is a common fear of my clients.
[On the contrary], one finds that one can be his anger, that accepted or transparent anger is not destructive. [The same is true of one’s other “bad” feelings]. When one lives closely with & accepts one’s feelings & their com- plexity, they operate in a constructive harmony rather than [making one] uncon- trollably evil. When one is truly a unique member of the human species, it means that one lives fully & openly the complex process of being one of the most sensitive, responsive, and creative creatures on the planet.
SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS/SUMMARY—Does this path of life have any meaning or significance for groups or organizations? [If an individual were to describe his/her actions the way our government leaders describe diplomacy (i.e. always based upon high moral purposes, always consistent, always right in its judgments & choice)], I think you will agree that we would recognize that this must be a façade.
If we as a nation were to express ourselves as we are, we would say that we as a nation are: realizing our enormous strength, power, and responsi- bility; moving ignorantly and clumsily toward accepting a position of respon- sible leadership; far from perfect; deeply frightened by Communism’s strength; extremely competitive toward Communism; selfish in some of our foreign inte- rests; not desiring to hold dominion; valuing & respecting the dignity & worth of each individual, yet when we are frightened, we move away from this act.
The probable outcomes would be that we could: have nothing to hide; focus on the problem at hand, rather than trying to prove our morality or con- sistency or defend ourselves; find the balance of selfish interests and sympa- thetic concern which is acceptable to us as a people; be [more genuine] and less feared; by our own openness, bring forth openness and realism from others. World problems would be solved on the basis of real issues, rather than in terms of the façades being worn by the negotiating parties. This view contains the seeds of a philosophical approach to all of life that it is more than a trend observed in the experiences of clients.
I have pointed out that my clients tend to move away from self-conceal- ment, away from the expectations of others, [& towards] permitting one’s self freely to be the changing, fluid, process which one is. One is increasingly a harmony of complex sensings and reactions, rather than the clarity & simplicity of rigidity. One finds that to be this process in one’s self is to maximize the rate of change and growth. It means “to be that self which one truly is.” [Being this process] would seem to make the same kind of sense for a group, an organi- zation, or a nation, and would [have the same kind of rewards]. I offer it to you for your consideration.
109. Another Will Gird You: A Message to the Society of Friends (by
Mildred Binns Young; 1960)
About the Author—Mildred Binns Young was born in Ohio and attended Friends schools and Western Reserve University. She lived for some years at Westtown School, where Wilmer Young was Dean of Boys. The Youngs then lived in the South, working under American Friends Service Committee for 19 years; 4 pamphlets came out of the experience. From 1955-1960 they were in residence at Pendle Hill.
[Introduction/ "You Must Change Your Life"]—The tone of the Quaker voice is grievously flawed because we mostly live as beneficiaries of a society that is in contradiction to our principles. John Woolman & friends came to see that Friend's testimony against slavery wasn't clear as long as one Friend held one slave. They also saw that war & economics were linked, which prompted Woolman's query, whether "the Seeds of War have any nourishment in our possessions." [There was limited success] & today our war testimony is com- promised by being bound—& content to be bound—into a system in which war & poverty are integral.
A poet waxed lyrical about an antique Apollo statue, its line, plane, light & shade, & ends with: "You must change your life." Such meetings bring us to stand before God's face; the Society of Friends stands there now. Perhaps if we came straight out of a suffering tradition, instead of being honored, we should be fit for the strong witness that is called for today. Our heritage of wealth, edu- cation, & respect is both handicap & responsibility.
Early Quakerism spoke to the mid-17th century with clarion voice, and resisted attempts to silence it with "non-violent resistance," although that term was unknown. Its formation was in the earliest Christian centuries, & Quakers reminded the Reformation of it. They felt it came straight from Jesus' mandate. We are called to re-claim this defence on behalf of our Society & the threatened, angry, & divided humankind. Private wealth, class distinctions, race separation, nation sovereignty are going or may be going. How are these worldwide separations of humanity going to change: piecemeal, Armageddon, or orderly cooperation? Friends must shoulder the burden of hope. Amiel said: "Discouragement is an act of unbelief." We are to make life an act of belief.
[Steps towards Change]—1st, space must be cleared in our lives for being still; for this stillness won't happen by itself. There comes a time when worship & activity are perfectly aligned & both turn round the same changeless center. The change we long for is to know stillness as the very core & condition of activity. 2nd, is to see ourselves in that Presence. [Most often, we avoid looking at ourselves for a long time]. When we do look, how many fig-leaves must we stitch together & retreat behind before we can stand before the mirror of that Eye.
Conscience has an authority that we ignore at the peril of our wholeness. It can call one to: a work not done; an unfulfilled task; a vocation not faithfully followed. The freedom the mature person, the whole person, longs for is free- dom within a framework of law. The most fearful thing a person can know is the freedom that is utter separation. It is the freedom to flap, & is no freedom at all; [it is more at-the-mercy-of] than free. In the Gospel of John, the risen Lord says to Peter, "When you were young, you girded yourself & walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, & another will gird you & carry you where you don't want to go."
To me it says that volatile & unreliable Peter was to be girt up in the strength of a commitment that would deny him much he would have chosen, & carry him triumphantly through much that he would naturally have shunned. In God's armor, Peter was no longer to be free as he had been before Jesus came; God's revelation was a summons & sending. There is God's revelation & self- revelation, and the commitment to true freedom.
["... Dimmed & Diminished by Worldliness]—We have some conse- crated & alert leaders who march in front of us & make us look good. They are too few for the work we load upon them & we wear them out, unless they are too wise to be used up by others' indolence. Or we load up promising young members with too much, too soon. The mass of us shelter behind these leaders, being too busy with ourselves for more than hurried good works. All our ["self- activity"] is right and necessary in some degree.
In our time the great principles of Quakerism are dimmed & diminished by worldliness which has crept up on us in disguise and is now a constant dis- couragement. There's no compromise we can make with worldliness, if we hope to offer a central ministry to the need of our time. [There are Bible verses that call for unequivocal service to God].
It isn't just Friends who have to face this choice or else betray their principles. Our country's government must find a way to implement and live by the highest principles it was founded on, or lead humankind into self-annihila- tion. Violence was just as effective at perpetuating as at removing or redres- sing wrong. Nations that have always claimed that fire must be fought with fire are confronted with the fact that whoever lights the 1st nuclear fire is the enemy of the human race.
Resistance with love & reconciliation convinces the oppressor by accep- tance of suffering, & draws him into a bond of collaboration with the resister, & finds a new solution more right for both opponents than either of the separate solutions had been for either. We Friends believe that the method of non-violent resistance is indissolubly compounded with justice.
If Friends are to be able to contribute their insight and leadership to the effort to find a substitute for war, [and revive their ancient testimony], we shall need such purification of life as Friends made when they set their slaves free. Worldliness is chiefly characterized by our uncritical and insensitive attitude toward our insatiable wants; we make a god of the American standard of living, with its dependence on war, and its effect of speeding up our lives, dispersing our attention, squandering our powers.
[Scale of Consumption]—I have used the expression standard of living; scale of consumption would be more accurate. We read books about our frene- tic pace of manufacturing, selling, & using up & laugh. It-isn't- funny. So much luxury & so little leisure. Fear everywhere, with ⅔ of the world in stark want. We are preoccupied with [unreal, made-up wants] & we are very serious about the whole process.
Thomas Traherne, a non-Quaker of the 17th century, said, "Having re- fused those which God made, & taken to themselves treasures of their own, they invented scarce & rare, insufficient, hard to be gotten, little movable & useless treasures." Some claim to need beauty; surely we can see that it is fashion, not beauty that is the popular criterion. Beauty won't be laid hold on by possessing costly or rare objects; beauty will thrust itself on us in the glory of creation.
Worldliness is world-denying. World-affirming or loving is full acceptance & enjoyment of creation. The earth's hearable, tastable, tangible things are good, worthy to be praised. But praise leaves off as soon as we take more than we need, & use up more than we can make use of. Friends' testimony of simplicity & worldliness can't dwell together. Father Régamey says: "The poor's presence in any society is a call to it to lower its standard of living." We seek to provide for ourselves a security that isn't to be had except through accepting insecurity.
Worldliness is unrelatedness. It is against worldliness that the social testimonies of Friends were directed. George Fox wrote: "Our religion lies in [what] brings [us] to visit the poor, & fatherless & widows, & keeps [us] from the spots of the world." Testimonies grow out of relatedness, & clear the path to relatedness. How much of the dullness & secularity in our meetings for worship is related to the encroachment of worldliness?
[Quaker Institutions & Worldliness:] The Meeting—Friends early in- sisted upon a distinction between church as a building, & the Church as the body of worshipers, Christ's body. Friends did try to provide themselves with permanent meeting houses. Some of these old buildings still stand. They set a standard [much the way that endurance of prison & persecution & the joyful maintaining of community set a standard]. When beautiful old meeting houses don't meet our need, we should look critically at the suggested building programs.
Some meeting houses have elegant social rooms & spacious 1st Day Schools, filled to capacity, while the meeting for worship is a few old people; this is a dire condition. When building improvements replace Meetings or "keep up with" the neighbors, they are usurpers. They weaken rather than strengthen the meeting, if they foster worldliness over worship. In the old plain meeting houses, children were congregational members, & attended Meeting.
A child today wouldn't feel the spiritual quality which was called the "covering" of the meeting if it isn't there; if it is there, a child will seldom miss it. The worst that can happen in silence is boredom & meaninglessness; the dan- gers of dealing with adult religious ritual & hymns may be disturbing & bewil-
dering. Unless the meeting for worship is the Quaker community's center—for children as well as parents & older people—community is non-existent, the Meeting peripheral & the Society of Friends is just an organization. Let's en- sure that our meetings for worship keep their integrity & that our meeting pla- ces have simplicity that belongs to that integrity.
Schools and Homes—Never was there a greater need for what Friends' schools can offer. Our schools can stand as a bastion between our children & the worldliness that already assaults them in their unformed years. How do our schools measure up against the standard of simplicity? It is more important than ever to set and uphold a standard of simplicity. Cost are rising, in the form of increasing scholarships, salaries, & improvements. A large num- ber of young people are already used to comfort, or even luxury.
Is there a happy medium between complete dependence on inspired teaching & dependence on large plant & equipment to supple- ment teaching? What about the parent who cannot—or feels one shouldn't—provide what is necessary to keep pace with the cost of their child keeping up with others socially? How will their child handle being different? How much is the "everything" some parents want their chil- dren to have? Whose "everything" are we talking about?
Taken all together, even innocent & educational things pile up the cost of education & set our children apart as a preferred class in society. How are we doing our best to carry out & pass on to our children the Quaker tes- timony of simplicity & the concept of unity with humanity? No teaching or telling will be effective, while our practice proclaims that we feel we have a right to be far above our countryfolk's average. In proportion to our other spending, we spend too little on education, much less than on: defense; car, gas, and oil; tobacco and alcohol; clothing and shoes.
The relationship of schools to homes is that each pushes up the stan- dard of the other, as it raises its own. How could schools and homes support & strengthen each other in a significant limiting of the scale of consump- tion? Friends supporting one another on issues like this is difficult in light of how dispersed they are, but not impossible, if we believed it to be important enough. Such mutual support between schools, Meetings, and home would help procure for children, for their parents and teachers, what is [really] best in life.
[Simplicity of/in God's Presence]—One Friend found himself brought into that perpetual sense of God's Presence which is simplicity; he knew all that he needed to do and not do, and the strength to do work beyond his strength. This is simplicity indeed, whether in poverty or plenty; and it is freedom. What is our individual and corporate attitude toward what soci- ety offers us, its claims on us, and the threat it poses?
The new forms of testimonies that we are called on to make will have to go as drastically contrary to the main current of the time as earlier testimonies did. What about the other comfortable people in the world? What are they called on to do? Peter asked this question after being told he would be girded and carried where he did not want to go. Jesus' answer to him is the answer to us: "... what is that to thee? Follow thou me."
110. The Covenant of Peace: a Personal Witness (by Maurice
110. The Covenant of Peace: a Personal Witness (by Maurice
Friedman; 1960)
About the Author—Maurice Friedman (1921-2012) is a religious scholar. He has addressed Martin Buber & psychology. He worked with Buber’s writing at Pendle Hill during the 1940s, before he got his Ph.D. in 1950 from Chicago University. He taught at California University—San Diego for 40 years, retiring in 1991. He has written more than 12 books. Following retirement, he continued
to do dialogical work psychotherapy in Solana, CA. In this pamphlet, the author traces his life & thought from the Biblical covenant to the peace covenant.
We live in an age of compounded crises, an age of hot and cold war and the constant threat of total annihilation by the weapons that we ourselves have perfected; it is an age more and more bereft of authentic human existence. In our age the great peacemakers Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, and Martin Buber have emerged. Gandhi, [introduced us to] satyagraha, "soul force.” Schweitzer expressed a practical “reverence for life.” Martin Buber found in the Biblical Covenant real reconciliation between conflicting claims.Pacifism and Social Consciousness—I was chock full of a Sunday- school morality of peace, brotherhood, justice. These values, combined with the anti-militaristic slant of social studies in the 1930s, gave me an active social conscience which applied itself to problems of social reform and international relations. I [had] to tackle the extreme conflict of values that I experienced when I juxtaposed my hatred of the Nazis with my hatred for war.
Most important for me then was a growing conviction that only good means can lead to good ends. All of my studies combined to teach me that ba- lance of power was not the way to peace. The “war to end wars” only sowed the seed for future wars; the war “to make the world safe for democracy” helped bring on totalitarianism. This new [“cold”] war would [bring] the very militarism that I feared. [The problem with using war as a means is that while we may] want this war to end war, along with the end we have in mind may come 6 or 12 equally important consequences which we do not have in mind. The belief that the means must correspond to the end questions whether that end will be reached by any means that are not like it.
[I went through hypothetical cases & mathematical probabilities in trying to reach a decision]. My alternatives seemed to boil down to the choice between doing nothing [i.e. Civilian Public Service camps] & doing what seemed harm- ful [i.e.] taking part in a war that was likely to produce new wars; it was a choice between evils. Morality is the tension, the link, the real relation between what in this situation I can do and what I ought to do.
Mysticism and Humble Love—When I wrote my statement for the draft board, the only religion I was able to claim was the conviction that the meaning of my life lay in doing good for others and that I was not willing to take part in a war that meant denying this purpose. Pacifism for me became absolute and a way of life. There were so many examples of an all-encompassing spiritual unity beside which the immediate goals of my social action days fade into obscurity.
Along with St. Francis and his Prayer to be an instrument of God’s peace, came the image of the Quaker saint James Naylor. Each morning when I awake [with] Kenneth Boulding’s sonnet [“I ... have seen the day with eastern fire cleanse the foul night away”] is with me and each evening when I go to sleep St. Francis comes to me with his prayer [“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace”]. In Dostoivsky’s Father Zossima, I found an image of active love, [humble love. Zossima says:] “Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. . . If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. . . And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”
Even] though my own grandfather was an adherent of Hasidim—the popular mysticism of East European Jewry, I had never even heard of Jewish mysticism. And I was asked the question: How can a Jew be a pacifist in the face of Nazi persecution of the Jews? I cannot dismiss [the extermination of 6,000,000 Jews] as an unfortunate detour of history. [I am] no longer an abso- lute pacifist nor a believer in absolute non-resistance to evil.
The Biblical Covenant—I entered Judaism through Hasidism's door, with its ecstasy, its emphasis on inner intention, its joy, and its loving humility. In Hasidism I found an image of an active love and fervent devotion no longer coupled with self-denial or metaphysical theorizing about unity with the divine. It is to the Bible that I finally turned for a new foundation for my own witness for peace.
Mysticism and Humble Love—When I wrote my statement for the draft board, the only religion I was able to claim was the conviction that the meaning of my life lay in doing good for others and that I was not willing to take part in a war that meant denying this purpose. Pacifism for me became absolute and a way of life. There were so many examples of an all-encompassing spiritual unity beside which the immediate goals of my social action days fade into obscurity.
Along with St. Francis and his Prayer to be an instrument of God’s peace, came the image of the Quaker saint James Naylor. Each morning when I awake [with] Kenneth Boulding’s sonnet [“I ... have seen the day with eastern fire cleanse the foul night away”] is with me and each evening when I go to sleep St. Francis comes to me with his prayer [“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace”]. In Dostoivsky’s Father Zossima, I found an image of active love, [humble love. Zossima says:] “Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. . . If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. . . And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”
Even] though my own grandfather was an adherent of Hasidim—the popular mysticism of East European Jewry, I had never even heard of Jewish mysticism. And I was asked the question: How can a Jew be a pacifist in the face of Nazi persecution of the Jews? I cannot dismiss [the extermination of 6,000,000 Jews] as an unfortunate detour of history. [I am] no longer an abso- lute pacifist nor a believer in absolute non-resistance to evil.
The Biblical Covenant—I entered Judaism through Hasidism's door, with its ecstasy, its emphasis on inner intention, its joy, and its loving humility. In Hasidism I found an image of an active love and fervent devotion no longer coupled with self-denial or metaphysical theorizing about unity with the divine. It is to the Bible that I finally turned for a new foundation for my own witness for peace.
No one can read the stark happenings of the Bible & the intimate ming- ling of the word of God with the violent conflicts of men without fear and trem- bling. For all that, the God of the Hebrew Bible is not a God of war, and he must not be understood as such. This God is the God of the historical situation, of the cruel historical demand. This is the God of the covenant . . . the God through which Israel accepts the task of realizing justice, righteousness, & lovingkindness in genuine communal life that makes it a people. This is the God of the historical demand, but also of compassion, whose covenant of peace shall not be removed from man.
On Israel is laid the task of initiating God's kingdom, but kingdom itself will only come into being when all nations have come to Zion to receive the law. The realization of the kingship of God means the realization of peace. Isaiah’s vision of peace is an integral part of the historical covenant between God and Israel, an integral address from God to the people in a new historical situation.
On Israel is laid the task of initiating God's kingdom, but kingdom itself will only come into being when all nations have come to Zion to receive the law. The realization of the kingship of God means the realization of peace. Isaiah’s vision of peace is an integral part of the historical covenant between God and Israel, an integral address from God to the people in a new historical situation.
The Covenant of Peace—Out of the Biblical covenant grows the peace covenant. The Biblical covenant of peace is not a consolation at history’s end or an eternity above it; it is an integral part of history of the tension between present and future, the dialectic between comfort and demand. A peace witness based on the covenant of peace can't be an “absolute” pacifism, for in history there is no room for absolutes. The only absolute is God.
The absolutist knows what's right before he reaches a situation; his ac- tion is something imposed on the situation. What is [needed] is the most ade- quate response possible in a [particular] situation, which is always in need of redemption and never entirely redeemable. Plato and the absolutist sets a timeless ideal that history is supposed to approach. The result is [that] it becomes a temptation to impose the truth on the situation in a way that recognizes neither the possibilities of the situation nor the need for communi- cation with those involved.
The Biblical covenant implies risk—one responds without certainty as to the result—and trust—if one responds as best one may, this will be the work that one can do toward establishing the covenant of peace. If we succumb to the merely political, we shall have reinforced mistrust between nations. That makes them deal with each other in terms of [depersonalizing] political abstractions & catch words. [Education on an issue] must be concerned about real communi- cation with the people whom it approaches [& not with] imposing one’s truth. We must confirm him even as we oppose him, in his right to oppose us, in his existence as a valued human being.
The absolutist knows what's right before he reaches a situation; his ac- tion is something imposed on the situation. What is [needed] is the most ade- quate response possible in a [particular] situation, which is always in need of redemption and never entirely redeemable. Plato and the absolutist sets a timeless ideal that history is supposed to approach. The result is [that] it becomes a temptation to impose the truth on the situation in a way that recognizes neither the possibilities of the situation nor the need for communi- cation with those involved.
The Biblical covenant implies risk—one responds without certainty as to the result—and trust—if one responds as best one may, this will be the work that one can do toward establishing the covenant of peace. If we succumb to the merely political, we shall have reinforced mistrust between nations. That makes them deal with each other in terms of [depersonalizing] political abstractions & catch words. [Education on an issue] must be concerned about real communi- cation with the people whom it approaches [& not with] imposing one’s truth. We must confirm him even as we oppose him, in his right to oppose us, in his existence as a valued human being.
“Nonviolence” claims too much. To claim that nonviolence is always possible ignores the facts of personal and social existence. The violence lying just beneath the surface in so much of family life, civic and governmental administration, give glaring evidence of how much the alternatives “violent” & “nonviolent” falsify the concrete situation.
“Nonviolence” claims too little. One may be nonviolent and still offer answers without listening to the other’s questions. They may still be imposing truth on people, placing political abstraction above social realities. [True] non- violence is grounded in personal existence & genuine relation to other persons.
Modern Biblical Morality and Reconciliation—[In applying modern biblical morality to the Jewish settlements of Palestine], Martin Buber wrote: “I belong to a group of people who from the time when Britain conquered Pale- stine, haven't ceased to strive for the concluding of a genuine peace between Jew and Arab . . . By a genuine peace we . . . infer that both people should together develop the land without one imposing its will on the other.” Modern biblical morality, between man and man and between nation & nation, means dialogue.
Dialogue means the meeting with the other person, the other group, the other people—a meeting that confirms it in its otherness yet does not deny oneself and the ground on which one stands, [a meeting] that heeds, affirms, confirms his opponent as an existing other. Conflict certainly cannot be elimi- nated from the world, but [it] can be arbitrated and led towards its overcoming.
Dialogue means the meeting with the other person, the other group, the other people—a meeting that confirms it in its otherness yet does not deny oneself and the ground on which one stands, [a meeting] that heeds, affirms, confirms his opponent as an existing other. Conflict certainly cannot be elimi- nated from the world, but [it] can be arbitrated and led towards its overcoming.
Genuine reconciliation must begin with a fully realistic & honest recog- nition of differences and points of conflict, [& move towards] a meeting which includes both conflicting points of view. The necessary first step toward recon- ciliation is recognition of real claims & differences of interest. Second is the realistic recognition of the difficulties of reconciling these claims (no objective arbitration is possible), & third is seeking new & creative ways of reconciliation.
Under the Shadow of the Bomb—Self-preservation, the self-under- stood basic principle of the modern nation, no longer has much meaning where self-preservation means total domination or total annihilation. Martin Buber wrote in 1952: “The human world is today, as never before, split into 2 camps, each of which understands the other as the embodiment of falsehood & itself as the embodiment of truth.” C. Wright Mills writes: “They search for peace by military means and in doing so, they succeed in accumulating ever new perils. Moreover, they have obscured this fact by their dogmatic adherence to violence as the only way of doing away with violence. We have to ask: [War is] immo- ral for whom? What do we mean by moral?
I don't think we have accomplished very much by saying war is immoral. Our real responsibility is not making moral judgment from some superior perspective but responding to the claim of the present situation. America my country, a country which has occupied the stage as the world power but must now, more seriously than before, take into consideration the real existence of the “other” civilization, culture, values, political power. A positive relationship to this hostile other is the only way in which we can continue to exist as a nation.
Means and Ends Reconsidered—A “good end” is the good that is created again and again in lived relations between persons, within and between groups. A “good means” is the whole of the present situation as it leads into the future. The purity of the means I use is less important than the faithfulness of my & our response. This begins with awareness and responsibility, but it ends with trust. I [went from] circulating petitions or organizing meetings to . . . renouncing all action until I should have achieved a spiritual realization which would make action “effective.” I set about realizing my spiritual unity with all men through resolutely turning away from them.
My present view of ends & means is thoroughly dialogical. The “inner light,” the stirring, prompting, or leading exists in the between—between man & situation, between man & the message that “speaks to his condition,” between man & divine spirit, between man & “still small voice.” We can't cease to disco- ver & proclaim what steps may be taken toward some relief of conflicts, some first step of communication & cooperation. Though we live under the shadow of the hydrogen bomb, we stand under the cover of the eternal wings.
111. Psychotherapy Based on Human Longing (by Robert C. Murphy;
Means and Ends Reconsidered—A “good end” is the good that is created again and again in lived relations between persons, within and between groups. A “good means” is the whole of the present situation as it leads into the future. The purity of the means I use is less important than the faithfulness of my & our response. This begins with awareness and responsibility, but it ends with trust. I [went from] circulating petitions or organizing meetings to . . . renouncing all action until I should have achieved a spiritual realization which would make action “effective.” I set about realizing my spiritual unity with all men through resolutely turning away from them.
My present view of ends & means is thoroughly dialogical. The “inner light,” the stirring, prompting, or leading exists in the between—between man & situation, between man & the message that “speaks to his condition,” between man & divine spirit, between man & “still small voice.” We can't cease to disco- ver & proclaim what steps may be taken toward some relief of conflicts, some first step of communication & cooperation. Though we live under the shadow of the hydrogen bomb, we stand under the cover of the eternal wings.
111. Psychotherapy Based on Human Longing (by Robert C. Murphy;
1960)
About the Author/ Introduction—Robert C. Murphy was educated at Harvard College and Cornell University Medical College. After the war, he was trained in psychiatry & psycho analysis. He practices in community psychiatry and private practice. He teaches and writes on psychiatry.
"I wrote this piece 1½ years ago ... after several teaching engagements at Pendle Hill ... It still speaks for my general orientation to psychotherapy, as a subjective & intuitive account of my experience in psychotherapy ... It is a sort of credo, which will do for a long time. From a physician, one such statement is enough."
[The Force of Longing]—Buried in the deepest stratum of one's uncon scious, lies an immense psychological force. [From the moment an infant differentiates between self & other or mother], longing drives the human orga- nism, to relate to, to comprehend, to "love" that which lies beyond one. This longing brings its own insight. The psychotherapist needs only to be aware of this force & keep it within one's vision. The therapist is an observer & a catalyst. One has no power to "cure" the patient, who is fully equipped for getting well.
The patient longs for health above all. In every person who goes to a therapist, the forces of health & hope are stronger than those of sickness & despair. The patient is always trying to get well. The therapist's detachment, optimism, & enjoyment of interaction provides a place where a cure can happen. The therapy joins with the patient's longing for order & comprehension. One isn't required to see into everything the patient says. [One compensates] for emo- tional blind-spots by waiting, which presently gives way to a new & refreshing insight. Psychotherapy seeks to conserve everything, including the apparently destructive, because when all is seen, nothing is destructive. Every communi- cation is a plea from the patient that the therapist see his basic striving.
"I wrote this piece 1½ years ago ... after several teaching engagements at Pendle Hill ... It still speaks for my general orientation to psychotherapy, as a subjective & intuitive account of my experience in psychotherapy ... It is a sort of credo, which will do for a long time. From a physician, one such statement is enough."
[The Force of Longing]—Buried in the deepest stratum of one's uncon scious, lies an immense psychological force. [From the moment an infant differentiates between self & other or mother], longing drives the human orga- nism, to relate to, to comprehend, to "love" that which lies beyond one. This longing brings its own insight. The psychotherapist needs only to be aware of this force & keep it within one's vision. The therapist is an observer & a catalyst. One has no power to "cure" the patient, who is fully equipped for getting well.
The patient longs for health above all. In every person who goes to a therapist, the forces of health & hope are stronger than those of sickness & despair. The patient is always trying to get well. The therapist's detachment, optimism, & enjoyment of interaction provides a place where a cure can happen. The therapy joins with the patient's longing for order & comprehension. One isn't required to see into everything the patient says. [One compensates] for emo- tional blind-spots by waiting, which presently gives way to a new & refreshing insight. Psychotherapy seeks to conserve everything, including the apparently destructive, because when all is seen, nothing is destructive. Every communi- cation is a plea from the patient that the therapist see his basic striving.
[Listening to the Unconscious: Interaction, Wisdom, & Freedom]— The agency of this work is the therapist's capacity to listen in every expression or gesture in which the patient tries to make one's self understood, for the stri- ving toward sanity. Listening is the only activity essential to psychotherapy. Any- thing else the therapist does merely emphasizes his listening. To be listened to is, generally speaking, a nearly unique experience for most people. It is small wonder that people who have been demanding all their lives to be heard, so often are speechless before someone willing to really listen; they become frightened.
Fearing a mounting condemnation, the patient seeks signs of continuing trust and affection, which cannot be displayed on command. The therapist's task is to permit love to be expressed through one, choosing its own time and place and method. One will find one's self smiling at things from the patient quite foreign to one's conscious standard. Therapy consists of a spontaneous inter- action between the patient's unconscious and the therapist's unconscious.
Fearing a mounting condemnation, the patient seeks signs of continuing trust and affection, which cannot be displayed on command. The therapist's task is to permit love to be expressed through one, choosing its own time and place and method. One will find one's self smiling at things from the patient quite foreign to one's conscious standard. Therapy consists of a spontaneous inter- action between the patient's unconscious and the therapist's unconscious.
Therapy is a fluid interplay, always in motion, always changing. Consci- ous & rational disciplines like those of science aren't flexible enough to adjust to its requirements. The role of consciousness is to [choose to let the uncon- scious make decisions]. The conscious mind may eventually know why a response to the patient was the right one, but its cumbersome process cannot be used to choose that response.
The unconscious' wisdom isn't scientific. The source of all that is of value in one is one's deepest unconscious drive, one's longing for order & com- prehension. It isn't with intellect that one reaches for the unknown, but with longing. Reason then refines & makes explicit that which the unconscious apprehends, & fits it into a frame of reference. The therapist must know that his "intuitive" work is bound to natural law governing mental processes. Humankind is truly free, but this freedom can't be discovered on the aware- ness level represented by reason. One is free in so far as one's life is compre- hensible, acquires meaning, & expresses one's basic longing.
[The Self-evident Truth of Life/ Suicidal Impulse]—Psychotherapy is designed to bring the patient to see [the self evident truth in life]. The patient has spent one's life believing what one was told to believe, [rather than what one knows to be true within one's self]. An adolescent girl is driven toward getting pregnant not by sex as much as by needing to declare herself a sepa- rate person capable of functioning for herself. Her movement in the direction of pregnancy may threaten to bring about a tragedy, but it was the only stri- ving toward health revealed by therapy. The youngster begins to catch sight of what she really wants, reflected, in the therapist's face. She has moved a little closer to the self-evident truth that freedom of choice is the very natural essence of her life.
The same thing is true of the impulse to suicide, which always reveals its sad longing for wholeness, for taking command of one's own life. I have never interfered with a patient's right to take one's life. One need only hold on, & wait for understanding. Once a therapist is aware of a suicidal patient's true mes- sage, they can only have profound tenderness for the patient. This tenderness communicates to the patient that love and trust are valued above life itself. The ego once heard, need no longer die to prove its conviction. Suicide constitutes an ego's last attempt to express a longing [for death, which went unheeded.
Longing for death is inseparable from longing for life. Life and love are also inseparable. Out of a basic human need for knowledge spring's one's capacity to seek to understand the death that awaits one, and at the same to enjoy life [& love] fully. It may be that the suicidal person is closer to real health than the one who is less dangerously disturbed. Suicide signifies a refusal to accept a life under any authority other one's own as yet undiscovered inner authority.
Longing for death is inseparable from longing for life. Life and love are also inseparable. Out of a basic human need for knowledge spring's one's capacity to seek to understand the death that awaits one, and at the same to enjoy life [& love] fully. It may be that the suicidal person is closer to real health than the one who is less dangerously disturbed. Suicide signifies a refusal to accept a life under any authority other one's own as yet undiscovered inner authority.
[Seeking New Authority: The Patient's Inner Longing]—The less vio- lently restless person cut themselves free of old authority controlling their life, then drift into new ones. Rebels of all sorts may discover "communism," "free enterprise," "intentional community," "pacifism," "voluntary poverty," "free love," [even] "psycho-analysis" (when used as a way of life, rather than a cure) & other "isms" & formulas. If one can't move beyond them, one is left clinging to someone else's rules & maxims. It doesn't lead to a life of depth & adventure. The patient's unconscious longing becomes the authority for the cure.
It is seen by the therapist, who reflects the patient's own inner core of health back to them, long before the patient has any conscious awareness of it. The patient senses an unshakeable authority, but can't conceive that there is something within one' s self which can command so much confidence. It may take a long time for the chain of doubts to be worked through. In obedience to previous authority, one doesn't trust "the powerful beast" within; it gets stuffed back inside. [If the innermost self is somehow murdered], Won't all that energy of a lifetime burst out in an uncontrollable explosion?
The therapist knows that one needn't fear. The longing which lies at the root of the patient's life hasn't been destroyed, [even after being allowed] so little expression. The more fully it is set free, the more rapidly does it lead the ego into new patterns of change & growth. The ego tames the restless beast with a voice of final authority; only one's longing can bring one's instinctual cravings under control. All this the therapist knows through experience; the patient doesn't know this. Longing's force has been captured by a beast struggling [with lifelong] repression. It isn't the beast which the patient need fear, but one's unwillingness to acknowledge and befriend it.
The therapist knows that one needn't fear. The longing which lies at the root of the patient's life hasn't been destroyed, [even after being allowed] so little expression. The more fully it is set free, the more rapidly does it lead the ego into new patterns of change & growth. The ego tames the restless beast with a voice of final authority; only one's longing can bring one's instinctual cravings under control. All this the therapist knows through experience; the patient doesn't know this. Longing's force has been captured by a beast struggling [with lifelong] repression. It isn't the beast which the patient need fear, but one's unwillingness to acknowledge and befriend it.
[The Patient's Approach to the Therapist and the Cure]—What the patient presents to the therapist is a carefully designed impotence that won't offend—or contemptuous aggressiveness. They present every conceivable pattern of [reluctance], overt or camouflaged. They don't know what they mean by "being cured," for they can't picture themselves in full stature. They come, taking a long, long chance on finding something new.
It takes enormous courage. [They use aggressive or passive-aggressive reluctance] and hope the therapist will take the hint and try to understand what real terror is like, and what courage it takes to meet it face to face. The thera- pist soon discovers they are being watched. Something in the patient watches and looks for a way to help the therapist, judges impartially and even affec- tionately their weaknesses and strengths. It is longing that brought the patient to treatment & that knows what is sought. It leads the therapist, who needs to keep eyes fixed on it, or wait for awareness of it to return. There is always in the patient that which sees exactly what the therapist is doing. It is endlessly patient in teaching the therapist how to correct their mistakes.
There are some the therapist cannot correct. The fixed inadequacies of the therapist's ego are too deeply rooted to change easily. The therapist knows they are there. It is they, & nothing else, that decisively set the limits to treat- ment. Sooner or later treatment ends, because the therapist can no longer hear what they are being told. One's therapeutic horizons widen through each such episode. Psychotherapy is a process of hearing, when no one else can hear, what a patient is trying to say about inner longing. [When therapy ends] the therapist will discover that it was not the patient who refused to understand, but one's self.
[Treatment of Schizophrenic Patients]—In terms of human longing, schizophrenia appears as a fascinating example of infantile longing, a huge awakening to the freshness and sensitive awareness of infancy; it could be a gigantic step in growth. The schizophrenic's entire ego structure needs to be regrown because the old one has lost the capacity to integrate new experience. Nearly all previous experience is repudiated in favor of a fresh start.
Schizophrenics have uncanny skill in setting traps for the therapist. If the traps work, therapy becomes a clinical or symptomatic cure. Schizophrenia therapy is invaluable in the therapist's development, if they keep their ears open and don't mind being secretly hurt and humiliated. The therapist's only refuge against an abandoned and skillful adversary like the schizophrenic ego, is to fasten their attention on the patient's longing, nothing else.
The therapist can't bring the patient the experience of perfect trust for which they long. One can delight in the shy, overwhelming longing which is evident behind the sexual preoccupation or rage. By waiting & listening, the therapist may lead the patient to see the trustworthiness of their innermost longing. Therapy acquires potency to the extent the therapist abandons their self to the presence of longing in the patient, and responds to nothing else.
[Patient/ Therapist Interaction]—Treatment is the interplay of coope- rating egos, struggling against each other, coming to grips & drifting apart. The patient studies the therapist with the penetrating alertness of a child. They view the therapist at one moment as an accomplice, and at another as an evil seducer, [casting them in many roles with a wide assortment of motives. With each of the patient's probings], the therapist retreats & the patient advances; the therapist leads the patient out of their self. The patient asks: What do you want from me? The therapist indicates by listening behavior the desire to know what the patient is like, & the patient's innermost nature. The patient responds with old beliefs that were adequate in relations to other egos; the therapist waits for more.
This being waited on confuses the patient [who is used to being forced to conform by an outside authority]. They mistakenly assume the authority they sense is the therapist's, rather than their own inner authority. The therapist becomes "invisible" and "undiscoverable," showing only a growing interest in the patient's unfolding life. The "identity" that is turned toward the patient is that part of the therapist which longs to see that which is delightful in people. They have set their sights on a miracle: the release of human energy at its source. The adventure of a therapist's life is that one may, with each case move further toward it.
112. Two Trends in Modern Quaker Thought: A Statement of Belief
(by Albert Vann Fowler; 1961)
[About
the Author]—Albert
Vann.
(1904-68)
& Helen W. Fowler (1907- 68)
were poets, freelance writers, & editors. Albert was born in
Syracuse, NY, in 1904; He earned an A.B. in History from Haverford
College in 1927 & studied Psychology & Journalism at Columbia
University. He did freelance writing & wrote poetry. He married
Helen Frances Wose in 1937; They collaborated in writing poetry.
(e.g. Meadville
Trilogy (Lion of Judah, Scylla the Beautiful, &
Landcastle))
As a pacifist, Albert V. Fowler joined the Fellowship of
Reconci- liation, & in 1940 joined
the
Society of Friends. The couple spent the years 1946-1947 at Pendle
Hill; They founded the literary quarterly, Approach,
which included poetry, short stories, &
critical work, primarily by young authors.
In this extrovert age we are apt to forget that what men do is conditioned and circumscribed by their faith. [Jesus and Paul looked to people’s faith as the source of their healing]. There are in modern Quakerism two distinct varieties of belief: universal; and particular. The universal variety accepts Christianity in its Quaker interpretation as but one religion among many. [In a way it] stands apart from all religions and looks at them with an appraising eye. The particu- lar variety is inseparable from the faith it professes. It accepts Christianity as the one divine life that is reproducing in the individual the character of the his- toric Jesus Christ.
A Matter for all Christians—While a Quaker issue, it is also of great importance to individual Christians outside the Society of Friends. The universal and particular varieties are each the center of emotional viewpoints and convic- tions which need to be understood. The universal is supported by liberals who think of themselves as tolerant, open-minded & in the forefront of scientific discovery. The particular is supported by those whose lives are rooted in a common Christian experience and in the doctrines of Christianity. They think of themselves as conservative & orthodox in the positive sense of those words.
The word orthodox is defined as “sound in opinion or doctrine”. The term underwent a change until now it has taken on in popular usage the connotation of reactionary and conventional. In the same way the word conservative has changed from a positive [i.e. preserving the good] to a negative term [i.e. op- posed to all innovation]. There is a refugee psychology in Quakerism which pushes Friends away from the traditional Christian viewpoint.
Non-Christians as Members?—At the Blue River Quarterly Meeting, Arthur Morgan said: “The inner feeling that the Christian faith is uniquely true, and is in a class by itself, different from all other religions, is not a harmless error.” What should be done is to seek out great truth underlying all religions, not the small truth in each of them. Morgan also said: “The Christian religion is a human product, an accumulation from many sources.” The Christian religion should come to see itself as one of the great but fallible traditions.
Arthur Morgan is convinced the time is coming when these provincial mythologies will have had their day. Non-Christians, he believes, look at the Christian attitude of representing the one true faith as exploitation, spiritual imperialism, bigotry, and arrogance. The times are calling for a more universal vision of religious truth, which Quakers can help bring into focus. The belief in the inner light led early Friends to [carefully consider a problem] and then let it rest in the expectation that an opening would occur which might disclose truth. It seems possible to him that committed persons of other faiths might have a stronger interest in what they find in the Society than do many who are born in that tradition and the lives of all concerned might be enlarged and refined.
To contribute to an interfaith fellowship of fallible men trying to find a good way of life together is something Arthur Morgan believes Friends can do for world peace and for a deeper & more inclusive religious outlook. His argu- ment doesn't touch on the wide divergence of thought about the nature of God which is so characteristic of the universal variety. It conceives God principally as an impersonal force, a prime mover, a first cause, and not as a personal God dealing directly with men in an intimate relationship.
[The picking and choosing of elements of religious faith from a variety of sources, can be done through] a rigorous, disciplined, and scholarly search for the truth, [or it can be done only to] suit one’s own tastes and needs. [There is also the extreme of] the religion of pure personal experience, an interior mono- logue unrelated to any external facts or situations. It isn't personal experience that is important in the religious life, but what is experienced. The universal variety allows for an almost infinite number of different [variations] of God, from the Father Almighty to theoretical [human] abstractions. The Quaker’s particular variety strips the Gospel concept of God of dogma & outward sacra- ment to free the Spirit so that it could speak with equal authority at a later time.
A Resurgence of Interest—There is a resurgence of interest in the par- ticular variety of belief. John McCandless quoted from London Yearly Meeting Discipline of 1922: “To us (the unity of Christians) consists in the one Divine life that is reproducing in them the character of the historic Person, Jesus Christ; which, while it's something far deeper than any definition of His Person, is for Christians the final manifestation of the character of God Himself. Faith is not only a belief in truth but a surrender to truth.” [The universal variety’s position] represents to John McCandless a widespread and unparalleled dis- loyalty to Jesus Christ.
The modern, tolerant, scientific, undogmatic view of Christianity as one of the world's outstanding religions is untenable to John McCandless; he finds it impossible to know religious truth from the outside. He believes that to insist religion be tolerant or liberal means that we worship not God but tolerance or liberalism. He insists that the scientific attitude is maintained in invalid areas, & to unwarranted degrees, in order to indulge doubts that prevent man from coming to terms with Christ’s demands on him. Early Friends believed the New Testament’s original vision had been revealed to them; it was their responsi- bility to demonstrate it. McCandless said: If Quakerism is . . . Truth, then it is universal and inescapable; if it is not Truth, it ought to be laid down.”
The Inherent Risks—The first risk inherent in the particular variety of Quaker belief is of a rigid formalism, a narrow fundamentalism, and [too much] reliance on the past as the source of inspiration and achievement. The gravest danger is that [in trying] to live it one steps out of the popular current of religious thinking and takes a stand against the tide.
Clear distinctions can be seen between the universal and the particular. Universal emphasizes seekers & the search; particular emphasizes what has been found. Universal mainly looks for something new; particular is centered on something eternal. Universal is concerned with open choices; particular is con- cerned with the choice already made. Universal love is a general concept un- constrained by particular detail; particular love is delineated in the life and tea- chings of Jesus and in his relations with God.
The Clear distinction—For the universal attitude religious authority re- sides in the individual, the finite; for the particular attitude religious authority resides in Christ, God, the infinite. For the universal, Jesus is one among many prophets; for the particular, Jesus is the divine’s unique revelation. Free- dom to the universal means lack of constraint in doing what one chooses. Freedom to the particular means lack of constraint doing what God chooses.
A Third Group—[This group] acts to blur & blunt the distinguishing fea- tures and to keep the 2 varieties from clashing with each other, and to avoid another schism. It mitigates and restrains differences that cannot be reconciled. The third group is both a buffer and a sincere and earnest combination of both the universal and the particular. This group sees in Quakerism a reconciling power between Christianity and the other great world religions; it has its coun- terparts throughout much of modern Christianity.
Modern Quakerism thus proclaims 2 quite different beliefs, with a third group trying to draw them together. The resulting confusion is kept beneath the surface and is not openly acknowledged. It has been easier to bring the two together on a basis of common work [e.g. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)]. Many convinced Friends have come through the universal door. Many, having looked to the Quaker Meeting as a source of inspiration and deepened faith, pass beyond it to find fuller meaning elsewhere.
A Continuing Conversation—This, one of the most important problems facing modern Quakerism, is left to personal debate instead of being consi- dered soberly in public with concern for the sense of the Meeting & a minute to record it. The universal argument is that [when] the figure of Christ is a stum- bling block to someone seeking a religious faith, it is more important to remove the stumbling block than to obstruct one’s religious search.
Like Paul carrying the gospel to the Greek & the Roman world, the Society of Friends is reaching & nourishing the religious life of the unchurched against strong opposition within its own ranks. It is also better to set aside a Quaker testimony than to turn the seeker away, in the hope that one will grow into acceptance of it. Modern Quaker opinion holds that the wise thing is to stress the differences between Quakerism and traditional Christianity in order to keep from being swallowed up as just another sect. Another universal claim is that the importance of Jesus’ sayings depends solely on their undoubted truth and not on who set them forth.
An Anti-Christian Attitude—The motive behind western civilization’s & the universal’s anti-Christian attitude seems to be a desire to be free of Christian dispensation & discipline. Men’s and women’s historic faith is giving way under pressure from the great storm of secularism which has been brewing for almost 200 years. The most persuasive and misleading argument in this attitude is the claim that the Christian gospel must be tailored to fit the modern mind. Those giving way want to believe that they are breathing new life and vitality into a religion that has lost its appeal to the present generation, rather than that they are betraying the figure on the cross. Now that Robert Barclay’s interpretation (i.e. Barclay’s Apology) has been abandoned under the pressure of secularism, Quakers are free to indulge in imprecision to the full.
Butterfield’s Summary—Herbert Butterfield defends the view that the screen between God & man was torn & broken in the person of Jesus Christ, and that the divine stepped straight onto the stage and into the story. Christian religion’s central idea is that divinity is made incarnate in a personality more human than the human one. He makes it clear that if basic Christian beliefs seem out of keeping with the thought of the 20th century, there are grounds for believing they must have been equally anomalous to the Roman Empire.
Christians make a mistake if they fear scholarship or if they believe too readily its infallibility and competence. One of the terrible elements in history for Butterfield is the fact that the Church began a policy of persecution as soon as it was in a position to do so, and fought wars to preserve their persecuting power; this is a comment on human nature, rather than an argument against Christia- nity. Sometimes the Church fought bitterly when the world stood for [what turned out to be the right cause, later accepted even] by the clergy themselves.
Butterfield wonders how many generations it will take to heal the deep- seated & understandable resentments against [past Church abuses]. [Looking at] the intimate life of the Church, & the spiritual labor of humble men, he finds the most moving spectacle that history has to offer, [where charity abounds].
Secularism’s Advance and Openness to Truth—This discussion can't be understood without some attempt to explain the advance of secularism in western civilization. C.S. Lewis calls it “the unchristening of Europe.” Lewis is quick to add there are a great many Christians in the world today just as there were a great many skeptics in the past. But religious belief & practice was the norm; today, he believes it is the exception, & committed Christians in the minority. .
The unchristening of the West which has probably not yet reached its peak, underlines the need of the Society of Friends to bring the conversation between universal and particular out into the open. [Whether the universal path or the particular path is chosen], most friends want to have it grow from a common concern of the Society as a whole after the topic has been explored openly and at length.
About the Author—Dan Wilson is Director of Pendle Hill, where he has been on staff since 1950. He studied at Kansas Wesleyan University & Pacific School of Religion. In college he was active in Christian and Methodist groups. He joined Whittier Friends Meeting in California, [and was active in serving the meeting, CA YM, and 5 Years Meeting]. He is serving on AFSC, Friends World Committee, and Friends Central School.
[Introduction]—One day last summer as I was sitting at the surf’s edge with the tide coming in, there was an instant when it seemed all right to let the waves sweep over & dissolve me into the sea. There was [fullness of life] & a fresh awareness of everyone & everything. In a way, I had been gone for a lifetime, keeping watch on my conscious life’s journey, waiting to let life disclose itself rather than attack it with notions & questions.
PART ONE: [Kansas, Depression, and College]—Homemade haircuts & patched overalls made our poverty conspicuous; everything was confided in Jesus. He was strongly with me when I was sent, just out of high school, to hold revival meetings in Traer. I pled with them to take Christ into their own hearts. They praised God for sending them “Christ in this boy.” I began to believe them. One night in self-righteous anger I [denounced them]; the words were not from Christ. I despised them and myself and could not go back. I walked out on the prairie, cut off from Christ and myself.
In our small western Kansas community, vocational opportunities tended to stratify; [son followed father in the father’s occupation]. With the drought & the depression there was no work. Carrying a razor, harmonica and Bible wrapped in a change of clothing, I started walking to the nearest town, 20 miles away, feeling a sense of purpose. [I didn't hitchhike, but accepted rides]. After a few nights in Kansas City, my purpose in life became flight from Kansas City. I walked through the city out into a dreamed-of-field with haystack standing like home in the moonlight. I burrowed into one of them and slept until the sun was high.
In those months of wandering, I was seldom turned away from a farm- house. I worked when they would let me. At each place when I felt that I was becoming an object of charity, I set off again. Once when I was sick, dear people took me, a total stranger, into their home & offered to pay my bus fare home, but I could not accept. I sometimes felt I was not alone; I became less lonely when the God-thought occurred.
I was able to save enough money to go home. I got a job teaching in a 1-room country school: 12 pupils; 8 grades. I saw something of myself in them. Loving them was like reaching out to find the way in the dark. I was aware of caring as much about what would happen to someone else as for what might become of me.
A high school classmate telephoned my pastor to get me to his denomi- national college as quickly as possible if I wanted to come. Then began the absorbing, exciting life in college. I loved the faculty, the students, everyone, & they responded. [Hard times hit the farm], and Dad was losing his job. There seemed nothing for them to do but go to California to “to work the fruit.” When college was out in the spring, I went home. We sold everything we couldn’t carry on the car. We got to California in about a month and found work near Fresno. From daylight to dark we stooped to pick up fallen dried figs.
College was different that year. There was less spontaneous energy. Each full moment was hollowed by pangs of anxiety. We caught a fast freight for the west; I was injured nearly falling off the train. That summer, between fruit-picking jobs, I spent whole nights lying awake under the stars, feeling close to them, feeling most real then. I could feel the distant horizons of the earth to which I was bound merge with the infinite expanse of the stars.
The goal of our lives had been to climb into the advantaged class. Now, my ideals were focused on wresting the advantage from those who had it & giving it to those who didn’t. [On the last night of the college church revival, I remained standing with those weren’t “saved.” I no longer felt comfortable in the church]. I wanted to sweep it all away, to start again with the Truth, or with- out it. I wanted to be myself, to start over with freedom.
Fearlessly, I set out develop a rational proof that he did or did not exist, wanting the truth more than his survival. Rationalization cannot create Myth. It can be a preparation for rediscovering the truth of myth. The [inner] experience of reality is the truth communicated by the God Myth, which is a social product by which the person is able to picture and communicate the Truth he feels about creation.
Later, in graduate study, my perspective on the church and the Bible was greatly changed, but I remained disillusioned about finding a visible existing church in which to feel completely at home. William Law wrote: “In the present divided state of the Church, truth itself is torn and divided asunder. The only true catholic [has to have] more truth and less error than is hedged in any by any [one] divided part …Uniting in heart and spirit with all that is holy and good in all Churches, we enter into the true communion of saints and become real mem- bers of the Holy Catholic Church, though we are confined to the outward wor- ship of only one particular part of it.”
At the finish of college, [dealing with the] war took precedence over gra- duate study, or the promise to myself to help migrant farm workers. I disco- vered the Society of Friends around this time, too. I volunteered to work in the emergency peace program. I accepted assignment to civilian work of national importance. This compromise resulted in several years of diminished clarity with which to meet daily choices; there was a loss of motive power.
I tried to help John, a severely depressed Negro who had given up after years of therapy. I knew I had not reached him, but let him go alone for a pack of cigarettes; I never saw him again, alive. Critical study of the Bible had re- stored my devotion to this literature; it holds central importance for humankind. During the war, some of us moved our families to a cooperative farm project in an attempt to rebuild Christian community; after a year our economy broke down. [Then came a time of waiting]. Neither outward goal nor inward comfort was given, nothing but the necessity to wait.
I had been prepared for Europe’s devastation, but not the horror, suffer- ing, stupidity, evil, & hopelessness of humanity; I neither thought nor felt. Green shoots of hope began to grow again, [by watching rays of hope displayed by others.] Could this seed of hope be God? I don’t remember feeling joy or sorrow, only relief, peace, & devotion. As I continued to feel & respond with feeling, faces frozen with hopelessness sometimes melted.
I cared tenderly for the gift of hope. Here was the One true source of my life and being, who had dwelt with me all the while, but only half-way & intermit- tently recognized when projected onto an outer image. I marveled at the neces sity for projected images, such as Jesus, as preparation for seeing face to. face Jesus gives his character to the great gathering of the inwardly visible faces of everyone who has known the one God. Each of us holds the gift of the One who waits to be born into conscious life. Each one becomes the One in whom all ones are gathered. Discoveries during the 10 years at Pendle Hill have been increasingly in relationship with others. I sometimes feel Pendle Hill’s history in my own journey. Many journeys meet here. I think of it as a crucible in which we can be melted down to just what we are.
PART TWO—An enabling way prevails. I call it an opening way. The dis- cipline of keeping open to truth wherever it is given begins not with evidence alone, but with the hypothesis that truth is no respecter of persons or people. An open way is to follow the way one is given for one’s own. He who faithfully seeks knowledge of God will become aware that it was precisely the unfulfilled longing for [a group relationship with complete integrity] that led one into exile in the 1st place. In the flux and interaction of cultures, many an individual is left only partially rooted, and sometimes uprooted; one must turn within for survival.
There seems always to be a warring between those who emphasize the necessity to find the way back to the primitive soil, and those who stress the need to break through the overlaying crust, all the while remaining divided against their common enemy who wants no change. An opening way maintains a humility that comes from knowing it must ever be melted down by the fires of inner renewal, that it demands full-time vigilance & obedience. It cuts across all established lines of human organization.
Courage is required to trust the integrity of spontaneous response, whe- ther in anger or in affection. Child-like response leaves us more open to be present to others before the ever-ready stereotypes draw a curtain between us. The discipline of responding freely & of learning from the results is the way of openness. Contrary to the usual fear that commitment to spontaneity leads to rashness, the most spontaneous response becomes full attention.
Dedication to the moment purifies it and renews hope. The self-authen- ticating evidence the moments hold leads to a leap of faith that lights the path ahead. The sky’s-eye view sees our struggles as amazing, There! One has broken through for a moment. With what power the same fuel that has driven their fears and hate is transformed into the nuclear release of love. How tender is our maker to our times and condition. What perfect gifts of imagination and response, of being able to get up each day for a new beginning. How continu- ously we are sustained even though we so seldom & so half-heartedly acknow- ledge the fact.
What is real is God. I become real as God is born into consciousness. Presentations of reality in new consciousness have no words, only exclama- tions. We only come truly alive when we trust the winnowing power of our minds to bring the melding power of our feelings into open consciousness. The discipline of openness is one of the most difficult of all & the most deman- ding. It requires continuous attention. The self’s consciousness is the eyesight of the self that sees what is going on. It is the door way of God through which to see life. The self has many windows, all the ways of knowing and experi- encing. The door opens when we are open. [Most often], we are confined to our illusion of openness, & are shut off until our closed state comes into consciousness.
The return each day to remembering & not remembering gives the whole day its tone. Being present is like sitting at night in the house, turning off all the lights in order to see out; the split second before sleep, but staying awake; the flashback of life in the moment of expected death. It is that moment when all that is inward pours outward & meets all that is outward pouring inward. Con- templation moves conscious thoughts whole-ward. It joins the longing God- ward with longing human-ward. It keeps watch for humankind for new openings from love into faith and freedom.
114. How They Became Friends (by Howard Haines Brinton; 1961)
About the Author—This is Howard Brinton’s 12th Pendle Hill Pamphlet. He taught mathematics and physics as well as religion, Howard Brinton has been a professor or lecturer at Guilford, Earlham, Mills, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Woodbrooke. Howard Brinton was Director of Pendle Hill from 1936 to 1952.
PREFACE—The following essay's nucleus was an address delivered at Pacific YM. Though the 20th century differs radically from the 17th, the me- thods by which the Society of Friends is growing today do not differ much from those of the earliest time; their methods are still applicable. The results of the Quaker movement cannot be understood without reference to the inward experiences.
Silent effortless waiting with a mind completely open, not only to what may be heard within, but also to what may be hear from without, will direct the seeker toward his goal: to bring into harmony the springs of Life deep within and the routine affairs of outward life.
[Introduction]—The means by which a religious movement extends its membership largely determines the movement’s nature. From the Quaker movement’s outset in the middle of the 17th century, meetings for worship were worship were based on silence, [a silence sometimes, but not always broken by spoken words]. How can [this] religion be propagated? How can it be communicated to the public, & the next generation of its own members?
There was much that was highly dramatic in the early years of the Qua- ker movement. There was preaching in the streets, marketplaces, orchards, [& steeplehouses after the sermon]. There was incredibly stubborn but passive resistance to persecution. A careful scrutiny of early Quakerism shows that [these outwardly] spectacular events did not constitute the heart & core of the movement. Its real strength lay in the quiet inconspicuous growth of small meetings in homes, where sometimes only 3 or 4 waited upon God; often there was no speaking at all. This same method has produced many of the nearly 200 new meetings in America & others in Europe and Asia. [Less preaching means less dependence on words and the opportunity for cultivation of the inward life of the Spirit].
[Evidence of The 1st Publishers of the Truth]—Fortunately we have ample material on why & how people became Friends in the 17th century. There is an eyewitness account collection from nearly every meeting in England, called The 1st Publishers of Truth. There were also journals or spiritual autobio- graphies [of what happen after what Friends called convincement rather than “conversion,” which was often a lifelong process].
26 journals were published between 1689 & 1725; 14 appeared later. From 1652-1720, we have about 40 short accounts of the writers’ [gradual] acceptance of the Inward Light. Reports to London YM, 90 in number, came in slowly from 1680-1720. Study of journals & partial journals indicate that a majority of original Friends came into the movement by just the right combi- nation of both silence & preaching. There were many seeking souls who arrived at the Quaker position alone & later discovered the Quaker movement. It was the genius of George Fox that brought together into a coordinated whole the religious insights of many isolated individuals.
The early Quaker meetings [often] began with long silences. George Whitehead, who began travel in ministry at 16, wrote: “We had little preaching; our meetings, kept much & often in Silence. The Lord was pleased sometimes by his power & Word of Life, to tender & open my heart & understanding; he gave me now & then a few words livingly to utter.” Whitehead’s extraordinary struggles with the government was inspired by what he received in meeting for worship. Edward Burroughs wrote of long silences, [& that]: “Our tongues were loosed, & our mouths opened, & we spoke with new tongues as the Lord gave us utterance, & as his Spirit led us.”
From what Francis Howgill said, it would appear that “many hundreds” were drawn more by the spiritual power of silence than by speech. George Fox said: “To bring them to silence confounds their wisdom.” [John Burnyeat and Luke Howard said similarly that the workings and instruction of the Lord were clearly present in the silence]. Many early meetings were held in complete silence, a condition much dreaded by some Friends today.
[Examples of Propagating Quakerism]—The Cornwall meeting writes: “The 1st that came into the County was our ancient & faithful friend, George Fox, with Edward Pyott & William Salt; they were informed of [3 men] who received them thankfully.” Others came & meetings were in one home after another with the same group. Traveling Quakers, finding out by enquiry who these persons were, gathered them in some hospitable home. This continued to happened until a meeting was settled. Often the traveling Friends were directed to likely hosts by persons at a distance. John Roberts entertained & had meeting with 2 women Friends. When the bishop asked John Roberts if he went to Church, Roberts replied: “No, the church came to me”; this much confused the bishop.
Today a Friend might go into some town where by enquiring he could discover any interest in hearing the Quaker message. A social gathering or study group might prove to be the beginning of a settled meeting. In California there was an English Friend name Frederick Sainty. He was hunting out iso- lated Friends in areas where there was no meeting and getting them together. When we were collecting the group which eventually became Pacific YM, we made enquiries in many directions.
Quaker meetings, like all real organisms, generally start with a small germ cell. Welsh Quakerism met on a hill. Irish Quakerism began in William Edmondson's home There is evidence to show that when meetings were small, but large enough to fill the living room of a farm house, Quakerism was more vital than later when large meeting houses were built. Meetings will tend to remain small for several years before it begins to grow.
[Synthesis of Silence & Word]—True convincement requires a genu- ine synthesis of silent worship and the spoken word. John Gratton (1641-1712) wrote: “…Though few words were spoken, yet I was well satisfied with the meeting. And there arose a sweet melody, that went through the meeting, and the presence of the Lord was in the midst of us.” Richard Davies wrote: “The Word of the Lord … pierced through our inward parts, it melted and brought us into tears … I could have said the God alone was master of that assembly.”
[Another substitute for the word “conversion”] is tendering, which is to be made sensitive, open, not only to the leadings of the Spirit, and to the needs & conditions of other persons. Benjamin Bangs (1652-1741) said: “[Inwardly], I got to a sight of the possibility of obtaining [mastery over my own mind that] I was then deeply engaged for, & this answered the end of my coming to the meeting.”
How did those who “settled” the 1st meetings for worship them- selves come to Quakerism when there were no meetings? George Fox came as a result of his own insights. Many –not all—radical Puritans found that the doctrine of the primacy of the Holy Spirit and inward experience carried them fully into the Quaker movement. Fox was the organizing genius who suc- ceeded in devising a type of church government which prevented a religion based on inwardness from degenerating into anarchy.
Fox located a group of 9 “finders,” people who appear to have come to the Quaker position independently of Fox. The direct knowledge of God was all James Nayler needed become a Quaker. Richard Hubberstone “being already convinced of the blessed Truth, joined with what G. Fox had preached, & went abroad to some meetings.” Alexander Jaffray & Edward Chester arrived at Quakerism independently, Chester [being] “convinced of the blessed Truth by his own fireside as he sat alone.” All that several groups needed was a mes- sage from some prophetic personality to tell them what it was they were seeking & already finding. John Marshall records: “By John Audland’s powerful ministry, committed to him by the Lord, I was reached and turned to the Spirit of God.”
There was an extraordinary amount of printed material issued to con- vince the unconvinced and to defend themselves from their detractors. A rough estimate of the 1st 50 years would set the total number of copies distributed at between 2½ to 4 million, in spite of the fact that for most of that time the printing of Quaker literature was illegal. Samuel Crisp 1st believed all Quakers to be fools or madmen. He writes: “I cast my eye on Barclay’s works … I read Barclay, & there I found a light to break in upon my mind which did mightily refresh & comfort me … I left the communion of the Church of England, & went to Gracechurch Street Meeting.” Stephen Grellet and Jonathon Evans found William Penn’s “No Cross, no crown” to be a turning point in their lives.
Some were 1st drawn toward Quakerism by witnessing the patient en- durance of persecution by the early Friends. Oliver Sansom [believed in Qua- kerism], but feared to come out openly. He writes: “And now … many Friends being in prison … I could no longer keep back, or conceal myself: but a neces- sity came upon me to come forth, & show myself, & take my part & lot with the sufferers. Luke Howard & Samuel Fisher gave up singing as “a lie in me & a mock service to the Lord.”
Friends discovered they couldn’t sing words which didn’t describe what they felt. Friends had no objection singing in worship if the words genuinely expressed their feeling. Gharret van Hassen, a Dutchman was brought into Quakerism by a fervent prayer in a language he didn’t understand. Inviting visitors home to dinner after meeting is sometimes effective, though the motive should be one of hospitality
Most of those who “settled” the meetings were unlearned persons who could state the simple Quaker doctrine of the Inward Light in simple terms, with words that took effect after preparation through silent waiting. Early Friends found it convenient that they had learned members (Penn, Barclay, Fisher, Cla- ridge & others), to answer critics on theological grounds; this learning was of small advantage in winning adherents [to the Inward Light].
[Today’s Seekers]—Are there seekers in our country today, as there was in 17th England? Quakerism reached its numerical climax about 1800. [The decline that followed] was partly due to separations which afflicted other religious groups as well. Science in the 19th century at first appeared to be inconsistent with an inwardly directed type of religion. Leading Quaker sci- entists, among them Sylvanus P. Thompson, & Arthur S. Eddington, have poin ted out that science tends to reinforce Quakerism’s attitudes.
The laboratory replaced the church [and the Spirit within] as source of the most important truth. Science is a means for accomplishing certain ends, but it has nothing to say about what those ends should be, and it can deal with only a portion of human experience. The poet, the prophet, and the mystic have as certain [or uncertain] a road to their kind of truth as the scientists have to their kind of truth.
[During this time, there was also] recognition that man’s psychic life is only partly self-conscious, that beyond the threshold of consciousness there is a boundless deep which is of primary importance in forming character & life’s ultimate goals & meaning. [Deeper than the subconscious] is the One Life in which we all share, the Vine of which we are all branches. The unseen or my- stical world is a real world, since it produces real effects. [Both William James & Carl Jung] find God in the soul’s depths as the ultimate source of that power by which we are regenerated. [The Friends’] Inner Life of the Spirit is consistent with psychology’s most modern trends.
3rd, there is an important connection between Quakerism & the religions of Asia. Living from within out, as one follows one’s inner leading, rather than following the conventional opinions of society, produces everywhere [in the world] the same type of person. The above 3 tendencies do not by any means give a complete explanation of why there are so many seekers today. They want to bring into harmony the springs of Life deep within and the routine affairs of outward life. Silent effortless waiting with a mind completely open, not only to what may be heard within, but also to what may be hear from without, will direct the seeker toward his goal.
115. Mysticism and the experience of love (by Howard Thurman;
1961)
[About
the Author]—Howard
Thurman
(1899-1981) was a pastor
& pro- lific African-American author, writing 20
books on theology, religion, &
philo- sophy. His work,
Jesus &
the Disinherited (1949),
deeply influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. &
other Civil Rights Movement leaders, black &
white. Thurman mentored King,
his
former classmate's son &
his friends. He was
spiritual advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., A.
J. Muste,
&
Pauli
Murray.
In
1944,
he became co-pastor at San Francisco’s Church of the Fellowship of
All Peoples. This pamphlet is about the inner life's,
or mysticism's
religion. It is life affirming &
reaches its highest goal in love.
Mysticism—In 1929, I was a special student with Rufus Jones at Haver ford College. He gave me confidence in the insight that the inner life's religion could deal with man's empirical experiences without retreating from the de- mands of such experience. Our times may be characterized by a general loss of a sense of personal identity. There is a widespread disintegration of the mood of tenderness, [which hampers] our efforts to understand each other. It seems that togetherness as a muted mass hysteria is more and more a substi- tute for God; in the great collective huddle, we are lonely & frightened.
It is mysticism's insistence that there is within reach of everyone both a defense against the Grand Invasion & the energy for transforming it into com- munity. One can become at home within by locating in one’s own spirit the try- sting place where God can be met. I have sought a way of life that could come under the influence of & be informed by inner life's fruits, [& that could with- stand] the brutalities of the social order.
There are four groups of mystics:
a. Mystics in Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, who stand in a per-
sonal relationship to God. The attitude of response is an intensely
personal one.
express a relationship of personal response to an Infinite intellectu-
ally conceived. The attitude of response is one of contemplation.
c. Mysticism of the Light within, a knowledge from intuition, with a re-
lationship directed to a Divine Spirit regarded as resident within the
mystic. The response is one of obedience and confidence.
d. Those practicing the occult sciences, including communication
with the dead.
118. Visible Witness: A Testimony for Radical Peace Action (by
120. William Law: Selections on the Interior Life (ed. Mary
For our purposes, mysticism is the individual's response to a personal encounter with God within one’s own spirit. [For] the Society of Friends the witness in the world is the inner experience's outward expression. Mysticism may seem to be life-denying as over against life affirming. One of the great words in mysticism literature is detachment. A great emphasis is placed on silence, [to] “Be still and know I am God.” God’s presence may not become manifest until the traffic of the surface life is somehow stilled.
What then is it that the mystic claims was experienced? 1st, the reve lation makes no claim to be any private truth. 2nd, it doesn't claim any novelty; [it is] the rediscovery of the eternal. 3rd, the truth is to be won by impartiality, dispassionateness, sincerity, and a touch of reverence. 4th, whatever truth the mystics have come upon it is not any particular truth; [it is] “the whole wor- king essence ... the meaning of the whole.”
The mystic can't escape the necessity for giving some kind of “data con- tent” to the experience. [The form this content takes] reflects the religious, cul- tural, and social heritage in which one finds meaning. We are face to face with what is claimed to be a form of personal communion between two principals; human and God communicate. The mind insists that all experiences fall into order in a system of meaning. What the mystic experiences within must some- how belong to that which is without.
The integrity of the personal response does not rise or fall by the degree to which the response is verified from the outside. The mystic will see things, events, nature, & at a deeper level will see what was seen in the inner encoun- ter. The world now becomes pregnant with truth & literally God’s creation. The mystical experience is only life denying on the surface. It becomes in its most profound sense life affirming. I may be exposed to the vision of God’s purposes and participate in them in Life.
[The Experience of Love]—In experiencing God's love, one senses that one is being dealt with at a center in one’s self that goes beyond all of one’s virtues and vices. What one has experienced meets the deepest need of one’s life. The need to be understood is a total need of the personality. It is the need for love. 1st, it is necessary to distinguish between love as interest in another person [i.e. interest with ulterior motives] and love as intrinsic interest in another person [i.e. interest in the person for their own sake]. In Philippians, Paul writes: My prayer to God is that your love may grow more and more rich in knowledge and in all manner of insight that you may have a sense of what is vital, that you may be transparent and of no harm to anyone.”
For an intrinsic interest, there must be a sense of fact where other persons are concerned. The person is dealt with as the person is & in the light of the person’s life-details. A person’s fact includes more than plight, predica- ment, or need at a particular moment in time. It is something total which must include awareness of the person’s potential. The area of the other person’s fact is an expanding thing if such a person lives into life and deepens the quality & breadth of experience; this makes love between persons dynamic. So much goodwill in the world is [not intrinsic]. It is uninformed, ignorant goodwill. It does not seek facts.
Some interpreters of Christianity enjoin us to love humanity. To speak of the love for humanity is meaningless. [It is necessary to develop] acceptance of & openness towards others. By openness I mean inner climate or sensitive- ness to the awareness of others. Some who feel despised exaggerate self-love & become self-centered. There are some people who have the quality of “built-in awareness” of others as a talent or gift. How may such a quality be developed? There must be developed a sensitive & structured imagination.
We are accustomed to thinking of the imagination as a useful tool in the artist’s hands. But the place where the imagination shows its greatest powers as the angelos, the messenger, is when one is able to put one’s self in another one’s place. We make our imagination corrupt when it ranges only over our own affairs; [it magnifies our faults and can terrorize us. With imagination] we can make accurate soundings which when properly read, will enable us to be to them what we could never be without such awareness.
To be to another human being what is needed at a time of urgent need is to participate in the precise act of redemption. [Limitation], segregation works against the love ethic and is bound to make for an increase in ill social health. The sense of the person’s fact must be total. The individual is enjoined to move from the natural impulse to the level of deliberate intent. One has to bring to the center of one’s focus a desire to love one’s enemy.
Precisely what does taking the other’s total fact into account in- volve? One has to understand that [the “evil] deed”, however despicable, does not cover all that person is. Love means to place the particular deed in the perspective of the other’s life. If I could see this person in the person’s context and get to the real center of the person’s life, then I would be able to deal with the person in a wholesome and redemptive manner. If I can bring the person to self-judgment, then I must keep on loving and never give the person up. I wish to be dealt with in an inclusive, total, integrated manner [& need to do the same to others]. To love is the profoundest act of religion, religious faith & devotion.
Sometimes the radiance of love is so soft and gentle that the individual sees themselves with all harsh lines wiped away and all limitations blended with their strength such that strength seems to be everywhere and weakness is nowhere to be found. Sometimes the radiance of love blesses a life with a vision of its possibilities never dreamed of and never sought. It may throw in relief old and forgotten weakness which one had accepted; one may then expect love to be dimmed [if love is seen as] based upon merit and worth.
But love has no awareness of merit or demerit. Love holds its object se- curely in its grasp calling all that it sees by its true name. There is a robust vitality that quickens the roots of personality creating a self's unfolding that re- defines, reshapes and makes all things new. Whence comes this power [of love] which seems to be the point of referral for all experience & mea- ning? There is but one word by which its meaning can be encompassed— God. There is no thing outside ourselves, no circumstance, no condition, no unpleasant change in fortune, that can ultimately separate us from the love of God and from the love of each other.
116. The Candle, the Lantern, the Daylight (by Mildred Binns Young;
1961)
About the Author—Mildred Binns Young was born in Ohio and attended Friends schools and Western Reserve University. She lived for some years at Westtown School, where Wilmer Young was Dean of Boys. The Youngs then lived in the South, working under American Friends Service Committee for 19 years; 4 pamphlets came out of the experience. The present pamphlet was given at the 1961 Mid-Winter Institute. From 1955-1960 they were in residence at Pendle Hill.
If the soul knows God in His creatures, that is only evening light; if it knows His creatures in God, that is morning light; but if it knows God as He who alone is Being, that is the clear light of midday.” Meister Eckhart
Grateful for the candle, grateful for the lantern, & grateful for daylight, I rejoice in the possibility of sunrise—yes in the hope—yes, in the expectation of it. Mildred Binns Young
[The Candle]—A woman rose before dawn; she used a candle to light a fire in the stove and prepare for breakfast. She lit a lantern to draw water. She moved about her tasks without noticing that dawn had come; suddenly she found she was working in the light. We can begin the days work by candlelight or lantern light, and go on with it in the daylight. In my life, the candle was tradi- tion; the lantern was the vision of human need. The daylight is seeing every- thing in relationship, rather than just one thing lit by candle or lantern. It is seeing beyond the room, the space the candle or lantern is in.
I grew up in a primitive, mid-western, Wilburite [Quaker] meeting. My first conscious recollection of meeting is of being on “the men’s side” of the meeting when the partitions were being drawn down to divide the two sides during the separate men’s and women’s meeting for business. Even though I was a sometimes rambunctious child, I knew how to enjoy quiet from an early age.
All work was set aside for mid-week meeting; [the whole community ga- thered], with older Friends & the likely speakers seated in the gallery facing us. The silence was profound even with us children there, while the worka- day, weekday world went about its business outside. Scriptures were repeated, not often interpreted, but enjoyed and revered as having meaning for our lives.
The speaking of a Psalm in a sermon was the nearest thing to set prayer we had. Our grace at home was silence; Scripture was read daily. We never discussed Scriptures either at home or at school; there was no 1st Day School. Scriptures meaning could only be opened [by the Inward Teacher not by a outward one]. True prayer can arise only from the inward pressure of the Divine on the soul; prayer was always called supplication. The addressing & suppli- cating voice would ascend, drawing down the Presence to hover close above our heads.
We were often exhorted in the Jesus’ words, & his parables & the inci- dents of his life & death. I don't recall any interpretation, any explanations about Jesus. We didn't know hymns or use pictures much. We didn't see the usual representations of Christ in stained glass or other images. [There may have been little instruction], but I still remember the way in which religion was put before us, and the central place it occupied. [I was a voracious reader of available literature, which was mainly religious but surprisingly did not include the Bible].
By 1918, I was ripe for all kinds of rebellion. I had access to a good library, & my reading branched in all directions. During a shaking of foundation, a tradition such as mine can make one capable of holding all new things in solution, & judgment in abeyance, until something that is real for oneself pre- cipitates out of the mixture. Iqbal, a Muslim poet wrote: “Go thou thy father's road, for therein lies/Tranquility; conforming connotes/ The holding fast of Community… Carefully preserve/ Thy own thin rivulet; for it may hap/ Some mountain torrent shall replenish thee/ … to be once more…upon the breast/ of the redeeming tempest.”
[The Lantern]—After tradition’s guiding & staying function, the lantern —vision of human need—came to hand. In my 3rd decade, my life was joined to one who understood his service to God as service to others. Such love was not a natural attitude for me. In the end it was the poor who were to be my tea- chers, & while I was beginning to learn, the knowledge of their need was a lan- tern in my hand. In Kentucky, in 1932, I got to know towns full of families whose houses the depression and unemployment had stripped of all but the last necessities.
By 1936, the depression, the work camp idea, and Gandhi’s ideas had flowed together into 1 current which brought us to leave our comfortable place in life and undertake the conditions of intentional poverty for almost 20 years. I learned that the hand that gives must touch the hand that receives. [Nowadays, most giving is such that] neither donor nor recipient is nourished at the heart. Whenever we deal with each other as objects, an absence of relationship arises. [We have an ongoing] debt toward other life. We can never give enough to be rid of it. God must have given the suffering of this close interde- pendence so that we may learn that we are not alone. [I disliked visiting just to visit]. [A Dr. Johnson said in a book]: “It is showing them respect; that is doing them good.” It is easy to waste time but hard to be generous with it.
[The Daylight]—When daylight comes the different things in a room [are seen all together], fall into relationship and take on perspective. Rabbi of Kotsk said: “God is wherever man lets him in.” [We hesitate to open the door]. We are like a child who hangs back from a stranger who offers an exotic gift.
I feel easier when we use the word “God” for that which we feel & know as present and operative in our own lives & throughout the Universe. [Like the Indian “OM,” I see our word GOD as a sacred syllable; any other word limits]. The essential thing is not to make for ourselves images of a small, constricted, insufficient, or national, or sectarian God. Many of us need a personal God; this need is met and yet God is not limited by it. Howard Brinton has said that the personal God is that face of God that is turned toward us. [Dionysus has said that It is many things to many people]: Cause; Origin; Being; Life; recalling Voice and raising Power; Power of Renewal and Reform; Sacred Grounding; upward Guidance; Illumination; Perfection; Deity; and Unity.
The beginning of prayer is praise and the beginning of worship is thanks- giving. How hard we find it to praise without petition, and give thanks without stipulation. [Even the Psalms cant maintain] pure praise [& thanksgiving] for more than a few sentences. The notable exception is [the 5 verses of] Psalm 100. Yet we are entitled & bound to cry out for help out of our state of [spiritual poverty]. Why does God deal so gingerly with some [who need the disci- pline of suffering and deal blow after blow on those who seem to not need it]? I simply have to leave all questions [like this one] alone; they are beyond my ability to understand.
[The Lord’s Prayer, taught to us by Jesus,] is that great, stark, packed prayer, [so often said] in hurried & indifferent concert. It is the central jewel on the chain of Christian prayer. It acknowledges & asks for [Side-by side relation- ship with a still-transcendent power, in hallowed hearts, on hallowed ground, which when lived in brings God’s reign, provides daily necessity, maneuvers us through temptation, & delivers us from over-powering evil].
[Conclusion]—The teachings of Jesus are the paving blocks of the way I must try to walk. I haven't learned to identify this Jesus with the inward wit- ness, [or with God]. But my whole being echoes with Peter in saying, “Lord to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” I know that the ideal is out of my reach, that the commands even so far as I understand them are beyond my capacity for obedience. I follow a long way off, because I know nothing better. [Whatever sin is], the sense of sin is transcended in those reaches of prayer where God is no longer besieged or beseeched by us, but is fully, [simply], met.
I found out there is one single thing that one can have without limit and not deprive anyone else—the love of God, God’s Presence. The more insatiably I could take into myself, the more of it there would be available for all. The more I might dwell in God’s Presence, the more God would be present also for others. [I now believe that] the set time is the practice of prayer; beyond it lies the un- ceasing gift of prayer. And by using prayers written or spoken by others and learned by heart we root them in ourselves; when the heart is unable to open toward God, these prayers can act as keys. Once the heart is open, it finds its own words until that moment comes when it needs none.
Grateful for the candle, grateful for the lantern, & grateful for daylight, I rejoice in the possibility of sunrise—yes in the hope—yes, in expectation of it.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
117. Conscience (by Wilhelm Mensching; 1961)
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
117. Conscience (by Wilhelm Mensching; 1961)
About the Author/ INTRODUCTION—Wilhelm Mensching, a German pastor, is known for his consistent opposition of the National Socialist movement in Germany, and for his work at Freundschaftheim, and international training center for peace workers.// [I can picture Wilhelm Mensching at Freundschaft- heim]. To adequately feel the moral and political weight of these words, you need to have some idea of the life out of which this “grain” & these roses grew. My 1st meeting with Wilhelm Mensching took place in early August 1947. George Hogle managed to get me across Occupied Germany to Bückeberg, and then Petzen village to the west. Jews and Germans, British & American soldiers found refuge here at the parsonage.
The British took over the German colonies in Africa, and interned Men- sching as a young missionary. It was during his imprisonment that Mensching learned about the teachings and work of Gandhi. When the opportunity came Wilhelm Mensching joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He never compro- mised his Christian and pacifist convictions, & never had hate in his heart for anyone. He said: “When you come [into a] dark room, you do not curse the darkness; you light a candle.”
He once told me that of all the men he knew who had been pacifists before the Hitler persecutions set in, only those whose wives shared their conviction and stood by them had remained firm. In this pamphlet, you are listening to the voice of a conscience incarnate. [All those] interested in the acts of a modern apostle, should read this pamphlet. A. J. Muste
Freedom of conscience is inviolable—[This statement is declared in Article 4 of the West German constitution]. The OT speaks repeatedly about conscience. In the NT Paul in particular refers to it and reminds others of it. In Germany, Britain, the US and other Anglo-Saxon countries [the rights of conscientious objection are protected by law]. Special boards examine each case of refusal to do military service to determine whether the refusal is based on conscientious grounds.
It is often not at all easy to judge the conscience of another man, espe- cially a young man who has not learned how to express himself clearly, or how to be clear on the questions: Why does the same man’s conscience judge differently at different periods in his life? Is mistaken conscience inviolable? Do I have the right to obey my conscience unconditionally? What should my attitude be when my conscience is not clear and I must nevertheless make an important decision?
What is conscience?—Conscience is a man’s inner ear for the voice which tells him what he should do [and not do], what the pattern and purpose of his life should be; the voice is something quite different from conscience. So- crates, the Shambala tribe in East Africa, people in India hear this voice. Paul was convinced that even the “heathen” have a conscience; “their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them.” A man from the Ewe tribe in West Africa wrote in a similar vein.
The ability to hear the voice of truth, or humanity, of the moral law is not dependent on membership in a religious community nor on belief in God. Fridtjof Nansen was impelled by his conscience to leave the Church, and the voice of human brotherhood drove him to work at repatriating prisoners of war, aid refugee & assist millions of starving people in Russia after WW I.
During both world wars and in between I have met men [on 4 continents]: capitalists, communists, colored, white, non-Christian and Christian. There were conscientious and those seemingly without conscience in all groups. [I relent- lessly opposed National Socialism]. It was not true that the Nazis with whom I dealt had no stirrings of conscience. Even Himmler, at least in some cases was not deaf to the voice which [our conscience hears]. Among the reasons for support or opposition, conscientious scruples may also play a role. Con- sciences will differ and stand in direct opposition one to another.
Why does conscience lead to such different decision?—Martin Lu- ther was compelled by his conscience to attack the Church [and refuse obedi- ence to the Emperor]. He declared: “It is not right to act against one’s consci- ence. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” The English Lord Chancellor, Thomas More said: “For the sake of my conscience this is one of the situations where I am obliged to disobey my sovereign.” Conscience for- ces men like Albert Schweitzer, the “Göttingen 18” (German physicists) and thousands of experts in all nations as well as many other men and women to oppose the testing and use of nuclear weapons.
Conscience often leads to different decisions in different men, even con- scientious men. Even in the same man it often happens that conscience judges differently in different times of his life, & even takes a position opposite of an earlier one. As the inner ear of man, conscience is just as subject to error as his physical ear. No conscience possesses the ability to perceive all the appeals of truth or of God, or the whole truth or message of the voice of humanity or of reason.
[Conscience’s hearing may be selective, hearing clearly the appeal of one concern, while failing to hear other calls]. It can grow hard of hearing, fall asleep, degenerate & become deaf. We cannot rely with complete confidence on our conscience. Through parents, church, state, party, or traditional culture, a child is given a dubious substitute for the voice which tells him through his conscience what is good and what is evil.
Why do we have a conscience?—Socrates, Jesus, and Luther were driven to oppose the recognized religion of their world, and to oppose officials of the state [and of religion]. Socrates & Jesus were both executed; Luther was outlawed and excommunicated. But in this way their consciences found peace. Other conscientious men have become pioneers against injustice, inhu- manity and evil customs. They obeyed the voice speaking through their consci- ences, standing often quite alone in their community. We have been given a conscience so that we can hear a voice which wants more than strict obser- vance of the rules valid in our community. We have a conscience so that we will remain alert and sensitive to truth, justice, reason, morality, or God.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” published by the UN speaks of humankind's conscience which is deeply outraged by “acts of barbarism.” The history of humankind shows again and again how men have been led by the voice in their conscience to recognize injustice, inhumanity and evil customs, and to replace them with justice, humanity, and a good way of life.
How has conscience functioned in the course of history?—Jesus & his apostles worked against the war that threatened to break out between their people & “heathens” (Romans). The Christians of neither nation took part in it. [In the 1st 3 centuries], most Christians were conscientious objectors. But the conscience of the Christians toward war & military service gradually fell asleep when Christianity became a state religion. Mennonites, Quakers, & Church of the Brethren are the remaining historical peace churches.
Following the French Revolution, poets, philosophers, & clergy began to glorify war in Germany. Victor von Straus und Torney complained that “Enthu- siasm for war again spreads a new cover over our consciences & smothers them more & more,” & that “a vulgar practical materialism poisons the German mind & here lames & there stifles its spiritual interests… All nations are forced to confront each other with clenched fists… Strict military discipline & subordi- nation have penetrated into those areas where they are really immoral and tend to destroy and ruin both character and mind.”
The Japanese Uchimura became the warning prophet of his nation. As a result of refusing to go along with the nationalist spirit, he suffered contempt & deprivation. He wrote: “I too, sometimes preached [for the madness of war]. But it was the most stupid trash. The advantages of war can't compensate for its damages. There was probably never a war that achieved its purpose. A nation in which no voice is raised against war is an uncivilized, a barbaric nation… One war always leads to another … There's no greater contradiction than saying you are waging war for the sake of peace… If you make room for war then Christi- anity collapses completely … The blessing promised by the prophets rests upon those who rise against war.
Fridtjof Nansen wrote: “The world is filled with hate, envy and mistrust between individuals, between classes, between countries… War can bring no healing, no salvation. It may well eradicate a threatening illness. But in its place it creates the germs of 10 new maladies. [To end war], we must destroy the bridges behind us which lead us back to old politics and old systems.”
Walther Rathenau was minister for reconstruction after WW I & foreign minister. He wrote: “If we do not act as our conscience prompts, it will weigh heavily upon us. The souls of the slain demand reconciliation for God’s glory… It will be the noblest & proudest moment when we give up hate & grief, every tear & every wound, all death & all revenge, [& start to heal, comfort & rebuild]. On that day God’s Kingdom will come nearer to earth… If we are worthy we'll experience it; if we aren’t worthy of it our children won't experience it either.”
After the death of her son in the war, Käthe Kollwitz, the German artist wrote: “Has the youth of all these countries been deceived? Has it been mass madness? We must never forget the war. We must all pay for our guilt… When I know that I am working with an international community against war I have a sense of warm, intense satisfaction… Every war has a counter-war in its pocket. Every war is answered by another war… Pacifism is not the role of a calm spectator, but work, hard work.” More and more responsible statesmen and military men warningly declare today that in this nuclear age there is no longer any possibility of victory or defense of a people; [war has become indiscriminate mass murder and suicide].
What does conscience need today?—Often the awakening of a single conscience has led to formation of a public conscience against what had not been previously recognized as inhumanity. [Awakening] causes some parts of one’s nature, previously idle to be used more & more. Are we today on the way towards a public conscience against war & its preparation? The voice of humanity, of truth, or of God, speaks to each man personally. Every- one has in one’s conscience an ear for the personal call. How much re- sponsibility can the rulers assume over our consciences, and how much obedience can they demand?
Conscience today needs clarity & knowledge about [all things military]. It needs careful cultivation and training of its capacity to hear in order to be able to distinguish sharply the voice of God, truth, humanity, morality, and reason from other voices. What kind of conscience to I want to have & associate with? Many consciences today need the help of companions who constantly practice listening to the voice of humanity, of truth or God. We can't expect infallible clarity from men, even such conscientious men as Martin Luther and Thomas More. We have in our own conscience, the possibility of turning directly to the voice within. Our conscience needs to turn aside from all the din of [other] voices.
After [hearing] the clear directing voice must come obedience to its direc- tions in the world itself. If we receive advice or command in our conscience we must test it in life. Whoever doesn't runs into the danger of excusing & glos- sing over & accustoming himself to barbaric acts. [A conscientious objector tests with life itself the admonition not to take part in war and its preparation. One tests whether it was really the word of truth.
In what direction is conscience leading us today?—Socrates let him- self be led by this voice [in the midst of the oppression by the 30 tyrants]. He walked among 30 tyrants as a free man. God led this man, who tested in life what he had heard in his conscience, along a difficult but good path, which was good for others as well as himself. He met his execution with a “good” conscience.
Jesus nurtured very carefully his relationship with this voice. He called it not only God, but Father. Jesus didn't let the question whether or not his people should be prepared for war be answered by the people’s voice, nor by the high priests and rulers. He sought, in solitude, for enlightenment from the Father. Jesus destroyed the bridges leading to old politics, and sought for volunteers for service in the cause of peace. Jesus armed his community with such inner strength that it needed no military weapons for defense or for expansion.
Gandhi called Jesus a “prince among politicians,” [& was a follower of conscience, a listener] to the voice of God or of truth. The voice never directed him to [prepare for violence]. It showed him in every situation non- violent political means & ways. Gandhi became a statesman who destroyed the bridge leading to the usual political course. Today we need more urgently than ever a statesmanship without weapons. What can and should con- science do for us in the future? Close to us in our conscience is a wise counselor, a Friend, and a Father.
118. Visible Witness: A Testimony for Radical Peace Action (by
Wilmer J. Young; 1961)
About the Author—Wilmer Young, born in the Conservative Quaker community in Iowa, attended [Quaker schools throughout his education]. He taught 4 years at Olney Friends Boarding School at Barnesville, Ohio, ending with 12 years at Westtown School in PA. From 1936-55, he, his wife M. B. Young, & their 3 children worked with white & Negro sharecroppers & tenant farmers in MS & SC. For 5 years, Young taught nonviolent methods of dealing with race, poverty, & war at PH. He is now working at Peace Action Center in Washington, D.C.
About the Author—Wilmer Young, born in the Conservative Quaker community in Iowa, attended [Quaker schools throughout his education]. He taught 4 years at Olney Friends Boarding School at Barnesville, Ohio, ending with 12 years at Westtown School in PA. From 1936-55, he, his wife M. B. Young, & their 3 children worked with white & Negro sharecroppers & tenant farmers in MS & SC. For 5 years, Young taught nonviolent methods of dealing with race, poverty, & war at PH. He is now working at Peace Action Center in Washington, D.C.
[Omaha Action: Path to Jail]—I was asked to explain how I found my- self in jail on July 6, 1959, [since I had never been there before]. It came after years of travail of spirit. I had written to my 3 children that I was going to help protest missile site construction. [The protest project was called] Omaha Action. There was a public meeting, but in spite of advertising, only about 30 people were there, & ½ of them were from our group. Reporters stressed that very few Omaha people attended. The small Omaha Friends Meeting did what they could to help us throughout our stay.
One part of our group walked from Lincoln 40 miles to the Mead Ord- nance Base; another group was walking 30 miles from Omaha. I was errand boy [& quartermaster] for the Omaha contingent, and in charge of finding them places to sleep. One night when I could not find a place the owners would allow us to sleep in, we ended up on a railway right-of-way. The night at both camps passed with only minor disturbances. On the 3rd day, the groups converged & completed their march to the base, near the missile site.
The Mead Ordnance Base is 26 miles2.. A shelter for 2 guards was set up after we came. At a group meeting, each person gave their decision as to what actions they would be taking. I surprised myself by saying I planned to offer civil disobedience. I was quite calm about it. & I never regretted it; it was completely new to me. Construction was in the early stages, and the crew was probably less than 100.
The Mead Ordnance Base is 26 miles2.. A shelter for 2 guards was set up after we came. At a group meeting, each person gave their decision as to what actions they would be taking. I surprised myself by saying I planned to offer civil disobedience. I was quite calm about it. & I never regretted it; it was completely new to me. Construction was in the early stages, and the crew was probably less than 100.
We were conscious that, in this situation, we were only protesting. We couldn't find a way to suggest that we had a positive program in mind, calling for the strengthening of the United Nations, making use of the World Court, & stu- dying nonviolent resistance to evil & training for its use. We couldn't talk to the workers; leaflets were of limited effectiveness; & the local papers, churches, radio, & TV, were all closed to us. The only way we could see to get our mes- sage to the people was to dramatize our protest by getting arrested for illegal entry.
[Civil Disobedience, Jail, & Courtroom]—We had meeting for worship right before 3 of us went in. After the meeting A. J. Muste preached a pacifist sermon to the 50 or so onlookers. There were 30 Air Force officers & a Federal Marshall. The rest of us could be arrested for using Federal land without per- mission [but were not]. Muste & 2 others climbed over the gate, and were in- formed by the Air Force officers that the penalty for entering was 6 months in prison & a $500 fine. They gently but firmly led them out and shut the gate. The 3 again climbed over again, were arrested and taken to jail.
My date for action was July 6. My partner in the action & I wrote state- ments for our reasons for offering civil disobedience. Someone tried to stamp on my toes as I headed for the fence. When I turned around on the other side, they were lying on the ground; the rumor was that I had been violent & pushed him. My partner and I entered twice and were taken to a "tank" in the Omaha jail. There were only the 5 trespassers in the tank. The judge gave us 6 months & a $500 fine with sentence suspended & 1 year probation; one defendant said he could not accept probation. When arrested again he was sent to prison; we were warned there would be no leniency.
I decided that I could not accept probation; I wrote the Judge a letter. I said that my life ending in a war is of small moment. But I had children and grandchildren that deserved the same opportunity for life I had. I desired to make a maximum protest against the unnecessary descent of mankind into oblivion. I believed that this protest requires me to spend this time in prison.
I decided that I could not accept probation; I wrote the Judge a letter. I said that my life ending in a war is of small moment. But I had children and grandchildren that deserved the same opportunity for life I had. I desired to make a maximum protest against the unnecessary descent of mankind into oblivion. I believed that this protest requires me to spend this time in prison.
There come times when action is essential to break through the hard crust of inertia & custom. On July 21, I was arrested again at the Mead Base for violating probation. I was questioned by the Chief Probation Officer why we didn't do educational work instead of making people angry and excited. I told him the very fact that he knew nothing about the writing & lecturing on peace that had been going on for years was a clear indication that other methods were needed.
[Jail and Courtroom again]—My next 6 days with 34 other men in a "tank" designed for 32 was not as pleasant as the previous internment; a young man, Arthur Harvey, was with me. No one gathered round to hear our experi- ence, looked us in the eye or greeted us unless we spoke 1st in this crowded, 2-story, 16 x 50 feet cell block. After 6 days & nights, a few showed signs of seeing some light on pacifism, & many had become friendly, but I saw more clearly than ever how deep is the hold of the military mind in our country.
Getting letters was a tremendous help, but many received none, & I felt sympathy for them. The other men here were relatively young and were in for offences like forgery, robbery, sexual crimes and murder. The prison system is an arm of a larger system which protects the rich at the expense of the poor. There is a place for protesting the cruelties of prisons, but I was protesting against the missile base & trying to bear witness to a way of life that renoun- ces war.
When I was called before the Judge, he asked questions he knew the an swer to, & said he would continue me on probation, even though I had refused compliance with the terms of probation. At another vigil at the base, someone told me I would not be arrested. I would have to enter the Base a 3rd time to force the hand of the Judge, and go to prison. 3 of us decided to spend 10 days making our decisions.
I sought advice from Paullina Meeting (IA), and my son, who had spent 3 years in Civilian Public Service and a year in Federal prison for refusing to regi- ster for the military draft. In the end I refrained, largely because of my wife's strong feeling against a repetition of the illegal action in the circumstances. I am inclined to feel that both Marj's decision and mine were right for ourselves. Her protest made far more impact than mine. It may be pure rationalization on my part to think that what little impact mine made wouldn't have increased much by actually serving 6 months in prison.
[Heart-searching and Making Decisions]—When we went to work in the South, from a good and happy position to a seemingly very precarious one, the decision was made only after several years of heart-searching, discussions with friends, and many prayers for light and guidance. One has to seek in the deepest spiritual levels that one knows for the answer, which may not come immediately, but rather as it did at Omaha, because the time for decision has come. [In light of the bomb dropping on Hiroshima, & Jesus saying] "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword," [I felt that in that method lies destruc tion]. If as a people, we didn't recognize we had reached a dead end, we were going to perish.
I remember a quotation from a New Yorker story, a father speaking to a son going off to war: "I've wasted my life. I'm an old man and alone and my son has gone to war and all I did was pay rent and taxes ... I should have been out screaming on street corners. I should've grabbed people by their lapels in trains, in libraries, and in restaurants & yelled at them, "Love, understand, put down your guns, remember God ..." This is much the same as I felt at Abbeville, SC in 1945. Although a few saw [what I saw and felt what I felt] and worked at it, not enough did, & the mighty of the earth didn't. They thought you have to fight fire with fire, & resist evil with more evil. So America, which might have led the way, led the way toward doom.
[Direct Action for Peace]—The people who believe that there are other, [nonviolent] ways of solving international conflict have worked hard. How are we to get to the people, with an urgency that will shake them out of com- placency, & with a poignancy that will pierce the wall of stereotyped ideas? It was in answer to this question that Direct Action for Peace began. [Beginning in 1957, early actions included] illegal entry to an atomic bomb testing area (Las Vegas), sailing into forbidden waters of nuclear bomb tests that were being carried out (Pacific Islands), and protesting the building of a missile base (Cheyenne); Omaha Action was in 1959.
I remember a quotation from a New Yorker story, a father speaking to a son going off to war: "I've wasted my life. I'm an old man and alone and my son has gone to war and all I did was pay rent and taxes ... I should have been out screaming on street corners. I should've grabbed people by their lapels in trains, in libraries, and in restaurants & yelled at them, "Love, understand, put down your guns, remember God ..." This is much the same as I felt at Abbeville, SC in 1945. Although a few saw [what I saw and felt what I felt] and worked at it, not enough did, & the mighty of the earth didn't. They thought you have to fight fire with fire, & resist evil with more evil. So America, which might have led the way, led the way toward doom.
[Direct Action for Peace]—The people who believe that there are other, [nonviolent] ways of solving international conflict have worked hard. How are we to get to the people, with an urgency that will shake them out of com- placency, & with a poignancy that will pierce the wall of stereotyped ideas? It was in answer to this question that Direct Action for Peace began. [Beginning in 1957, early actions included] illegal entry to an atomic bomb testing area (Las Vegas), sailing into forbidden waters of nuclear bomb tests that were being carried out (Pacific Islands), and protesting the building of a missile base (Cheyenne); Omaha Action was in 1959.
[There is an unspoken agreement in the press to self-censor], especially educational, unremarkable material. Some of our group had come to Omaha intending to commit civil disobedience; I had not. To be arrested for trespassing, as I was at Omaha, is not something to do lightly. The reason given for making instruments of war [at bases like Mead] has been to save lives. There seems no reason to suppose that this form of rescue will be more successful in the future than it has been.
A minister suggested that the only thing we can do is pray for peace. I believe in prayer, but I believe God gave me my capabilities, so I might help God in God's purposes. If war comes, it will be a punishment for our sins: pre- paring for war; doing nothing to try to prevent it. The whole tenor of Jesus' tea- ching condemns war, though not explicitly. His denunciations of wrong-doing on the part of men were so profound, searching, specific and often-repeated that he was crucified for them. What impact had Jesus had on the great and powerful and influential of his day? Immediate success is not the only criterion.
[Fort Detrick Vigil/ Pentagon Vigil/ The Walk]—After Judge Robinson made it clear that I could go my own way, I often joined the Vigil at Fort Detrick, protesting against biological warfare research. Studies for disease prevention are also made at Fort Detrick; both are under army control. We advocated ha- ving the installation become a World Health Center under civilian control, sole- ly for disease prevention research.
This Vigil lasted for 21 months, & has been succeeded by the Peace Action Center in Washington; it was a spiritual experience. I came to see that many of those working at Fort Detrick, like me, were troubled about their lives, wishing they were more loving, could see more clearly what they ought to do. Others were convinced they were right, & puzzled that anyone should think the opposite. Others simply had good jobs & were raising their families comfor- tably. Why worry? Others were angry [at the interference of strangers in their lives; mind your own business].
The Pentagon Vigil organized by the Friends Coordinating Peace Com- mittee in November 1960 gave a tremendous lift to the peace action movement. 1,000 Friends stood in the line during the 2-day Vigil. I hope that it is only the 1st of many such visible witnesses for their peace testimony on the part of the Society of Friends. A Walk for Peace began on December 1, 1960 from San Francisco across the US & Europe to Moscow.
My part, aside from some speaking, was chiefly to give advance notice to the press & radio stations, find hospitality, & clean up afterward. The Walk got good coverage in most of the towns & medium-sized cities; the same can't be said for large cities. We were urging our government to take the initi- ative in disarmament. It was this radical approach, which is criticized by many pacifists as well as non-pacifists, that this group felt needed to be made now.
The Walk, was extremely interesting & sometimes exciting. Constantly in motion & in new places daily, we were often joined by other people who felt strongly about peace. Some walked with us for a few hours, or a few days. Oc- casionally one would stay for reasons that were difficult to determine. Some- times such people were a handicap. Perhaps we ought to include training for [temporary or long-term outside joiners]. The core group of walkers was made up of clear-headed, dedicated, articulate people. It was an unusual form of public witness for peace, carried out with considerable imagination & courage, & with almost unbelievable energy.
It was also a prime opportunity for communication. Literally millions of people heard it mentioned on TV or radio. [Slightly fewer] heard broadcasts of interviews with the walkers. Several thousand attended expositions & dis- cussions of our positive program. Some had never heard pacifism intelligently discussed, or had any idea that people exist who believe that the world could live without war; we pacifists have been talking among ourselves too long.
More discipline within the group & more training in advance might have strengthened the witness by deleting certain irrelevant & contradictory fea- tures of it; we learn by experience. The appeal for disarmament & for the buil- ding of a world that renounces using war to settle disputes is a more difficult thing to get at than pleading directly for personal, civil rights. We need pro- jects that are more clear cut, more understandable, and with more obvious meaning, than any we have yet had.
[Reaching the General Public/ Changing Public Opinion]—What is the process of arousing public opinion? of getting laws changed? We can print our pacifist ideas, but we don't reach the general public. We need ingenuity to get our message to the general public & to centers of policy-making. Friends of the 17th century simply refused to obey laws that forbade them to meet for worship as well as other laws; [they suffered for it] & they succeeded in chan- ging laws. It is hard to make resistance to war as clear [as the issues they faced] & the resistance they offered. A refusal to serve is an invisible witness, & does little to communicate with others or convince them. We need to find powerful vetoes that are available to every person, & are visible, with meanings so clear that anyone can get their point.
[Reaching the General Public/ Changing Public Opinion]—What is the process of arousing public opinion? of getting laws changed? We can print our pacifist ideas, but we don't reach the general public. We need ingenuity to get our message to the general public & to centers of policy-making. Friends of the 17th century simply refused to obey laws that forbade them to meet for worship as well as other laws; [they suffered for it] & they succeeded in chan- ging laws. It is hard to make resistance to war as clear [as the issues they faced] & the resistance they offered. A refusal to serve is an invisible witness, & does little to communicate with others or convince them. We need to find powerful vetoes that are available to every person, & are visible, with meanings so clear that anyone can get their point.
In my lifetime, a small minority changed widespread opposition to WWI, beginning with "Preparedness Parades," & working on & through Congress. Conscription was made law with probably 90% of the people opposed. Sud- denly, hardly anyone was against war. When women 1st asked for the vote, it was a tiny, extremely unpopular minority. The minority grew, & though they con- vinced many people, they couldn't convince enough politicians to vote for their
proposals.
Eventually they picketed at the White House, & they couldn't be ignored; they became visible. 2 groups, the National Party & the Women's Party, worked in their own ways toward the same end, the 1st using conventional methods, like meeting with the President, & the 2nd using "action" methods, like being arres- ted for picketing the White House. In 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the vote. This was a struggle in which both the "dignified" & the "undignified" method played their part.
[Angering the Opposition/ Possible Risks ... Certain Disaster]— Pacifists aren't likely to be the ones at the negotiating table. But there won't even be negotiations unless large numbers of common people make it clear that they want disarmament. I am often told [not to make the opposition angry]. When one is resisting an evil, one should do it without anger on one's own part. But one shouldn't evade issues because people are touchy about them. There is no hope of getting justice for Negroes, or getting rid of war, without making some men angry. Occasional anger is part of our education. It is some- times said that "direct actions for peace" do more harm than good. If those believing in such action could be shown that they cause the opposite of what we are working for, we would stop; we have not been shown.
The large demonstrations against the Polaris submarine base at Holy Loch in Scotland were inspired by a little project in New London, CT, called Polaris Action. When the Polaris submarines are launched, efforts are made to get on them by boat, or by swimming. One of these submarines is powerful enough to destroy millions of people. We are told in a Ford Foundation study that "The military élite is clearly in a position to assume actual political com- mand over the U.S. striking forces." On one side there are obvious risks in restricting nuclear armaments. In a risk there is still hope. We pursue the hope;
we work for a change in military policy. The risk is still there if we make the change, but unless we make it, we have the certainty of an arms race & of bombs going off.
[New Methods]—New methods seem to be called for. Gandhi used new methods with telling effect in Africa and India. The Norwegians and Danes used them under the Hitler's occupation; early Friends used them in England. Al- though many instances of their use are on record, most historians tell not about victories gained in peaceful ways, but about war. And the world comes to believe that war is necessary. The program that is being used to convince people that large numbers can survive a nuclear war seems more fiendish than just to let people be destroyed.
Governor Meyner of NJ says: "What will they use for air? What will they use for water? What will they use for food? What will they use for people?" We must learn by doing. As we get new ideas for better witnesses, and develop them, the effect will grow. [Some can do the dramatic, physical actions], and almost any of us can stand in a quiet line and hold up a sign that gives the message, or hand out leaflets. There is some way for each of us to stand up & be counted for a world in which all can live as brothers [and sisters, children] of one Father.
[Excerpts from "for Wilmer Young" by J. H. McCandless]: "... You say I turn the key, imprisoning myself within these childless walls & fences without progeny. Let it be so.// Because I don't hope to climb/ those many fences more ... my arms will not support this weight of blood, guilt, hatred, passion men call world.// I was a climber once ... [Now] Atop your gate I saw my prison walls & turned the key. // & what that key unlocks we cannot know:/ prison or garden, man must make it so ... And I must climb to make my grandchild free."
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
[Excerpts from "for Wilmer Young" by J. H. McCandless]: "... You say I turn the key, imprisoning myself within these childless walls & fences without progeny. Let it be so.// Because I don't hope to climb/ those many fences more ... my arms will not support this weight of blood, guilt, hatred, passion men call world.// I was a climber once ... [Now] Atop your gate I saw my prison walls & turned the key. // & what that key unlocks we cannot know:/ prison or garden, man must make it so ... And I must climb to make my grandchild free."
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
119. Stand fast in liberty (by James E. Bristol; 1961)
About the Author—James E. Bristol (1912-1992) was an international Peace Worker who started as a Lutheran Minister. He spent 40 years on the board of the Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors. 1947-1977 he worked on the AFSC staff, at the Quaker information Center in Calcutta and later in Zambia. In retirement in 1977, he worked with AFSC's Community Peace Education Program & with Youth Militarism. This pamphlet, addresses the relationship between Friends testimonies and McCarthyism.
About the Author—James E. Bristol (1912-1992) was an international Peace Worker who started as a Lutheran Minister. He spent 40 years on the board of the Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors. 1947-1977 he worked on the AFSC staff, at the Quaker information Center in Calcutta and later in Zambia. In retirement in 1977, he worked with AFSC's Community Peace Education Program & with Youth Militarism. This pamphlet, addresses the relationship between Friends testimonies and McCarthyism.
Resurgent McCarthyism—I have never been persuaded that more than the “excesses” [of McCarthyism] lie behind us. McCarthyism is grounded in a conviction that in the face of exceptional threats to our way of life we cannot be squeamish about the measures we employ to defend ourselves. Although McCarthy is dead, McCarthyism still flourishes and moves on apace. In the winter of 1960-61 the House of Representatives voted 416 to 6 to continue the House Un-American Activities Committee, [not because so few were against the committee, but because a vote against the Committee was “a vote for Communism”].
The Committee put out the controversial film, “Operation Abolition,” dealing with demonstrations against the Committee during San Francisco hearings in 1960. Neither the picture nor the commentary gives any firm evi- dence of Communist direction or control of most of the demonstrators, as charged by committee members. The film, [with all its misinformation] has been shown in schools, colleges, and churches, service clubs, and other organizations around the country.
Those who criticize the Committee are either shrugged off or persecuted as “Communist dupes.” We cease to think of [those labeled “Communists] as human beings in need of jobs, food and shelter. Investigating committees cast their blight far and wide, relying upon each community they visit to ostracize & penalize the people they call up to testify, regardless of the outcome of the hearing.
This atmosphere of suspicion & fear is strengthened by groups like the John Birch Society. [It is compiling] “the most complete and accurate files in America on leading comsymps, Socialists, and liberals.” The fear of Commu- nism has led to a fear of social change & of people who question the status quo. The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade holds schools and conducts lectures nationally, publicizing its activities and distributing its literature widely. Under the impact of the anti-Communist movement some self-righteously patriotic groups have gone so far as to threaten the well-being of individuals & families who champion any other point of view.
[The Supreme Court ruled in June 1961] that: 1. The Communist Party must register all of its officers and members with the Justice Department; 2. Active Communist Party membership is a Federal crime if the individual is aware of the party’s subversive goals. The dissenting Justice Douglas declared that in reality the decision outlawed ideas and thoughts. In the case of both Raphael Konigsberg and George Anastaplo the 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court upheld refusal of admission to the bar for failure to answer questions about Communism.
The dissenting Justice Black said: “To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it. But that is the present trend . . . in almost every walk of life. Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving. . . This trend must be halted if we are to keep faith with the Foun- ders of our Nation and pass on to future generation of Americans the great heritage of freedom which the Founders sacrificed so much to leave to us.”
The Blame is Ours—To a greater extent than many of us realize, we all share in the guilt of McCarthyism, and all contribute to the growing repression that is sweeping the country. The stark fact of the matter is that once we agree that to rid all walks of life of Communists is a democratic goal, we have, in the very process of trying to defend our democracy, surrendered it. We are well on the way to becoming a totalitarian state. . .Once a group has been deprived of its freedom, all citizens have in reality suffered the same loss.
A decade ago [1950] the loyalty oath was a new phenomenon in Ame- rican life. Loyalty oaths are now a permanent part of the state apparatus. Those who could not in good conscience take the oath have long since lost their jobs. There is a great deal of compliance with measures with which people are not in agreement; they want to keep their jobs.
Why is it that many of us fall victim to the hysteria of our generation and are finally persuaded that we must abandon much of our precious liberty and adopt a fair measure of the tyrant’s mode of operation in order to prevent the seizure of power in America by a subversive tyranny? It is a fact of human psychology that the more certain people are that they alone are right, the more frightened they become to listen to another’s con- victions, [and the more extreme measures they take to avoid exposure to a hostile and critical point of view].
The Castle Psychology—I approached Warwick castle, & found [my- self] inside castle walls. [I thought:] “This is not far away & long ago at all. This is today ... It is America, trying by accumulation of great & massive strength to keep the enemy outside the wall.” Always a few more [men] are needed [on the wall]; [but] one of these men may be a Communist. Our fear feeds upon our fear, until we find that our external defenses have made us feel less secure. The whole interior of the country becomes honeycombed with secret passages; every facet of American life develops its own “eyes and ears” [i.e. loyalty checks and oaths, legislative investigations].
Walter Millis wrote: “[The] technical ability to massacre . . . millions of non-combatants [brutalizes] foreign policy, which must inevitably brutalize and poison internal life as well.” Fear and suspicion have a deadly and corroding influence, and there is only one escape from them. Only those willing to lose and spend their lives for others find peace and confidence and are purged of fear. Should we be surprised if the no-God materialism which permeates American life today moves us in the same direction [as Communism]? We must go deeper than a civil liberties campaign if we're to alter the climate which encourages McCarthyism.
What is Needed—What we need is a program, a movement based on what we believe in rather than the things to which we are opposed. [We must stop “containing” Communism and “restraining” McCarthyism]. We must focus our gaze only upon human beings in need. Under the impact of the Cuban defeat [i.e. Bay of Pigs], there was talk urging the [need] of using the devil’s tactics to defeat the devil. [Even President Kennedy urged the press to use restrained and possibly deceptive news reporting]. The price for preserving our freedom is to renounce military might to defend us against our enemies.
[If we do renounce military might], we shall be very great fools to allow poverty, segregation, & economic exploitation to continue unremedied, for these provide [fertile soil] for the growth of a vigorous Communist movement. [Relief of these problems done] because of our compassionate concern for others— are the steps that will make the soil barren for the seeds of Communism.
Reverend Raymond T. Bosler said that Communism exists because: 1. Christians haven't recognized the Gospel’s social implications; 2. Christians are nationalistic, not internationally minded; 3. wealthy Christian states haven't shared; 4. wealthy “Catholic” landowners have re-fused to share their wealth with the poor living around them; 5. Christians have failed to see Christ in the Negro, the Chinese, the Mexican. I am convinced that McCarthyism & Commu- nism alike will wither & die in a free, unfettered atmosphere where the physical & material needs of all are being met. To defend the rights of every person means that we uphold the rights of Communists & fellow-travelers and of the John Birch Society alike.
Lay Hold on Courage—To practice liberty doesn't mean ignor our fun-damental disagreement with Communists & their aims. We can speak our con-victions openly without being extremely concerned to avoid “questionable” people. When we practice liberty we remember there is “that of God” in the Communists, & the Klu Klux Clanner, the white racist, & the House Un-American Activities Committee. For many of us, the greater problem will be to “answer that of God in every one,” [through our words and actions of] love, peace, freedom and brotherhood. It is extremely difficult to be smeared and not to, smear back but here as in other matters we are called to love our enemies and to “stand fast in the liberty” our religious experience has blessed us with.
“Standing fast in liberty” means forthright resistance to pressures for conformity, [perhaps in the form of] civil disobedience. The commitment that equips a person to form part of the hard core of such a resistance movement doesn't come easily or without cost. Such a movement in this country would take the form of refusal to sign loyalty oaths and loyalty statements. It could require violating laws and a prison sentence. [A German minister concluded his remarks about choosing between religious conscience and the regime in power] with: “I wonder how soon the time will come when you in America will have to make that same grave decision.”
One learns to resist enslavement by resisting every encroachment upon freedom at the very first point where it touches one’s life. [To paraphrase an old adage]: “Never put off until tomorrow what you can resist today.” Procrastina- tion [in resisting] ensures the eventual enslavement of the very people who today stress the necessity to bide one’s time. There are times when the most positive and creative action one can take is what appears on the surface to be negative. May we resist every outreach of tyranny that would deprive any more genuine freedom. Thus only can we ever “stand fast in the liberty” which has been [over and over again] bought at great price by freedom- loving peoples who have gone before us.
120. William Law: Selections on the Interior Life (ed. Mary
Morrison; 1962)
About the Editor—Mary Morrison 1st came to Pendle in 1948 to attend Dora Wilson’s classes on the Gospels; she has been teaching the Gospel class since 1957. She is an Episcopalian with a great interest in Quaker thought. Mary Morrison 1st encountered William Law, [an Episcopalian mystic], 15 years ago through Aldous Huxley. She here introduces the mystical writings of an 18th century Anglican who influenced many Quakers.
Love is the Christ, the salvation, religion of divine love, the true Church of God, where the life of God is found and lived, and to which every one is .called We direct every one to nothing but the inward life of Christ, to the working of the Holy Spirit of God, which alone can deliver him from the evil that is in his own nature and give him a power to become a son of God. William Law
THE WRITINGS OF WILLIAM LAW
IN THIS WORK: Perfection = A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection (1726); Serious Call = A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729); Regeneration = The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration (1739); Appeal = An Appeal to All that Doubt or Disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel (1740); Letters = Collection of Letters (1760); Trapp =Some Animadversions on Dr. Trapp’s Reply (1740); Prayer = The Spirit of Prayer (Part I, 1749; Part II, 1750); Knowledge = The Way to Divine Knowledge (1752); Love = The Spirit of Love (Part I, 1752; Part II, 1754). [Comments = Comments by Mary Morrison]
PART I: THE DEATH IN WHICH WE LIVE—That particular way of life which takes each man’s mind, thoughts, & actions may very well be called his particular dream. There is nothing that makes life or death full of calamity, but obstinate blindness & insensibility of his state. Heaven is as near to our souls as this world is to our bodies; we are created, we are redeemed, to have our conversation in it. Prayer, 3-4
Nothing was more clear & vivid to William Law than the death in which we live & the life to which we are dead. What we think of as unreal was to Wil- liam Law real; what we think of as shadow was to him substance. [Comments]
Our imaginations & desires are the greatest reality we have & are the true formers & raisers of all that is real and solid in us. They communicate with eternity and kindle a life [ending up in either heaven or hell]. The state of hell and the state of the soul in hell are one and the same thing. The reason why wicked men do not become fully sensible of [the hellish state of their souls] is because the soul is capable of being assuaged and comforted by this world’s sun and spirit as all other creatures are. The one only religion that can save any son of fallen Adam must be that which can raise or generate the life, light and spirit of Heaven in his soul. Appeal, 134, 90, 99
[The concept of a Fall to Law was the symbol of a living situation in all our hearts], “a being broken off from the life of God, [like a] withered branch of the vine [tossed in a fire], or like a firebrand of Hell. [Comment], Letters 207.
The reason why man is naturally taken with beautiful objects ‘tis because he was created in the greatest perfection of beauty to live in paradise. The riches, greatness & power he had in reality in paradise he is vainly seeking for here, where he is only a poor prisoner in the valley and shadow of death. Appeal, 124
PART II: WILLIAM LAW AS WRITER & MYSTIC—William Law refused to take the oath of allegiance to George I, thus forfeiting any career in the uni- versities or the Church. He said: “Had I done what was required of me to avoid it, I should have thought my condition much worse.” He and 2 compa- nions kept a household dedicated to the devout and holy life described in his Serious Call. This book, published in 1729, made William Law famous. It is a weighty, sober book, but far from boring with its word-portraits. [Comments]
Mundanus is a man of excellent parts and clear apprehension; he aims at the greatest perfection in everything. The only thing which hasn't fallen under his improvement, nor received any benefit from his judicious mind, is his devo- tion; this is in the same poor state it was when he was only 6 years old. Mun- danus has never considered how improvable the spirit of devotion is, or how necessary it is that our prayers should be enlarged, varied, and suited to the particular state and condition of our lives. Serious Call, 141-2
[After reading Jacob Boehme, he was able to think and write from the heart of the matter. In William Law we have a man creating the widely allusive, untranslatable poetry that mystics must use—and speaking our own language, in which we can hear the same overtones that he heard]. [Comments]
Ask when the 1st thought sprung up, find out the birthday of truth, and then thou wilt have found out when the essences of thy soul 1st began to be… Here, O man, behold the great original & high state of thy birth… Thou began- nest as time began, but as time was in eternity… so thou wast in God before thou wast brought into creation. Thou art not a part of God … yet born out of him… If thou desirest, and turnest to God like the flowers of the field toward the sun, all the blessings of the deity will spring up in thee. If thou turnest toward [the world and] thyself, thou choosest to be a weed, [and will receive little spirit and blessing from God]. Appeal, 65, 61.
There is no other forgiveness of sin but being made free from it.
Pride, Envy, & Hatred [being allowed to live is like] when Christ was killed & Barabbas was saved alive.
[If] you ask why I go on writing if there is but one true & divine teacher, I answer though there is but one bridegroom … yet his servants are sent out to invite the guests. They are not the light, but only sent to bear witness of it. [My] doctrine must decrease and end, as soon as it has led to the true teacher. Letters, 153
PART III: THE “PRECIOUS UNCERTAIN FIRE” OF LIFE—He that thinks to grow in true goodness by [only] hearing or speaking flaming words, will have little conversation in heaven. Martyrdom has had its fools as well as its saints, and zealots may live and die in a joy that has all its strength from delusions… Their religion was according to the workings of their whole nature, and the old man [within] was as busy and as much delighted in it as the new [man within]. Letters 134; Regeneration 168-9
Self-denials, and mortifications have nothing of goodness or holiness, nor any real parts of our sanctification. They are not the true food or nourish- ment of the divine life in our souls. Many people practice them for their own sakes, as things good in themselves. Thus, many people’s self-denials do what [self-indulgence] do for other people. Such people withstand and hinder the operation of God upon their souls. [Their] actions instead of being self- denial strengthen and keep up the kingdom of self. Prayer, 43-4
What a delusion it is therefore to grow grey-headed in balancing ancient and modern opinions. [And what a waste of life to spend time] in critical zeal & verbal animosities… If reason seems to have any power against religion, it is only where religion has become a dead form, has lost its true state, and is dwindled into opinion. True and genuine religion is life and the working of life. If you are afraid of reason hurting your religion, it is a sign that your religion is not yet a self-evident growth of nature and life within you, but has much opinion to it. Knowledge 219, 232
This is the greatest evil that the division of the Church has brought forth; it raises in every communion a selfish, partial orthodoxy; it defends all that it has & condemns all that it hasn't. If each Church produced a man that had the piety of an apostle & the impartial love of the 1st Christians, [it wouldn't be long be- fore they were all of one religion]… [Each communion denies the central belief & practice of the others for fear of seeming to agree or be too much like them]… In the present divided state of the Church truth itself is torn & divided asunder. Uniting in heart & spirit with all that is holy & good in all Churches, we enter into the true communion of saints & become a holy catholic Church, though we are confined to the outward worship of one particular part of it. Trapp, 182-4
The goodness of a living creature must be its own life. And if goodness is not our natural birth from our natural parents, we must of all necessity be born again from a principle above nature. It is from this birth that the free genuine works of goodness flow forth, with divine life's freedom. Knowledge 158
PART IV:THE 1ST ROOTS OF NEW LIFE—Who hasn’t at one time or another felt sourness, wrath, selfishness, envy & pride rising up in him without one’s consent, casting blackness over all thoughts, & then as suddenly going off again. These are indications that there’s a dark guest within him. This dark disordered fire of our soul, when rightly known & dealt with, can as well be made the foundation of Heaven as it is of Hell. If life wasn;t this depth of strife, fullness of heavenly joy couldn’t be manifested in it … Fallen angels aren’t in Hell because [God] is angry at them & so cast them into Hell. They are in wrath & darkness because [they have “put out” their spiritual eyes rather than see] the light flowing forth from God. Regeneration, 141,153; Love 17; Appeal, 128-9
There must be some kind of earthquake with us; something must rend & shake us to the bottom, [so that we are aware] of the state of death we are in, & desirous enough of that Savior that can raise us from it… When one truly knows and feels that sin begins with one’s being, and that the free grace of God has provided one a remedy equal to one’s distress, one may know and feel the power of Christ brought to life in one. Regeneration 152,161
The atonement by Christ is to overcome and remove all that death and hell and wrath and darkness that had opened itself in the nature, birth and life of fallen man. His trial was as a son of man and loaded with all the infirmaties of fallen Adam, to see whether he could live and die with his spirit as contrary to them, as much above them, as Adam should have lived in Paradise. Love, 71, 96
If humankind was to go out of their fallen state, there must be a son of this fallen man [who would] go thru all the stages [of divine life], & so make it possible for humankind to [be born into] his conquering nature & follow him through all these passages to eternal life. The spirit of Christ becomes all in all to us and so only to be known by those who have it brought to life in them. [The process of bringing the new nature to life in us is the process of Christ repeated in us, a completely natural thing, yet voluntary]. Appeal, 144; Letters, 133; [Comments]
God is compassionate & long-suffering [& gives] the power of choosing life or death, water or fire. The last judgment will be putting everyone into the full & sole possession of that which they have chosen. The necessity of dying to ourselves isn’t required as a punishment, isn’t an invention of monks. It is necessary to make way for the new birth as the “death” of the seed is necessary to make way for its vegetable life. Appeal 98; Prayer 32-3
To have but this one will & hunger is… to have done with every thing that can defile, betray, disappoint or hurt that eternal nature which must have its life within you. Your heart is the best & greatest gift of God to you; it is the highest, greatest, strongest, & noblest power of your nature; it forms your life, all good, all evil. When the state of our heart isn't a spirit of prayer to God, we pray ... to some, or other part of the creation. Reason can only be a mere beholder of the wonders of happiness or forms of misery. Letters 151; Prayer 124, 118
Spiritual eating is by the mouth of desire, [your will & hunger]. What you are eating, good or bad, forms the strength or body of your soul. Faith is that power by which a man gives himself up to anything, seeks, wills, adheres to and unites with it, so that his life lives in it and belongs to it. Every man equally lives by faith… is equally under the power of faith, whether it be divine, earthly, sensual or devilish. All salvation does and only can, arise from a faith turned to God.
PART V: THE LIVING SENSE OF GOD WITHIN—How shall I discover these riches of eternity, this light and spirit, and wisdom, & peace of God treasured up within me? Thy 1st thought of repentance or desire of turning to God is thy 1st discovery of this light & Spirit of God within thee. It is the eternal, speaking the word of God in thy heart, that word is beginning to create thee a second time unto righteousness. Let it enlighten, teach, frighten, torment, judge, and condemn thee as it pleases, turn not away from it; hear all it says. Pray that God’s Kingdom may come and God’s will be done in thy soul. Turn there- fore inwards, and all that is within you will demonstrate to you the presence and power of God in your soul & make you as certain of it as of your own thoughts. [It will bring you] knowledge of good and evil. Prayer 36-7; Letters, 159
PART V: THE LIVING SENSE OF GOD WITHIN—How shall I discover these riches of eternity, this light and spirit, and wisdom, & peace of God treasured up within me? Thy 1st thought of repentance or desire of turning to God is thy 1st discovery of this light & Spirit of God within thee. It is the eternal, speaking the word of God in thy heart, that word is beginning to create thee a second time unto righteousness. Let it enlighten, teach, frighten, torment, judge, and condemn thee as it pleases, turn not away from it; hear all it says. Pray that God’s Kingdom may come and God’s will be done in thy soul. Turn there- fore inwards, and all that is within you will demonstrate to you the presence and power of God in your soul & make you as certain of it as of your own thoughts. [It will bring you] knowledge of good and evil. Prayer 36-7; Letters, 159
The best outward prayer book you can have [will be] full of awakening information as will force you to see & know who & what & where you are; that God is your all & all is misery but a heart & life devoted to him. It will turn you to an inward book & spirit of prayer in your heart. Every return of [careful, inspired] prayer gives new life & growth to your virtues. Our hearts deceive us because we leave them alone, are absent from them, taken up in outward things.
The strength of sin, the power of evil temper, the most secret workings of our hearts is forced to be seen as soon as the heart becomes our prayer-book Our desire isn’t only powerful & productive, but it is always alive, always working & creating in us. Prayer of the heart forms & transforms the soul into everything that its desires reach after. When the eternal springs of the purified heart stretch after God from whence they came; then it is that what we ask, we receive, and what we seek, we find. Prayer 136-7; Appeal, 134
The painful sense & feeling of what you are, kindled into a working state of sensibility by the light of God within you, is the fire & light from whence your spirit of prayer proceeds. This prayer of divine humility is met by the divine love; the mercifulness of God embraces it. When prayer has melted away all earthly passion and affections, [it becomes] not so much praying as living in God, the highest union with God in this life.
[When you go through each of these foregoing states, it is [best] to ex- pect nothing from ourselves, but in everything expect and depend upon God for relief. We are looking for our own virtue, our own piety, our own goodness, [& become] fallen in our own mire. And thus it will be, till the whole turn of our minds is so changed that we as fully see and know our inability to any good- ness or life of our own.
You may be frightened when coldness seizes upon you, and your hearts seem ready to be overcome by every vice. This cold is the divine offspring, or genuine birth, of the former fervor; it comes from it as a good fruit. It brings a divine effect or more fruitful progress in the divine life. The devout soul is always safe in every state if it makes everything either a raising up or falling down into the hands of God, & exercising faith, trust, and resignation to God. Light and darkness equally assist one; in the light one looks up to God; in the darkness one lays hold on God, and so they both do that one the same good. Prayer 128-30
He that lives in the spirit & temper of devotion, whose heart is always full of God, lives at the top of human happiness, & is the farthest removed from all the vanities and vexations which disturb and weary the minds of men who are devoted to the world. You have not the spirit of love until you have this will to all goodness at all times and on all occasions. When love is the spirit of your life, it will have the freedom and universality of a spirit; it will always live and work in love, because the spirit of love can only love. It is its own blessing and happi- ness, because it is the truth and reality of God in the soul. It is the same good to itself everywhere and on every occasion. Perfection 214-15; Love 4
God is the good, the perfection, every life’s peace, joy, glory & blessing. Christ is the breathing forth of the heart, life & God's spirit into all the dead race of Adam. Love is Heaven revealed in the soul; it is light & truth; it is infallible; it hasn't errors, for all errors are the want of love. Love is of no sect of party; it neither makes nor admits of any bounds. Love is God’s Christ; it comes down from heaven; it regenerates the soul from above. Love lives wholly to God’s will of whom it is born; its meat & drink is to do God’s will. Prayer 108-109.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
No comments:
Post a Comment