Foreword—I spent more than half of 2013 at Pendle Hill in Wallingford, PA, and fell in love with many things about it. My latest passion is with their pamphlets. Here I have, after reading them, set down the most impressive excerpts of each, with rare paraphrasing and additions of my own [in brackets]. Most of all I am impressed with the timelessness of these pamphlets, the oldest of which go back more than 80 years.
261. Interconnections (by Elaine M. Prevallet; 1985)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR—Elaine Prevallet, S.L. is currently director of Knobs Haven, a retreat center for groups or individuals at the Loretto Mother- house in Nerinx KY. She spent 2 years on staff at Pendle Hill, teaching Spiri- tuality and Scripture. She spent a year in Japan Kentucky
We can imagine God’s presence as a fount of living water springing up within us, so a stream of love-energy may bless every place we walk, every room we enter, every person we meet, every flower and every flower we see, and allow everything we encounter to “flower from within, of self-blessing.”
When we relate to ourselves as the sacred vessels we are, then we begin to know that all that is in the universe is held together in the one Life of God, woven together like one beautifully intricately-pattern fabric, or like notes in an immense and marvelous symphony of praise and thanksgiving to the infinite God. Elaine Prevallet
The Blessed Community—In Numbers 16 Korah, who ministered to the people, wanted to enter the sanctuary itself, and so challenged Moses and Aaron. In the judgment, the earth opened up and swallowed Korah and his family. A Hasidic tale said: “He did not know that the power he had felt came upon him because Aaron stood in his place and he in his.” For the most part we are unaware of this deeper interconnectedness in life. [Occasionally life shows us that just being oneself, in one’s own place, is what matters].
The Blessed Community—In Numbers 16 Korah, who ministered to the people, wanted to enter the sanctuary itself, and so challenged Moses and Aaron. In the judgment, the earth opened up and swallowed Korah and his family. A Hasidic tale said: “He did not know that the power he had felt came upon him because Aaron stood in his place and he in his.” For the most part we are unaware of this deeper interconnectedness in life. [Occasionally life shows us that just being oneself, in one’s own place, is what matters].
[The body works such that] if one part fails to do its work all the other parts are hindered. Paul uses the body images to describe the Church. A quite hidden influence is being exercised, sometimes by a person or persons in some distant place. The web of interconnection depends upon fidelity, upon each one of us being faithful to what is given to us no matter what it is. There is so much more than we can see on the surface. There is the kind of wisdom when one engages in intercessory prayer; no one can say how it works.
The East accepts such wisdom more readily. Richard Wilhelm said of his China
Even with our scientific, rational mindset, we know the value of some- one whose presence simply allows us to be. Their merely being seems to take some the blockage out of the air, to un-complicate us. We affect the formation of each others’ personalities in every encounter. Our energy is received and will serve either to enhance the other’s capacity for love, or to cripple it. In- tuitions such as these suggest that the exchanges of energy are at least as important as the visible connections that are part of our relationship with the world.
We can imagine energy radiating into the universe; we do communicate some kind of energy. The kind of energy we share depends upon how close we are in touch with the sacred gift of life, how aware we are that we are the tem- ple of God
In a beautiful passage from the OT, the prophet Ezekiel describes the new temple at Jerusalem 7:38 ). [The belly image probably comes from rabbinic writing, where Jerusalem
II. On Wounding & Transforming—[In the OT when] the people have not been faithful to their relationship with God, the earth mourns, languishes, lies polluted. Humans’ relationships with God, with each other, and with the land are inextricably bound together and affect each other; when humans are not keeping covenant with each other, they do not know God. Wounding and being wounded are inevitable in our human situation. We are wounded both in ways we know and in ways we don’t know. And we wound; automatically, unwittingly, inevitably. Often not because we want to, but just because we are unable not to.
Participation in our society inevitably means wounding. We live in a world in which wounding and being wounded, wittingly or unwittingly, are war and woof of the fabric of our lives. We have perhaps finally begun to be conscious of the various levels and kinds of wounding, only because survi- val depends on it. Hazel Henderson asks: Is there ever any profit that is not registered as a debit somewhere? The connection may not be imme- diate, it may take generations to surface, but surface it will.
Even though competition is a fact of life, winning is only a temporary illusion. The deeper law of the universe, which we have ignored, is the law of exchange, of share & concern. We must become aware of how intricately our destinies are interwoven. Our relationship to the universe is largely formed by how we imagine it to be. [If we imagine creation as only there for our conveni- ence and use] that is how we will relate to it. Maybe I can be deliberate in trying to recognize and be grateful for the exchange when something gives it- self to me for my benefit. [If I wound anything] I can pray for forgiveness.
Our society has lost that sense of gratitude for exchange. As technology advanced, so did the sense of power and conquest; after which came a dis- tancing from nature, and consequent loss of the sense of organic relatedness. We could develop private rituals that would help us remember to acknowledge that we are not simply taking something, but that something is being given to us. We can cultivate gratitude and reverence for all that is. The sign of the risen Christ, retaining his wounded body, suggests that nothing in creation es- capes the wounding, but resurrection is the enduring covenantal sign of God’s relations to us. Wounding may be inevitable, and may seem to predominate, but transformation is in process, and life will prevail.
III. Nibbled and Nibbling—There is a fundamental intuition that every- thing is either food or the eater of food; [everything is nibbled & nibbling]. Just as we cannot live & grow on the physical level unless we are fed, so we do not grow psychically or spiritually unless we are fed. We usually learn our faults through hurting others, and only in that way do we become more sensitive and loving. Collectively we have learned at the expense of countless others who are unknown to us, but who have paid the price of their lives for our heightened awareness.
On the physical level as well, we and all the other elements of the uni- verse are in a patterned and purposeful process of exchange so intricate that we cannot begin to unravel all its connections. It is an all-encompassing cosmic reciprocity. & we, conscious beings that we are, have the opportunity to enter into the process knowingly & willingly. We participate gladly & trustingly in the venture with God who is now at work making all things new.
IV. A Dominion of Love—[God’s promise to Noah, is symbolized by the [rain]bow God placed in the heavens, a promise that] God has set down the weapon of punishment & placed it in the clouds & will never again destroy the earth by flood. [Besides the food God has given us], if we recognize the air we breathe as food for our bodies, then the life of the plant becomes at least as important as is killing a plant to eat it. Our senses depend upon all that is around them to feed them, and our mental well-being is intimately connected with what surrounds us.
How does God exercise dominion and what does that tell us about our dominion over the earth? We have mistakenly identified dominion as involving control and submission [and power over]. God’s dominion is surely a dominion and emphatically not control by power. What was Jesus’ way of dominion? Many NT passages indicate that Jesus’ way was one of com- panion (with us), com-passion (feeling with us), com-munion [being one with us]. God exercises dominion by allowing growth from within, causing free, autonomous being, evoking self-blessing.
Paul speaks of all creation as having been made subject to futility or frustration. Our experience of frustration and futility can give us a strong sense of what it would be like to be subject to vanity, to be in vain. There are multi- tudes of examples like raped mountains. Surely creation does groan with the pain, and waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. We have a responsibility to the whole of creation to reveal and share the freedom we have been loved into [by Christ]. We need to balance our present sense of power with another, more respectful and collaborative sense of our respon- sibility to care for all forms of being.
A new reconciled creation may not be so far-fetched. Given what re- search [has revealed] we may yet find our way to a new relationship of com- munication with the so-called “lower forms of life. We are responsible for a very delicate, providential caring for all that is, a gentle letting-be, the same way that God lets us and all of creation be. The image of dominion as con- trol must give way to the image of dominion as love.
V. The Enemy Within—The image presented in Isaiah 11:6-9 [of un- likely pairs of animals, predator & prey lying down together], is not just an idyllic vision of the world to come. It is the task that lies before us here & now. The pairs are intended finally to dwell together in peace. [We divide the world into hostile & friendly camps]. Within ourselves we have our “virtues” & our “vices.” All our virtues have their shadow-opposites: our gentleness often masks our violence, our love easily turns into manipulation or possession, our humility hides our pride. The gospels, too, are full of opposites to be reconciled. In the gospel and our lives, Christ is the reconciler who accepts the rejected and de- spised person, & points to the unrecognized value of that which has been cast out.
What we reject & despise in others is what most needs to be owned & reconciled in ourselves. Most often, we come to self-knowledge only by first seeing it in someone who is offensive to us. That is their gift to us. [If we refuse to do the necessary] inner work, we continue to project our negativities outward, thereby condemning ourselves to live in a world peopled with threats & fears, with shadows that never emerge into clear light. [In reference to blacks], it is clear that white Americans must learn that violence & ignorance reside, in rea- lity, within ourselves. And Americans function as [evil & enemy] for the Rus- sians as the Russian do for Americans.
The more fully we know the range of possibilities within ourselves, the more will we know ourselves one with all others, and the more compassionate we can be and less judgmental. When we come to terms with the violence, the “beasts of prey” within ourselves, we learn that one’s inner wolf must be in friendly, knowledgeable relationship with one’s inner lamb. The wolf won't stop being a wolf, but it is able to share some of its wolf-wisdom with the lamb, & they, and the world, are able to exist in peaceful unity.
VI. Metanoia—Today some people have begun to talk about a radical change in the way we have our world put together. Matter, which seems to us to be “substantial,” is now known to be a mass of energy. We now know that an experiment is changed by being viewed. We have to admit that there is more going on in life than meets the eye, and we would have to develop an attentiveness and sensitivity not only of mind but also of heart to the cues that come from beneath the surface. What is required is a deep letting-go of our ego’s attempt to control the world, which the gospel expresses as “losing one- self in order to find oneself.”
We desperately need such a change at this time in history. We have alienated ourselves from our world; we have polluted it, we threaten to destroy it. Our survival of the present crisis is a question of whether we are psycho- logically and spiritually fit to live on planet earth; whether we can learn quickly enough how to live in harmony rather than competition. What is needed is a real metanoia, a total conversion of mind and heart.
When we relate to ourselves as the sacred vessels we are, then we begin to know that all that is in the universe is held together in the one Life of God, woven together like one beautifully intricately-pattern fabric, or like notes in an immense and marvelous symphony of praise and thanksgiving to the infinite God. It is the God who lives within us who joins us with fellow human beings in a “Blessed Community,” where one seeks to bring wolves and lambs together to be reconciled and loved. In this network each seeks to enter the inner Sanc- tuary where our small life is touched and held in the great Life of God. When we see these networks forming, we recognize the sign of the wounded & risen Body of Christ, and we know that God is working to transform wounds into wholeness of life.
When we relate to ourselves as the sacred vessels we are, then we begin to know that all that is in the universe is held together in the one Life of God, woven together like one beautifully intricately-pattern fabric, or like notes in an immense and marvelous symphony of praise and thanksgiving to the infinite God. It is the God who lives within us who joins us with fellow human beings in a “Blessed Community,” where one seeks to bring wolves and lambs together to be reconciled and loved. In this network each seeks to enter the inner Sanc- tuary where our small life is touched and held in the great Life of God. When we see these networks forming, we recognize the sign of the wounded & risen Body of Christ, and we know that God is working to transform wounds into wholeness of life.
262. Bearing Witness: Quaker Process and a Culture of Peace
(by Gray Cox; 1985)
About the Author—Raised on the Maine Wesleyan University Nicaragua
The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree, and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means & the end as there is be- tween the seed and the tree. Mohandas K. Ghandhi
“Do you live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars?” John Woolman
I. QUAKER PROCESS—Quakers are cultural mutants with odd ways of talking, uncommon ways of behaving, & a mutant ethic based on a mutant conception of rationality. They frequently use the metaphor “seed of Christ.” The Quaker ethic is a process meant to be practiced rather than a theory meant to be accepted or a set of dogma meant to be blindly obeyed. The commit- ments and concerns of Quakers are best understood in historic testimonies such as John Woolman’s and queries that address us as individuals and communities. John Woolman asked: “Do you live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars?”
I. QUAKER PROCESS—Quakers are cultural mutants with odd ways of talking, uncommon ways of behaving, & a mutant ethic based on a mutant conception of rationality. They frequently use the metaphor “seed of Christ.” The Quaker ethic is a process meant to be practiced rather than a theory meant to be accepted or a set of dogma meant to be blindly obeyed. The commit- ments and concerns of Quakers are best understood in historic testimonies such as John Woolman’s and queries that address us as individuals and communities. John Woolman asked: “Do you live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars?”
1st, Quakers view truth as something that happens, it occurs. It is like the nourishment of a food that must be grown and cooked and eaten & assimi- lated; it is a living occurrence in which we participate. 2nd meaning is commu- nal. We ask ourselves what we, collectively, mean. George Fox said that it is the voice of Christ who “has come to teach his people himself.” 3rd, feeling and reason are viewed as continuous with one another, [not working at odds with one another]. As the light leads us along our path, a feeling is a directed step making up the path we take; reason is the directing path of the walking made up of these steps. 4th, the self is inherently social & transitional; we are like crests and troughs of the many-layered waves of a river.
At the heart of the community in which we participate is a spirit—a spirit which grows out of each of us and yet also grows into each of us. The process of the Quaker ethic has 5 stages: quieting impulses; addressing concerns; ga- thering consensus; finding clearness; and bearing witness. We can focus on one at a time like stages, or we can look at any given moment and be aware of how all 5 should always be present as levels or aspects.
Quieting Impulses/Addressing Concerns—My typical frame of mind is fragmented by desires, fears, frustrations, angers, habits, expectations and impulses. George Fox’s “lusts” are mechanistic causes of our behavior. They push us from below and behind. The first step is to quiet these by having them let go of us and letting go of them. There are many techniques for evoking an inner distance, like laughing at ourselves. Sometimes I laugh and wonder how I could [be anxious about dying in nuclear war] and forget the basic fact of our mortality.
Friends seem to use various techniques as the beginning of service for “centering down.” A warm engrossing sort of light is the kind on which Quakers focused during the 18th century period of Quietism. People caught up in it in meeting for worship tend to breathe slowly and smile. There is a 2nd sort of light more distinctive with Friends. It is like a beacon, or a variety of beacons, that beckons us on. It leads to an experience of disturbed care [and possibly “speaking out of the silence”]. It is not a result of impulse or lust but rather of feeling called into question in addressing a concern.
After we quiet our impulses, we are ready to address concerns. Genu- ine concerns have a different quality to distinguish them from mechanical ha- bits or personal desires. They lure us on, and in addressing these concerns we find ourselves addressed by them. The Quaker queries provide a repo- sitory of key concerns of this sort. Meeting in worship intensifies the sense of being addressed by an issue or concern. We stand addressed by that power- ful silence which waits upon us and listens.
Gathering Consensus/Finding Clearness/Bearing Witness—Once you have caught sight of the light or felt a “leading,” then you follow. This is “gathering consensus” or “seeking clearness.” The aim of gathering consensus is to explore concerns & the reality we live amidst & seek until we find a view that does justice to the complexity of reality & rightness. For Quakers, consen- sus is practicing communal discernment that yields agreement & truth. The trick is to keep different points of view in dialogue until a genuine consensus is reached.
Finding clearness is the stage of resolve, the stage at which we find ourselves standing in the conviction of some truth. It is a matter of discovering objective moral truth, of finding your destiny, your calling. This finding has the character of discovering you are in the grip of something, which is experienced as a truth known by direct revelation.
Some indicators of clearness are useful, [if not infallible]. Clearness usually involves openness (awareness of many perspectives), wholeness (all positions are respected and given their due), unanimity, and presence. These four indicators can be reflected in, and enhanced by, the postures and gestures of our bodies. There's an inclusive focus that many Quakers have come to see as simplicity. Clearness simplifies. It is a unity of our thoughts and deeds, a gathering of clear focus.
Such a clearness can compel activity. Such activity is not best under- stood as “action” in the traditional sense of the term. What motivates the acti- vity of those compelled to action is not achieving some end, but rather, the conviction that they must bear witness to the truth. The guiding concern of people bearing witness is to live rightly. [In seeking and bearing witness to peace], they are not so much trying to find a way to get to peace as bear witness to the conviction that there is no way to peace; peace is the way.
Quakers are convinced that genuine leadings all proceed from a com- mon ground, springing from a unity, [a person-like presence] which we seek and find. Friends differ in their views about the metaphysical relationships be- tween Jesus of Nazareth and this inclusive, organic, caring, respectful pre- sence that addresses us. George Fox described it as: “Christ has come to teach his people himself.”
The Quaker process embodies the seeds for a culture of peace. It is one that calls for new ways of talking & behaving. We shall have to become strange in word & deed if we are to progress towards a culture which is right- ly ordered. There is a growing convergence in the world views being worked out by ecologists (i.e. “stewardship”), feminists (i.e. “cultural feminism”), peacemakers (i.e. “peacemaking”), civil rights activists (i.e. “community empo- werment”), and others. These are yielding a new set of leading ideas and empowering practices for the reconstruction of our culture.
II. A CULTURE OF PEACE—We often talk as though peace and war were symmetrical opposites. The fact that “war” is used as a verb and “peace” isn't reflects the fact that while war is thought of as an activity, peace is thought of as a condition or state, not as something we can do. While war is charac- terized as something substantial and positive in its own right, peace is most often defined negatively, as the absence of confrontation. This definition iden- tifies something bad we should avoid, but it leaves us [not knowing what to promote].
The other definition offered for peace by people with roots in a religious tradition, characterizes peace positively. Peace is said to be a state of har- mony, tranquility, unity, or concord. But it fails to give us any concrete & dyna- mic notion we can use to guide our activity; [it describes the end of the journey but not how to get there]. And such concord or tranquility suggests a lack of vital life process and growth that make life worth living.
What do these 2 definitions reveal about our culture? Once we grant that conflict is an essential and ineradicable feature of all human activity, then it is indeed difficult to see how we conceive of peace as an activity. If peace is lack of activity & all human activity has conflict, then peace is not activity.
This conflict view of human nature is difficult to fight. The words that we use in reasoning itself are laced with metaphors of war & physical combat; ARGUMENT IS WAR. Law courts pose questions of justice in terms of conflicts between plaintiffs & defendants. Our economy is understood to be a mecha- nism for distributing resources between competing people. Feeling & Reason are seen as being in opposition to one another. The struggle between reason and feeling is taken to be the most radical source of conflict within each & be- tween all.
Clearly these views of truth, feeling, and reason are quite different from those which underlie the Quaker process. Friends have always held that con- flict is only an option, not a necessity. It is possible to live in the virtue of that power and spirit which takes away the occasion of all wars. The conflict view is deeply entrenched in our culture. To understand it, we need to think in terms of the impacts of the theological, scientific, and industrial revolutions that have taken place, [starting in the 300s A.D.].
Theological Revolution/Scientific Revolution—[Before the 300s], Christian communities believed that the Christ was in their midst and the Kingdom of God
Sometime after 1600, a new kind of science replaced theology as the driving force behind the construction of the western world view. Man was reconceived again, [this time] as knower & known. Knowledge consists of a value-free understanding of the causes of events—causes governed by mathematical laws. Later events are explained in terms of the earlier. Nature is viewed as a great mechanism, pushed from the past into the present rather than guided toward some future goal. Man appears as an object in this world, governed by the same laws as those that order the rest of nature.
Values are not matters of fact, and questions about them cannot be rationally answered; they are simply subjective preferences. This view under- lies contemporary economics; it pictures people as instrumental actors, mani- pulators using things and other human beings as means to an end. Since there is no way of deciding who is right, conflict is inevitable. Note that this instrumentalist model of human action is the old lust model in a new guise. Here people throng the world with conflicting values which cannot be rationally adjudicated, and they use each other as means for their subjective ends. This model was institutionalized beginning in the 18th century.
The Industrial Revolution—1st, workers, their labor, and its products each had to be viewed as inter-changeable parts in a flow of goods and ser- vices. 2nd, these were to be dealt with in ways that abstracted them from the organic details. Vast production systems became the means to achieve con- sumer preferences and government goals. Clearly a culture of peace would involve a different conception of social science, a different model of human action, new institutions and practices.
Many critics of social sciences share the conviction that contemporary social science has failed to discover any laws of human behavior [among other things]. It is in peoples’ languages that we should explain human action. A critical participatory method amounts to social science as a gathering of con- sensus that yields clearness acknowledged by the community. Besides the theorists who advocate such a participatory method, there are activists who are practicing it and seeking to institutionalize it, conflict mediators, and people in various parts of the Peace Movement.
The activity is more like an art or craft than a mechanical procedure. These processes of human activity involve at least 3 features. 1st [All facets] of the process are viewed as emerging; we are in the process of finding out. 2nd, The facets are related in organic processes; means and ends are internally related to one another. 3rd, the social processes have integrity and give values an objectivity.
The development of institutions which would reflect & facilitate the critical participatory method could lead to a great reconstruction of our culture. Courts would become stewards of justice rather than referees at verbal duels. Econo- mic institutions would become smaller, subservient to organic communities. The Pentagon would wither away, replaced by peace as an activity of resol- ving differences between people through consensus.
We need to reject the conflict view of human nature as well as the Galilean method of social science. Peace will become an activity in which we can vigorously engage. We have much to learn about what “peace” means as a verb. The source we can turn to for counsel is an inward presence. It is a light which we may walk and a beacon leading the way. Those who act [out peace] would know this presence experimentally.
263. Replacing the Warrior: Cultural Ideals and Militarism (by
William A. Myers; 1985)
About the Author—William A. Myers has worked as journalist, auto mechanic, hospital orderly, & teacher. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University NM. He is a member of Albuquerque MM. This pamphlet germinated from an invitation by a student committee to give a lecture. He chose John Woolman, of whom virtually no one had heard. [The interest in the subject prompted him to write a revised and expanded essay].
“I walked about … thinking on the innumberable affliction which the proud, fierce [warrior] spirit produceth in the world … the toils and fatigue … their miseries and distresses when wounded, … & of their restless, unquiet state of mind who live in this spirit … During these meditations the desire to cherish the spirit of love and peace amongst these people arose very fresh in me.” John Woolman
INTRODUCTION—Born in 1944, I grew up knowing that my country was squared off against a belligerent rival. Each country was able & quite possibly willing to do untold damage without warning. The values inherent in nuclear deterrence show that we need a new cultural ideal. We can see what a new ideal might look life by confronting militarism itself in its ancient & mo- dern glorification of the warrior, & then by studying a remarkable 18th century alternative, the Quaker John Woolman.
I. The Ancient Hero—For young Greeks of Plato’s time, stories about Achilles in Homer’s Iliad were a way of transmitting cultural values. Plato was against using most traditional Greek literature in educating the military elite. [Even though regarded as indispensable to the siege of Troy
His independence and his treasonous prayer that the Greeks keep losing as long as he stays out, makes him unsuitable as a warrior in Plato’s eyes. For Plato, self-interested striving for glory has to be replaced by a wil- lingness to set aside personal desires for the whole community's good (i.e. re- placed by the new Greek idea of citizenship). Another problem Plato has is that Achilles loses control at the news of his friend’s death. The problem for Plato seems to be that Achilles is all too human, & hence not a good ideal.
His ideal was openly modeled on the Spartan militarist society, which ruthlessly submerged personal interest and individual differences to the needs of the state. He wants the new warrior to be less self-centered, and he wants the rulers of the state to come from the ranks of the guardian warriors. [So the new warrior must] be capable of intellectual pursuits far beyond the needs of military prowess, [capable of being] philosopher-kings.
II. The Modern Warrior—How do the military virtues fit the culture & time we live in? [The example I use in answer] is “The Red Baron.” He was a fighter pilot during WW I; he flew bright red airplanes [and shot down 80 enemy pilots]. Manfred Freiherr von Richtofen, wrote a memoir which was published during the war in which he fought. Von Richtofen shares with Achilles a number of characteristics. He is proud of his ability, and clearly seeks glory in shooting down more Englishmen. The Red Baron fought at a time when aerial combat was still “personal, [quite unlike the impersonal slaughter going on in the fields below him].”
[Most of his memoir reflects] a curious & extremely significant detach- ment, like the detachment of the bomber from the explosion. The people below were thought of as incidental parts of “targets.” The detachment I dis- cuss here avoids value commitments and the knowledge of the effects of one’s acts. What the Red Baron flew was really only a vehicle for carrying machine guns. The technology of warfare affects the appropriateness of particular ideals to a culture. History changes the character of what we ought to find admirable.
The Battle Somme wiped out virtually an entire generation of men in a matter of hours. Individual hero-warriors like the Red Baron became ana- chronisms. If we look at warfare's future we can see the new “ideal” emerging of which the machine-gunner is an early representation. Many new warriors operate & repair complex machinery of a technological civilization; they are machine-minders. The expression “pushing the button” is eloquent in showing the extent the warrior’s detachment has reached since Homeric times. The de- tachment of the long-distance warrior makes it difficult for an agent of human destruction to recognize responsibility for events. We do still value personal courage, strength, & technical skills; we must also value thoughtfulness.
Adolph Eichmann organized the details of the Jews' mass deportations from Germany Austria
The antidote to detachment is a thoughtfulness which imaginatively considers probable consequences of actions & of participation in systems, & evaluates those consequences within a distinct framework of values. I want to examine an example of a life lived that thoughtfully. I have chose an obscure figure because he deserves to be better known & because he exemplifies the thoughtfulness I think is necessary in a cultural ideal for our time.
III. A New Cultural Ideal—His name was John Woolman. He was born in 1720 in New Jersey and lived nearly all his life in the town of Mt. Holly, about 20 miles from Philadelphia. Woolman describes walking and riding up and down the colonies as a Quaker minister, meeting with all sorts of peo- ple and carefully and humbly explaining that slaveholding was deeply evil not only to slaves but also to the slaveholders who were themselves brutalized by the institution.
He once wrote a bill of sale for a slave woman; after that he carefully explained & then refused to write any more documents involving disposition of slaves. In all these stories Woolman shows up as a humble, considerate, and careful man. He knew his own limits, but he was unwilling to press his views on others. He would pay for any services he received as a guest in a house- hold with slaves.
[While in Pennsylvania
John Woolman is to me an ideal because of his thoughtful consideration of the consequences of his actions and choices. The most recent editor of Woolman’s Journal commented: “The significance of Woolman is that he saw and took into account the long-range effects overlooked by many.”
IV. Individual and Community: The Paradox—[The paradox is that while] learning what is appropriate behavior from the traditions of our commu- nity, we remain individuals and sometimes have different perspectives from our community. What is our warrant, our authority, for maintaining a different moral position from that of our community? It worried Wool man as a young man to be coming to conclusions contrary to the understan- ding of older and more experienced members of his religious society. He recognized that in the face of widespread social evils individuals must lead; a community will only come to understand the good if it is demonstrated as a viable way of ordering affairs.
Woolman chose to be an example, a witness to his principles, rather than a mere preacher. He tells us: “Deeply rooted customs, though wrong, are not easily altered, but it is the duty of everyone to be firm in that which they know is right for them.” “To refuse the active payment of a tax which our Society generally paid was exceedingly disagreeable, but to do a thing con- trary to my conscience appeared yet more dreadful.” Woolman’s whole life was a recommendation of radical trust in the divine.
His achievement of that state that won't do violence to another for any provocation sets him apart from the majority of humankind, and yet makes his example even more valuable to us; the alternative is the pathology of detach- ment. [Detachment can lead to the erosion of moral principles]. Thoughtful attention to the traits of character we value in others and in ourselves might help us avoid the absurdities systems of power generate.
V. Virtues for our Time—I would single out 3 key virtues in Woolman’s character that are especially applicable today: consistency; compassion; moral imagination. When he discovered that the dyes in clothing involved slave labor he stopped buying dyed clothing, but continued wearing what he had until it wore out. He also said: “I have seen many entangled in the spirit oppression… I could not find peace in joying in anything which I saw was against that wis- dom which is pure.”
Woolman’s compassion, literally a “feeling with,” goes beyond benevo- lence in cultivating a sensitivity to the sufferings of others. His sensitivity em- powered Woolman to recognize particulars of injustice in the remote effects of systems, aspects which escaped the notice of his less perceptive contempo- raries. He recoiled from the practices and traditions which, even in mini- scule ways, helped those wounds to fester. Woolman’s moral imagination stands as an effective antidote to the detachment which besets us. Through its exercise, we find out how the things we do affect others, and we are connec- ted to humanity as we are shown our essential unity in the web of relation- ships. These 3 virtues all clearly express the one guiding motivation of his life, to act always out of love toward absolutely everyone.
VI. Our Predicament/Conclusion—American society suffers from maintenance of an obsolete militaristic ideal, one which seriously perverted by certain metaphors. We are invited by one perverse & dangerous metaphor to think of the whole nation as a hero. Protecting national “interests” through belligerence & threats of revenge, while pretending that the ultimate weapons are never to be used, requires duplicity of thinking or utterly thought-less detachment from reality. The unthinking acquiescence in the bizarre system which justifies raining down nuclear weapons upon almost 300,000,000 hu- man beings constitutes the pathology of detachment. We cannot responsibly wall ourselves off from the future we create in the present. Thoughtfulness will breach that wall.
We can study the web of relationships, [our ideals], and come to under- stand its workings and our place in it. Ideals [used to shape a unique individual life] show us human possibilities in confronting what is universal in the human condition. While Plato’s Republic firmly counters an egocentric perspective, he replaces it with a rationalistic ideal of state control. Plato’s glorification of ratio- nal control is false to the facts of human fallibility. John Woolman shows us that giving up the illusion of egocentric rational control does not make one a pawn of external circumstances, but is the source of tremendous strength of moral character.
Surely putting aside the ego-centered will is the hardest practice of the religious life. Yet only by recourse to something universal, beyond the self, can we transcend the limitation of individual knowledge & of individual power. We can choose to apply in our intentions and purposes John Woolman’s virtues in the ways we shape our understanding of life well-lived. I think the solution to the potentially disastrous effects of detachment is thoughtful choice of a new ideal to replace the warrior. We need the new societal consciousness of hu- man connection in the web of life that study of the life of John Woolman can provide.
264. Leadings and Being Led (by Paul A. Lacey; 1985)
About the Author—Born in Philadelphia Western YM , Plainsfield , IN Damariscotta , ME
[Language of Leadings/ George Fox, William Penn, & Robert Barclay]—Friends speak of: being drawn to an action; being called or led; being under the weight of a concern; being open to the leadings of the Light. They say it is essential to our nature to hear & obey God’s voice, [with all] the ethical, political, social, & economic consequences that go with it. It’s to know oneself capable of being taught now by the living Spirit of Truth, capable of receiving vital direction in what one is to do.
A danger is that we are so over-awed at how powerful a leading must be that we never trust that we have been led; its opposite is to not feel enough awe, [to not discern between leading & self-will]. As heirs to that rich vocabu- lary, [we need] to recover its proper meaning & free it from pretentiousness. What are hallmarks and consequences of being led? How can we tell when a leading is genuine? Where do we look for leadings?
George Fox doesn't often speak of “leadings.” He speaks of a series of great openings: “The Lord said unto me, ‘Thou seest how young people go together into vanity and old people into the earth; thou must forsake all … and be as a stranger unto all.” In the 3rd year of these wanderings, he has a series of great openings: he has it opened to him that no one is truly a believer who has not passed from death to life; something more than university training is essential to being a minister; the people of God, not the building, is the church of God .
These openings help clear away error, but Fox doesn’t yet know who God’s people are or what makes a true minister. Openings, sorrows & tempta- tions all occur intermixed in this time of Fox’s 1st searching. Even after the revelation “There is one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition,” Fox still passes through worse sorrows & temptations than he had experienced before. [His leadings led him] to do things which were inexplicable to him, impelled by a hint or by a call to testify, or to feel commanded to walk barefoot in winter through Litchfield’s streets. Even for a great religious prophet, lea- dings can be uncertain & ambiguous, an occasion for risk.
Consider [also] the example of William Penn. At least 10 years elapsed between the 1st & 2nd times he heard Thomas Loe preach. There was ferment in his soul, but he was no Quaker. He threatened to throw an intruder down the meeting stairs. Friends must have been troubled about how this new enthusiast was going to fit into the Society. Robert Barclay wrote in Apology: “I felt a se- cret power among them, which touched my heart, and as I gave way unto it, I found the evil weakening in me, and the good raised up; I was knit and united unto them.”
[Hallmarks of Leadings]—1st, the leading is directed inwardly. We may feel emptiness and separation from other people, and feel required to act out those inner experiences. We learn in some detail about our own condition— both what it is and what it might become. [While others fit our behavior into] some developmental scheme or mid-life crisis, that doe not account for it. It is an ultimate test in meaning, integrity, and fellowship.
2nd, we recognize that our endurance comes as a gift, an opening; 3rd, we learn about people. We see that we are part of suffering humanity; whatever comforts us will have to be for all humankind. For Fox, to have one’s condition spoken was to learn hard truth or be brought to judgment. That of God for him might be totally at odds with what one was doing or saying. To answer that of God in God’s adversaries means being a terror & dread to them; it means speaking to what lies imprisoned in them [and perhaps throw them into confu- sion]. To know our own condition & the condition of others is to know the wit- ness within each of us which can lead us out of error.
A 4th hallmark of a leading is that we feel ourselves increasingly under obedience. A gather power of conviction within us sustains our courage and patience and then points us to first steps in a re-ordering of our lives; the steps gradually become bigger and more defined. At first, Fox did not know what would speak to his condition; Penn was a clumsy seeker for more than 10 years before following his leadings and even then he stumbled. Barclay wanted intellectual cogency, but the meeting began to define his condition even as it spoke to it. At the moment of greatest emptiness or greatest need, God begins to turn separate openings to good account. The fullest expression of one’s fundamental leading may be to do what one does best.
[My Personal Leadings]—My 1st encounter with Quakers came in high school, weekend work camp. They spoke of answering that of God in even the most despairing and hardened persons. Their lives testified to a depth and integrity which touched me. Sitting in silence did not come natural to me. Gra- dually I found myself more at ease in the silence. Later I realized that there was something behind the words which was reaching me, a “secret power.” My 1st leading was through the evident goodness & effectiveness of Friends and the peacefulness of a meeting. I found myself struggling with the peace testimony.
For weeks I felt haunted by the question, torn & terrified by the conse- quences of accepting or rejecting the peace testimony. After a sleepless night, I knew I was a conscientious objector & would have to give up force as a solu- tion to anything—for the rest of my life. I had been led inevitably to this choice, but I felt frightened at what had happened to me; I felt defenseless in a vio- lent world. I was given a leading which, in effect, immersed me in terror & the stuff of violence so that I could know my condition and work with it; my experiences are not unique.
I speak neither easily nor often in meeting for worship. Silence can be not the absence of sound but something full of energy. In meeting for worship this energy is pooled, gathered, shared by all of us. Each person who spoke seemed to know what it would help me to hear. [Vocal ministry] shaped what had come into my mind. Phrases & images arranged themselves in clusters & a loose sequence. They began to take shape as a message. I felt a physical weakness and was so shaken that I did not speak; I felt as though I had failed at something.
A few weeks later the process repeated it self. I felt the heart-pounding weakness, but this time I stood up, and the weakness stopped as soon as I began to speak. I never speak in meeting for worship without that feeling of intensity, clarity, a given message, and a heart-pounding weakness. I should not speak in meeting without feeling impelled and awed by what I am doing. The command to speak and the capacity to follow it come from a source of power far beyond one’s own limits.
[Tests of Leadings]—When we are led to the truth it is so we may live by it & do something with it. Early in Quaker history the community of faith had to find means to discern the true from the false leading & helping the indivi- dual test the validity of his or her inward experience. Hugh Barbour describes 4 tests which Friends came to apply to leadings: moral purity, patience, the self-consistency of the spirit, & bringing people into unity.
Moral purity was demonstrated by obeying calls which come simply as tests of our obedience. Even the lawful self, our goodness, our wish to help others, our healthy minds, need to be placed under obedience. Patience is a sound test, since “self-will is impatient of tests.” Friends learn to wait in silent worship. Friends’ organizing structure is used so Friends can submit leadings to other Friends and wait for clearness to proceed.
The test of self-consistency of the spirit rests on the principle that the Light won’t contradict itself by leading different people to conflicting actions. If other Friends receive similar callings, or there are similar leadings in the Bible, those are evidence of a consistent spirit. The test is also for how individuals follow leadings in one’s own life. Where an apparent leading brings discord, every member of the community is obliged to examine one’s self as well as his neighbor, to see how unity may be restored. It may mean urging greater pa- tience on those eager for action, or it may mean encouraging the slow to change to heed the witness of those more socially concerned.
The test of self-consistency of the spirit rests on the principle that the Light won’t contradict itself by leading different people to conflicting actions. If other Friends receive similar callings, or there are similar leadings in the Bible, those are evidence of a consistent spirit. The test is also for how individuals follow leadings in one’s own life. Where an apparent leading brings discord, every member of the community is obliged to examine one’s self as well as his neighbor, to see how unity may be restored. It may mean urging greater pa- tience on those eager for action, or it may mean encouraging the slow to change to heed the witness of those more socially concerned.
[John Woolman’s Testing of Leadings]—His visit to the Indians be- gins with “inward drawings” to them in fall 1761; in winter 1762, he 1st shares his feelings with his several meetings and “having the unity of Friends,” he begins arrangements in spring 1763, to travel that summer. He closely tests his motives “lest the desire of reputation as a man firmly settled to persevere through dangers,” or a fear of disgrace for not doing it “have some place in me.” “I could not find that I had ever given way to the willful disobedience.”
Woolman wrote: “Love was the 1st motion, and then a concern arose to spend some time with Indians, that I might feel and understand their life & the spirit they live in … I might receive instruction from [or help them].” This per- fectly summarizes the characteristics of a true leading. It begins inwardly, as a process or motion of caring [with a vague direction and object]. From pati- ent waiting a concern arises & becomes clarified. The concern for the Indi- ans steadily gathers force until it is discharged in the successful completion of the trip.
His concern for Barbados
In the turmoil of waiting, an incident from his past comes to his consci- ousness. He [facilitated] a transaction involved an indentured white slave, who had been sold for 9 years longer than was common. His exercise concerning the Barbados Barbados
[Tests of Discernment of Leadings/ Testifying to the Truth of a Leading]—“Be like Woolman” may not be helpful advice to those of us still struggling to be ourselves with integrity. Perhaps “be like members of Wool- man’s meeting”; help each other to be faithful to leadings. Tests of discernment must be applied with discernment. We are more likely than our predecessors to recognize that the group as well as the individual stands under scrutiny. An individual rightly led in a stagnant meeting may still wait for clearness to pro- ceed in order to keep fellowship and help the group to grow.
[All manner of issues in the form of leadings are brought to the meeting by individuals]. We can no more prevent someone from doing as he or she feels led than the 1st generation of Friends could. We can only decide to keep or break fellowship, expressing unity with a Friend, express lack of clear- ness, or repudiating his or her action. Is this the right action, for this time & place? Is this person rightly prepared to undertake the action? Together these questions point to self-consistency, moral purity and patience of the individual.
Whatever Friends did as a specific testimony took its primary validity from its function of turning people to the Inward Teacher. To be led to the In- ward Teacher is to find fellowship with others and calling for oneself. The community of finders, those who are led by the Inward Teacher, is also led to create instruments and institutions which facilitate the following of the truth. Human beings, by their nature, must create social means to express the truth. To create the conditions of social justice, we must create new economic and social patterns, not no patterns. [Establishing something like a school] means substantiating the original inspiration through sustained study of education itself and continual return to the spring of inspiration, the Inward Teacher.
[Concern and Testimonies]—Quaker testimonies which arise from the nature of the Light of Christ are: Community, Harmony, Equality and Simplicity. Tensions invariably exist between waiting for a process to clarify itself & acting in time to be effective. Tension also arise between the competing claims of different testimonies. What are appropriate expressions of the simplicity testimony today? We know that our testimonies have bearing on these pro- blems, but there is no automatically correct way to apply them. The leadings which come must be appropriate to our skills and knowledge, our strengths and our sense of integrity. [I have an opportunity to be faithful to my leadings in my voting].
How can we be led when testimonies seem to be in tension? For some the abortion issue revolves around the right of human beings to make choices about their bodies. They see an oppressive patriarchal system and laws. Support of women’s free choice is consonant with the testimonies for equality, social justice and peace. For others the abortion question revolves around the sacredness of all human life. The fetus is the most defenseless of humans; ending it is murder. The testimonies of social justice and peace are also at issue; the sacredness of God-given life is paramount. How can a pa- cifist condone the taking of life in an abortion?
Each side accuses the other of inconsistency & moral blindness. “Right to Life” & “Freedom of Choice” become mindless slogans and war cries. How can we be open to a leading on abortion? We might try to imagine the suffering of women who [wish they had, or wish they hadn’t had an abortion]. We might try to imagine the pain of death for those small sparks of life, the fetuses.
We might try to put ourselves into the situations of our adversaries, asking what we can learn from their sincerity & insight, & live for a time with the pain of indecision, the turmoil of taking seriously every conviction sincerely held, and admitting the inadequacy of each. If we start with the conviction that we are gathered to be led by our Inward Teacher and that our actions must follow from this, the actions we are finally led to take will be better-rooted, more deeply considered, more tender in their understanding, and possibly more significant.
[Testifying for Justice: Then & Now]—Only with the benefit of hind- sight can we say that the leadings [of Friends in generations past] were clear. For most of us the leadings we have had are unlikely to have some miracu- lous opening. Our ways to meet the needs for social, political, & economic justice must be different, in an age of industrialization, & [complex global is- sues]. I dimly discern some ways I can order & focus my life in relation to such issues, but often I do not see a single clear leading for myself. The ap- propriate testimonies will have to come out of testing: individual against com- munity; present against past; our faith community against others.
George Fox wrote: “[there is] a sitting of the justices about hiring of ser- vants; and it was upon me from the Lord to go and speak to the justices that they should not oppress the servants in their wages.” He missed his 1st oppor- tunity to speak to them, “and I was struck even blind that I could not see.” He found they were meeting at a town 8 miles away, and “my sight began to come to me again, and I went and ran thitherward as fast as I could.”
Fox delays in acting until it appears too late. He loses his sight, until it appears he has not lost all chance to be obedient to his leading. Most signi- ficant of all, his sight comes back as he runs. Even when we are obedient, we will not always know where we are to go or how far. Our sight will come to us as we go. The consequences will be out of our hands, but we will know that we did what we were called to do—to follow our lead.
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265. Thoughts are Free: A Quaker Youth Group in Nazi Germany
(by Anna Sabine Halle; 1985)
About the Author—Anna Sabine Halle, daughter of Olga and Gerhard Halle, co-founders of German Yearly Meeting, 1925, is a native ofBerlin Sweden US Germany
About the Author—Anna Sabine Halle, daughter of Olga and Gerhard Halle, co-founders of German Yearly Meeting, 1925, is a native of
About the Translator—Mary E. B. Feagins was a student in Nazi Ger- many. She and her husband have met Olga Halle, Anna Halle’s mother. They have visited Eberhard and Käte Tacke in East Berlin . Through correspon- dence, Mary Feagins and Anna Halle have become good friends.
About the Cover Artist—Eberhard Tacke was born in 1903 in Berlin East Berlin .
Preliminary Remarks/ Youth Group History —We frequently describe the Religious Society of Friends as “religion without dogma.” We practice “silent worship” believing God can be revealed directly to every human being; there is in everyone something “of God.” We renounce the death penalty & war. This story is an attempt to realize the conviction that religious belief & political action are [inseparable], even under the Nazis.
As early as 1933, individual Berlin Quakers had been objects of perse- cution. [Here we write of] how the Berlin Monthly Meeting of Quakers as an organization took a clear and public stand in opposition to the Nazi regime in 1933. They allotted a contribution to the Anti-war Museum
A need arose to do something for the youth. When we consider how few adults kept a cool head [in the face of the Nazi regime], we can understand how difficult it was for youth to live in a state of exclusion, a state they had to esta- blish for themselves. [In the face of personal danger, it was a big risk] to as- sume responsibility for youth whose parents weren’t even Quaker. Out of the entire list of 54 youths over 6 years, only 8 came from Quaker families. The formation of groups [mixing Aryans & non-Aryans] had been strictly forbidden since 1934.
Religious Conviction & Political Astuteness/ Composition & Goals of the Youth Group—The Berlin Meeting was disappointed the Yearly Meeting refused specific support. The German Yearly Meeting wrote in 1936: “We have learned that among us are human beings going through sorrows & suffering, free of bitterness & hate. This has been for a living testimony of the Spirit’s power, which overcomes despair & calls us … to carry the little child on our shoulders through the floods of our time to the other shore.”
They wrote earlier “The time of private devotion is past … We have to be sustained by the revelation of the Eternal in our life, so that there is no lon- ger any distinction between actions & religious convictions.” There was also “the responsibility for Quakerism’s persistence in Germany
The Berlin MM entrusted the youth group’s leadership to Willy Wohlrabe, former head of the Saxony department in charge of youth questions. We youth accepted this leader without further to-do. We even practiced “Quaker Demo- cracy” [i.e we reached agreement on a matter through consensus whenever possible]. It seems unusual that we easily bridged the differing faiths of our family backgrounds. [8 were Quaker; 15 from Socialist Party circles; 26 were racially persecuted. One specific tendency we shared in common: our ideals were bound to concrete social action prompted by the examples of Schweitzer, Gandhi, Laotse, Kagawa, or earlier Quakers.
Albert Schweitzer said: “Grow into your ideals so the life cannot take them away from you.” He also said: "In these times, when the exercise of power cloaked in deception is dominating the world more dreadfully than ever before, I am still convinced that Truth, Love, Gentleness, and Kindness constitute the power that is above all power. The world will belong to them, if only enough human beings think and live out thoughts of truth, love, gentle- ness, and peaceableness with sufficient purity, strength and constancy.”
Our Almost Normal Group Life—[We practiced] sharing rather than exchanging ideas. Our favorite subjects were “Internal and External Freedom” and “The Relation of the Individual to his Environment and Neighbor.” How does it happen that anyone with a “humanistic” and academic education, were so easily seduced by an inhumane ideology? What are we able to accomplish today that is positive? By [helping needy families in various ways], we saw our own material situation in a new light.
Lotte Westphal, an infantile paralysis victim, took part in our hikes, by being pulled in a handcart. The Quakers offered consciously a counterba- lance to the Nazi ideology. Unconsciously they influenced us through exam- ple. We felt the silence’s good effects at the beginning & end of our activities. We understood the Quaker wish to avoid anything that can divide people. We renounced smoking & alcohol & wished to stay clear of any addictions. We placed demands upon ourselves that would appear “repressive” to a youth group today: order, cleanliness, punctuality. These were necessary prerequi- sites for a productive community life.
[We had to go on excursions keeping in mind that] we were not only breaking the National Socialist Law of Assembly but must constantly fear the charge of “racial dishonor.” Later, the organization of Easter gatherings in Berlin Europe , which had been reconstructed in 1932 on the original foundations from 1800; we had been holding our yearly meetings there ever since. The Quaker in charge there was taken to Buchenwald in 1942.
In nearby Friedensthal there were straw beds & the use a kitchen for the group. Every visitor from abroad brought moving greetings from the free world, & an assurance we weren’t alone in our moral need. [Our presence allowed] older Friends to see a modest success for their efforts to include young persons who understood & shared their goals. We were eager to thank the grownups for all the sacrifices they were making for us.
It was precisely the Berlin Quakers' intention that we should for brief moments forget the seriousness of the time. We were able through a very special & carefully worked out plan to make a trip to the Czechoslovakian part of the Riesen Mountain Range. The officials there remembered the “youth hikes” of Willy Wohlrabe, which produced a lot of goodwill. In Finkenberg, a division of “Hitler Youth” surrounded us, hailed some Storm Troopers and made us march through the streets to Spandau . They seized the songbooks and a Quaker book and let us go that night. Guenther Gaulke, and I were subjected to fearful cross-examination. It was difficult to be faithful to my convictions and the truth and yet be “wise as serpents.
The Quaker Bureau/ Quaker Aid—This bureau placed some of its rooms at the Berlin Quakers’ disposal. A Children’s Group, our youth Group, Young Friends, & numerous members of a “Student Club” also used the space. We placed limitations on our own freedom in order not to jeopardize the adults’ pressing work of aiding those oppressed by the Nazis. The ground floor rooms were scantily furnished. Any longing we had for any sheer beauty beyond the grim reality was fulfilled on Sundays when a flower bouquet decorated the wor ship room.
We had learned not to attract unnecessary attention on the way to & from our evening meetings. Once inside, we youngsters were unrestrained in our noisy talking, laughter & song. We had no political brochures, agitating propaganda or banned books there. Only in a case of emergency or extreme importance would we risk closing the office or having the service banned. We deliberately defied Gestapo injunction by fostering friendly associations among “Jews,” “Aryans” & “Politicals”; this was of great importance & a fun- damentally Quaker position.
The International Secretariat [Bureau] had been formed after WWI for purposes of reconciliation and peace. Jewish as well as political victims of harassment were asking the Quaker Bureau for material support or assistance in emigration and job seeking. People seeking help streamed into the Bureau from all areas of Germany
The Jewish community was already taking care of orthodox Jews. Who was going to help those in the wider Jewish community or those who have left the churches? Who abroad is going to take them into their families and into their schools, to provide jobs parents and money for “affidavits?” How can sick and old persons for whom no one is re- sponsible be saved? The Bureau’s work was in cooperation with Quaker centers in the US, Sweden, Shanghai, Tokyo, Australia, South Africa, Geneva, London, and Vienna.
2 Quaker projects for the politically & racially persecuted are still men- tioned throughout Germany Holland
The Berlin
Some Restrictions on Quaker Activity—There were meetings for wor ship, lectures and discussions held at the Bureau, [& thus] a constant coming & going of strangers, sometimes including an informer for the Gestapo. Some Quaker members had lost their jobs for political reasons; some had been ques tioned by the Gestapo and forbidden to associate with Jews but weren't adhe- ring to this.
The Committee for Business of April 1933 wrote: “It is our concern to distinguish the essential from the unessential …” Berlin
In the Quaker offices, no one ever spoke of foreign radio broadcasts or told a political joke, & we were denied the satisfaction of fighting our opponent by printing and distributing leaflets or any other “illegal activity.” We had to renounce the fulfillment of making visible our resistance and the fulfillment of shared excitement with its strong community-building power. I didn't learn until much later that my parents could correspond with Quakers abroad only with great difficulty, in 1938.
We learned only after the war of like-minded, [resisting] friends living only a few streets away. Secrecy was kept even among closest friends—not out of mistrust, but because of mutual desire not to place one another in jeo- pardy. Neither church nor Party youth groups sought contact with us. Wer- ner Sachse had to become a soldier, and died in the “Russian winter.” All con- scientious objectors were punished by death.
Almost Like Sanctuaries—My sister & I were taken out of Lichterfeld’s school as the only 2 not part of the Nazi’s youth group for girls. My sister went to Wald School
At PFH, instead of the official “Yule Celebration” we had regular Christ- mas. I recited Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s “Peace on Earth” [excerpt follows]: “When on the night of Jesus’ birth/ The shepherds watching over herds/ Obeyed the angel’s joyful words/ to seek the stable, once forlorn/ Now blessed with mother and new- born,/ While the stars like bells were ringing,/ Hea- venly choirs continued singing:/ Peace, let Peace prevail on Earth ... Still there remains the firm belief/ That, though the weak may bow in grief/ Constricted by the murderous girth/ Of evil, this shall not be so/ Forever."
"Somewhere here below/ Justice is at work in sorrow/ To build a state that will tomorrow/ Foster peace upon the earth.” To persons without a Chris- tian tradition, we [shared the intention of Zarathustra from the 6th century B.C. to strive as though the time when the appeal of those who are helping is finally heard and acted on is already here].
Aids to Spiritual Survival For us and Others—As risks increased, more & more people left our group by emigrating, fleeing, going underground, or being deported. [In a time of such repression, what sustained us?] What contributed to our psychological survival? There was always music —especially our own, folk songs and hiking songs of the youth and workers movements. We all sang the songs of ancient and modern romantics, like Eichendorff, Loens, and Erich Kaestner.
Non- or anti-Nazi literature that was illegally smuggled in from abroad was usually unknown to us. We found in our parents’ bookcases all impor- tant writers of the Weimar Period, including the currently banned Jewish & Socialist writers. I [mainly] wish to point the significance of literature in times when a dictatorship “brings into line” all the media, but also paralyzes literary expression.
Pastor Wilhelm Mensching & a Quaker committee planned that selected pamphlets, called “Heritage pamphlets,” be legally disseminated. They edited more than 26 different pamphlets (500 copies of each edition), including essays about poets, musicians, social reformers, philosophers, Gandhi, Luther, Nansen & Schweitzer. [Leonhard Friedrich oversaw the process], until he was put into a concentration camp. The Quaker woman who edited them received a prison sentence. She was freed only through the intervention of an influential relative.
The “Heritage Pamphlets” were found by Friends Relief Service in their search for cultural material for German prisoners of war; they distributed 50,000. An especially lively response was evoked among persons of the most varied philosophies by the “Hasidic Stories,” selected from Martin Buber by Margarethe Lachmund, a member of our Meeting: “A man who was afflicted by a severe chronic illness complained that suffering interfered with study and prayer. Rabbi Israel
The preface to Brother Lawrence’s “The Presence of God, an Actual Experience” states: “This loving serenity and composure of the soul … is what we need to be able to become inwardly free and to help others.” This book was banned in 1942 by the Gestapo.
In War—With the war’s beginning, the foreign co-workers had to leave. We knew that the leave-taking was for a long time. Responsibility for the Bu- reau & the winding up of the last emigration cases were left to Olga Halle & Martha Roehn. The most dreadful task was speaking to those who could no longer be helped. Someone asked: “Why did the beautiful hours have to end, before we knew what they meant to us? Why did fate take away all our loved ones, before we recognized their true value & thanked them?” Why does an omnipotent God permit so much injustice, lying, violence, & suffering to exist in the world? None of us knew the answer.
The growing terror in war-time limited our participation in group life and practical work to an ever-diminishing circle. A Jewish girl wrote: “I am thankful for every day in which, in the quiet of my work, I can still dedicate myself to my neighbors and to myself.” Since we were in school or in training, we could participate very little in the material help being given in the war. The youth was allowed to send books, games, and theatrical material to prisoners of war. The whole undertaking was only possible because the Nazis had confidence in the uprightness of the Quakers. Strange cooperation between opponents.
Not Merely an End of the Youth Group/ Biographical Notes—During the war our group continued to decline in numbers, from Jews escaping, stu- dents leaving Berlin, becoming soldiers, or moving into the Quaker Young Friends group. A 1942 circulating letter said in part: “Not until now have we truly been able to understand the meaning of the Quaker saying: ‘Friends are persons who are known to each other in that which is eternal.”
Olga Halle shared bravely the severe consequences of all the decisions of conscience of her husband & demanded no special consideration for herself & for us 4 children. In 1933, Father was dismissed from his civil service posi tion. Now registered with the police as “enemy of the people,” he was able to find employment only with difficulty, was threatened with internment in a con- centration camp [at least once]. [The illegal act of associating with Jews we considered] to be worth the risk. Yet, in order to survive in a dictatorship, no one can be constantly consistent; we couldn’t always avoid the obligatory greeting “Heil Hitler” in our daily life & most certainly not if we wanted to outlive the Gestapo system. My parents decided that we should emigrate to New Zealand
Mother received the questionable honor & award of the “Mutterkreuz” (distinguished mother’s cross) from a “petty Nazi” without expressing opposi- tion only in order to spare him difficulties with the Party leadership. War broke out & destroyed any hope of flight. My sister went to work in a children’s hos- pital; father & I went to work on a farm, [even though it was still] contributing to the “total war effort.” Every Nazi in moments of danger was above every- thing else our fellow-citizen, [suffering the same danger, deprivation, & mour- ning for the dead].
My younger brother was able to escape to a distant city to avoid the draft. My older brother had to become a soldier or die. My father chose to resist; [he had become a pacifist after having served with distinction in WWI]. The major in charge of his hearing, having served in the same battles, wrote some- thing into his papers which saved my father’s life (& most certainly endan- gered his own); my father was never called into service again.
An End to War & Terror: A New Beginning—We had survived! Most important to us was the fact that “thoughts are free” and now we were able to express what we thought, [and to read whatever we liked]. At age 24, I was the sole employee of the International Secretariat, which now occupied a part of our family living room. My life was serving a material and spiritual purpose which was directly visible. Help came from throughout the world, especially from the USA
[My income source was from] selling a carton of Camel cigarettes on the black market for 350 marks. In the case of need and corruption it is difficult to be absolutely correct. I live in the American sector. In 1950, I was happy to get a job as secretary with the city government. [Since we had different views], winning my colleagues' confidence was as difficult as it was enriching for me.
My Quaker work was at the Free University. I worked at unifying the “Reform Socialists. So-called “Progressives” and “Conservatives” learn should learn to speak with one another instead of combating each other. Another task was improvement in the rights and social position of non-scholarly co-workers. Albert Schweitzer wrote: “Not one of us knows what effect we may be having or what we may be giving; it is hidden … Often we are permitted to see a very little portion of this so that we may not become discouraged. Power works in myste rious ways.”
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266. Mending the World: Quaker Insights on the Social Order (by
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Kenneth Ewart Boulding; 1986)
About the Author—Kenneth E. Boulding was born in England in 1910 and educated at New College, Oxford and the University of Chicago. He served the League of Nations. He is a member of the Committee on Research for Peace of the Institute for International Order, and full time Director of the Center for Research in Conflict Resolution of the University of Michigan; he is also Professor of Economics there.
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their efforts to mend it. William Penn
[Quaker concern for mending]—Quakerism was founded in a world that was torn apart by the Reformation, and by sects within the Reformation. The English Civil War, aside from Ireland was not as devastating as the war in Germany, but it tore the country apart. Charles II's restoration that followed was a time of bitter persecution for Friends. The concern for “mending the world” came out of living in this time and out of a hunger for perfection. George Fox’s mystical experience included identification with the sinless- ness of Christ and the innocence of Adam before the fall. The great mes- sage of perfectionism is that what is torn can be mended if we put our hearts and minds to mending it. Disllusionment with the hypocrisies and inade- quacies of the existing order often turns people to seek for something within themselves.
About the Author—Kenneth E. Boulding was born in England in 1910 and educated at New College, Oxford and the University of Chicago. He served the League of Nations. He is a member of the Committee on Research for Peace of the Institute for International Order, and full time Director of the Center for Research in Conflict Resolution of the University of Michigan; he is also Professor of Economics there.
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their efforts to mend it. William Penn
[Quaker concern for mending]—Quakerism was founded in a world that was torn apart by the Reformation, and by sects within the Reformation. The English Civil War, aside from Ireland was not as devastating as the war in Germany, but it tore the country apart. Charles II's restoration that followed was a time of bitter persecution for Friends. The concern for “mending the world” came out of living in this time and out of a hunger for perfection. George Fox’s mystical experience included identification with the sinless- ness of Christ and the innocence of Adam before the fall. The great mes- sage of perfectionism is that what is torn can be mended if we put our hearts and minds to mending it. Disllusionment with the hypocrisies and inade- quacies of the existing order often turns people to seek for something within themselves.
[George Fox, Testimonies & Mending]—George Fox said: “When all my hopes in [clergy] … were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me … then I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition”; & when I did hear it, my heart did leap for joy.” Here the inward & outward mix. He clearly discovered an inward Christ that paralleled the outward Christ of the Bible & churches. The early excesses could not destroy the sense of belonging, not only to a historical community but to the spirit and the [divine] revelation.
Once the big rip that separates us from God is mended, life is different. Things which perhaps weren’t seen in need of mending before are now seen as needing it. [Sometimes], withdrawal from further tearing is an important step towards ultimate mending. Loving one’s enemies always means treating them as fellow human beings. In the life of Christ, one cannot really have enemies, people whose lives and welfare have a negative value for you.
Some [testimonies] were symbolic for the particular time, like “hat honor,” the plain language, and plain dress. Symbols of denying legitimacy are very powerful in social change, so that the Quaker testimonies on equality in manners may have had more impact on the larger world than is generally recognized. The more fundamental testimony of strict veracity & honesty had an impact far beyond the limits of the Society of Friends. [For example], fixed pricing made economic decisions much easier & certainly had something to do with the rise of the market economy.
[Quakers: Science and Law]—It was no accident that Friends played quite a disproportionate role in developing technology and science, [particu- larly] in the so-called Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century. Quakers were also prominent in banking, lead, china, pharmaceuticals, clocks, chocolate, canals and the first railroads. The 2 best known Quaker names in the scientific community are John Dalton, founder of modern chemistry (18th century), and Arthur S. Eddington, involved in modern physics (early 20th century).
There is a certain similarity between the ethic which underlies science & the ethic of the Society of Friends. There are 4 principal components of the scientific ethic involving placing a high value on: curiosity; testing; veracity; [& direct personal experience]. It is interesting that these 4 principles also are law characteristics, especially of common law. It was Quaker insistence on fundamental common law principles that led the early Friends into trouble with the law as it then stood. But they changed the law even as it persecuted them; they mended it.
[Quakers and Politics]—The impact of Friends on political life has been complex and by no means easy to assess. [This Society] was a remark- able experiment [that greatly limited the hierarchy and used a comprehensive democracy]. Decisions were made by the “sense of the meeting,” as interpre- ted by clerk, rather than by voting. Representatives to the larger meetings were selected by the “sense of the meeting.”
Unless democratic government has a culture of “mending” internal con- flicts and disputes beyond the mere formalism of majority rule, it is not likely to survive. The Quaker administration in Pennsylvania lasted a surprisingly long time, at least 70 years, before it succumbed to the strains of the French and Indian War; its impact was considerable. The spirit of Penn’s “frame of govern- ment” lives on in the Constitution, even though the “covenant of peace” doesn't.
Even though John Woolman’s [contribution to the anti-slave movement] had little impact outside the Society of Friends, the fact that a significant group of reasonably prosperous people could abandon slavery & remain prosperous set an example that contributed to the disappearance of slavery. The English Quaker John Bright played a small part in preventing Britain’s intervention in the American Civil War. Mahatma Gandhi was in contact with several Quakers, and [the principles of his nonviolent movement were certainly in harmony with Quaker principles]. The extraordinarily successful Quaker missionary effort in Kenya in the early part of the 20th century [brought a] political “mending” of a society in danger of being torn apart by tribal and racial conflict.
[The Schisms in American Quakerism/ Social Gospel Movement]— In the 19th century in the US the Society of Friends was torn apart by schisms. There was a bitter split between “Hicksites” & “Orthodox” in 1828. Within the Orthodox there was a split between the more evangelical “Gurneyites” & the more quiet & traditional “Wilburites.” [Gurneyites split further] between evan- gelical & revivalist groups on the one hand, & more middle-of-the-road Friends churches that eventually formed the 5-YM or Friends United Meeting.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Friends, especially the more “liberal” groups, in both the pastoral and the non-pastoral meetings participated in the “social gospel” movement, which expressed itself in both the Catholic & Protestant Churches. In both Britain and the US the social gospel of the chur- ches and the secular and political movement for social reform went hand-in- hand with the labor movement. The British labor movement was more Metho- dist than Marxist. The US movement was strongly influenced by the Catholic Church.
The cooperative movement, dating back to the 1840’s in Rochdale, de- veloped a somewhat new form of business organization in retailing. There has been a movement expansion of the state’s powers and activities. One facet is the greater regulation and control of private industry through such things as anti-trust laws. Another important movement has been the development of so- cial insurance against unemployment, ill health, and old age.
Even though John Woolman’s [contribution to the anti-slave movement] had little impact outside the Society of Friends, the fact that a significant group of reasonably prosperous people could abandon slavery & remain prosperous set an example that contributed to the disappearance of slavery. The English Quaker John Bright played a small part in preventing Britain’s intervention in the American Civil War. Mahatma Gandhi was in contact with several Quakers, and [the principles of his nonviolent movement were certainly in harmony with Quaker principles]. The extraordinarily successful Quaker missionary effort in Kenya in the early part of the 20th century [brought a] political “mending” of a society in danger of being torn apart by tribal and racial conflict.
[The Schisms in American Quakerism/ Social Gospel Movement]— In the 19th century in the US the Society of Friends was torn apart by schisms. There was a bitter split between “Hicksites” & “Orthodox” in 1828. Within the Orthodox there was a split between the more evangelical “Gurneyites” & the more quiet & traditional “Wilburites.” [Gurneyites split further] between evan- gelical & revivalist groups on the one hand, & more middle-of-the-road Friends churches that eventually formed the 5-YM or Friends United Meeting.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Friends, especially the more “liberal” groups, in both the pastoral and the non-pastoral meetings participated in the “social gospel” movement, which expressed itself in both the Catholic & Protestant Churches. In both Britain and the US the social gospel of the chur- ches and the secular and political movement for social reform went hand-in- hand with the labor movement. The British labor movement was more Metho- dist than Marxist. The US movement was strongly influenced by the Catholic Church.
The cooperative movement, dating back to the 1840’s in Rochdale, de- veloped a somewhat new form of business organization in retailing. There has been a movement expansion of the state’s powers and activities. One facet is the greater regulation and control of private industry through such things as anti-trust laws. Another important movement has been the development of so- cial insurance against unemployment, ill health, and old age.
The complex movement I have described above has been described as a movement towards a “welfare state.” It seeks to modify & ameliorate a market system’s tendency to produce unacceptable inequality in the distribution of riches, political power, & human dignity. To some extent social capitalism can be thought of as an expansion of the family ethic to the larger society, where young & old are supported by the activity of those in middle life, & the ill have been supported by the well. [The state enters where private distributions are inadequate].
[Modern World Mending]—What is in need of mending now? What sort of region of time are we in? What processes are we in the middle or end of? If it is a stable region, the recent past is a good guide to the future. [In a period of change], the immediate past is no guide at all. We may need to look to episodes, some quite distantly past, to give us a guide to what the future may be like. In my lifetime I have seen the development of television, computers, & nuclear power & weapons, none of which have had the impact that electricity & automobiles did; change may slow down now.
Nuclear weapons and the long-range missile have produced a new region of time, in which national defense has become the greatest enemy of national security. If present systems continue, San Francisco will be destroyed by an earthquake in X years, and the US and USSR, [and perhaps much more], will be destroyed by nuclear war in Y years. We see a science-based techno- logy producing a long increase in what might be called “average riches,” mainly in the temperate zones. From a predominantly rural, immobile class structure, and small communities, we have passed into larger, urbanized, highly mobile, world-oriented, communicative society of today. One of the most striking fea- tures of the US in the last 200 years has been the rise of organized religion, to the point where over 60% of the population is now church members.
[Marxism, Capitalism, and Colonialism]—Another long movement of the 20th century has been the rise of a new secular political religion of Marxism. Marxism has challenged all the older religions, especially the Judeo-Christian complex. It promised a better world for the grandchildren; it hasn’t happened. The increases in riches have been achieved with the loss of personal freedom, failure to achieve anything like political democracy, tyrannical governments, & disastrous mistakes. In China there was the Great Leap Forward [actually a leap backward) & the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution. The worst tragedy of all was Cambodia, where a policy based on class war may have taken 2,000,000 lives and a near-perpetual civil war.
[Marxism, Capitalism, and Colonialism]—Another long movement of the 20th century has been the rise of a new secular political religion of Marxism. Marxism has challenged all the older religions, especially the Judeo-Christian complex. It promised a better world for the grandchildren; it hasn’t happened. The increases in riches have been achieved with the loss of personal freedom, failure to achieve anything like political democracy, tyrannical governments, & disastrous mistakes. In China there was the Great Leap Forward [actually a leap backward) & the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution. The worst tragedy of all was Cambodia, where a policy based on class war may have taken 2,000,000 lives and a near-perpetual civil war.
In the capitalist world, the period from about 1950 to 1973 was some- thing of a golden age, in which per capita income doubled and in which poverty diminished. In many parts of the tropics the poorest got poorer. Large parts of Africa, especially, face a nightmare of soil erosion and population increase, leading to famine and enormous human misery. [Some countries suffer from a very rapid population growth.
One remarkable thing that has happened politically since the end of WWII has been the abandonment of empire by the British, the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, & the Portuguese. In one sense Soviet Union & the Peo- ple’s Republic of China are the last of the 19th century empires, with the possi- ble exception of Ethiopia. China would be better off without Tibet, & the Rus- sians would be better off without Uzbekistan, Estonia & the others.
[Old Nightmares & New Uncertainties]—The old nightmare was the Great Depression of the 1930’s, which brought capitalism to a cliff’s edge & represented a severe shock to the belief [in self-correcting markets]. ¼ of the US labor force was unemployed, an even higher proportion in Germany & Australia. In 1932 & ’33, real national income was ¾ of what it had been in 1929, the unemployed were worse off, some of the employed were better off, debtors worse off & creditors better off. Compared with the catastrophe in the USSR’s 1st Collectivization at the same time, the Great Depression in the US seemed mild; it was bad enough.
During the War, the war industry rose to 42% of the economy. There was an illusion in the 1950’s that only the war industry can save us from unemploy- ment. We can't help wondering whether what happened once could happen again, or whether we have built enough defenses in economic policy against a recurrence. The number of permanently poor people isn’t large, but poverty circulates through quite a large population section at the lower income levels. The United States hasn’t gotten very much richer since the late 1970’s; unem- ployment was 7% to 10%. The increase of war industry meant forgone civilian production & a productivity decline through a brain drain from civilian to war industry. The debt & interest burden is getting close to 10% & is a very severe burden. This is beginning to affect the banking system.
[There has been] great difficulty in solving the inflation-unemployment dilemma. Psychologically, we might summarize the inflation problem by saying it is a result of everyone wanting more than there is to have, with some people thinking they can get away with it! Inflation is an addictive drug, rather like he- roin. It works, but we need larger doses of inflation to produce the same effect. My own view is that this problem is soluble within the framework of social capi- talism. Many devices have been suggested, [e.g.] taxation of increased income due to increase in money wages or prices, or moderate price, wage, & interest control.
One remarkable thing that has happened politically since the end of WWII has been the abandonment of empire by the British, the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, & the Portuguese. In one sense Soviet Union & the Peo- ple’s Republic of China are the last of the 19th century empires, with the possi- ble exception of Ethiopia. China would be better off without Tibet, & the Rus- sians would be better off without Uzbekistan, Estonia & the others.
[Old Nightmares & New Uncertainties]—The old nightmare was the Great Depression of the 1930’s, which brought capitalism to a cliff’s edge & represented a severe shock to the belief [in self-correcting markets]. ¼ of the US labor force was unemployed, an even higher proportion in Germany & Australia. In 1932 & ’33, real national income was ¾ of what it had been in 1929, the unemployed were worse off, some of the employed were better off, debtors worse off & creditors better off. Compared with the catastrophe in the USSR’s 1st Collectivization at the same time, the Great Depression in the US seemed mild; it was bad enough.
During the War, the war industry rose to 42% of the economy. There was an illusion in the 1950’s that only the war industry can save us from unemploy- ment. We can't help wondering whether what happened once could happen again, or whether we have built enough defenses in economic policy against a recurrence. The number of permanently poor people isn’t large, but poverty circulates through quite a large population section at the lower income levels. The United States hasn’t gotten very much richer since the late 1970’s; unem- ployment was 7% to 10%. The increase of war industry meant forgone civilian production & a productivity decline through a brain drain from civilian to war industry. The debt & interest burden is getting close to 10% & is a very severe burden. This is beginning to affect the banking system.
[There has been] great difficulty in solving the inflation-unemployment dilemma. Psychologically, we might summarize the inflation problem by saying it is a result of everyone wanting more than there is to have, with some people thinking they can get away with it! Inflation is an addictive drug, rather like he- roin. It works, but we need larger doses of inflation to produce the same effect. My own view is that this problem is soluble within the framework of social capi- talism. Many devices have been suggested, [e.g.] taxation of increased income due to increase in money wages or prices, or moderate price, wage, & interest control.
[Learning to Mend the World]—The institution of stable peace has been growing around the world ever since it started, probably in Scandinavia after the Napoleonic Wars. We have enormously expanded the cultural reper- toire of the human race. With all this we have clearly not done enough. [We need a] more conscious learning process towards human betterment; up until now much of the movement towards betterment has been unconscious. The world scientific community has been grossly remiss [by] developing systems for our destruction, [rather than for our betterment]. To an alarming extent the sci- entific community has turned away from its larger responsibilities to the total system of the human race, [with only] a few lonely voices raised in protest.
It may seem almost ludicrous to suppose that a group as small as the Society of Friends could make any contribution to this overwhelmingly important problem. The Society of Friends has a disproportionate number of members of the scholarly community. [How could there be an] application of the ethic and method of the scholarly community [to the process of guiding] the human situation from bad to better rather than from bad to worse? How could this lead into development of projects, institutions, and poli- tical and legal structures which would increase the probability of human betterment? One could visualize perhaps an “invisible college” dedicated to normative analysis, involving a deep commitment to the scholarly ethic.
What I am proposing here is in a sense a new discipline. The 1st object of study would be the formation of human valuations themselves. Another area of study is how human valuations express themselves in human deci- sions. How are our “future” images formed and how are they valued [in decision-making]? It would include a study of “bad decisions,” of disap- pointment, [and of unexpected results of decisions]. This would involve the study of decisions of the powerful. Underlying all decisions is an intricate structure of beliefs, feelings, and motivations, which could be called the “moral environment.”
Those who have “narrow” moral vision [including little beyond them- selves] are generally criticized & regarded as “bad.” Those who have a broad moral vision, [including as much of the rest of the world as they can manage], tend to regard themselves as “good.” The question of how people learn to be alienated, selfish, and malevolent is something that needs much further study.
But those who have a broad moral vision, if that vision is unrealistic, may do much more harm to the human race than the narrowly selfish, particularly if they achieve positions of power. One not impossible dream is that the Society of Friends might employ some of its human and financial resources to develop an institute devoted specifically to the study of human betterment. To mend the world we need a sewing needle, perhaps, even better a sewing machine; and the Society of Friends is in a good position to make one.
Philosopher (by Scott Crom; 1986)
There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is however pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression. John Woolman.
About the Author—Scott Crom is a member of Beloit (WI) MM, a Pro- fessor of Philosophy and Religion in Beloit
[Introduction]—John Woolman and Socrates have been continual inspirations and mentors in my personal and professional life. Woolman said the above quote about Quakerism. A colleague noted: “Woolman says that philosophy is vain without experience; Socrates says the experience is vain without philosophy.” I shall report 3 of my own encounters with transcendence. The felt tension between the heart and the head, between Woolman & Socra- tes, gives both shape and urgency to what follows.
[1st Transcendent Experience]—At a summer conference of the Young Friends of North America, I had a powerful meeting for worship; a strongly living silence made itself felt. Suddenly, my hands felt odd, & I saw they were wet. I then realized that tears were streaming down my face & dripping on my hands. They were not tears of grief, or joy; I [felt] utterly washed away. I did not feel anything that I could call a sense of divine presence, nor was there any sort of “leading” to action or refraining from action. I did feel a temporary loss of self.
“Religion is the response to an encounter with what is regarded as transcendent.” One can respond with fear or joyful dance; one can love others & all creation; one can put to the torch all who don’t respond in a similar way; one can seek a logical explanation. We can respond to someone else’s en- counter, or to visible evidence of encounter in a friend, minister, or chance-met stranger. I could respond by seeking, by hunting the same source as my friend. We aren’t describing some ideal religion, but religion as we find it. I learned that “To be or not to be” is not the question. I both was & wasn't at the same time; “I” disappeared. We tend to regard self as some sort of invisible, intangible, spiritual substance or soul. Where was I during that experience when I disappeared?
[Knowledge and Reality]—To reflect deeply on this question of self- hood will raise some fundamental issues on knowledge and reality. We are, paradoxically, more free and powerful & yet also much more enslaved than we ordinarily realize; the worst kind of slavery is due to ignorance. If we do not know that there is a choice we sacrifice part of our freedom. Knowledge has both content and form, percepts and concepts. [Percepts do not constitute experience without form or organization if it is to count as experience].
Our experience is a joint product of what it “out there” and what is “in here.” John Smith says that we do not merely reflect what is encountered, but we also refract it in accordance with our interests and our conceptual structure. We assume that our human senses put us in touch with what is really “out there,” when they actually hide from us far more than they reveal. Perhaps a thing like an orange has only one quality, which is differently perceived by eyes, ears, nose & tongue. Experience is a joint product, and we are already active participants.
The conceptual or categorical elements of knowledge & reality are the most fundamental & pervasive structural aspects of knowledge & reality, such as space, time, cause, object, event, or self. The deep-seated categorical dis- tinctions among object, activity, & quality are represented in language by nouns, verbs & adjectives. [English does contain flaws, such as “tornado,” where the word is a noun, but “tornado” is an event or activity & not a thing]. By looking at language families other than our own we can see the possibilities of different categorical structures. Some languages do not have the noun-verb-adjective structure of Indo-European languages.
The structure of interrelated categories can be compared to the syntax of a language, and to the rules of a game, which fit together to make possible an interesting and challenging game. But our old “parts of speech” catego- ries break down on the frontiers of high-energy modern physics. And since categories are the structure or the internal skeleton of our reality, they deter- mine the meaning of such terms as true, right, or real. Let us try to see where a structuring of reality which works fairly well as a tool for explanation fails to do justice to the task of healing and nurturing [that is religion’s function]. What alternative [to the scientific] way is there to approach our issues of self hood, reality, and transcendence?
[Selfhood as Event]—[“Selfhood,” like “tornado,” is] an event rather than an entity. Taking selfhood to be an event rather than a “thing” enables us to do much more justice to what we actually experience in ourselves and observe in others, and does not let our speech run beyond our experience. What is the most distinctive feature of an energy whirlwind which makes it a self or a person rather than a tree or a stone?
I prefer to speak of attention. How difficult it is to attend fully. Undivi- ded attention means an undivided self; that’s where the self goes when it’s no longer “there.” The act of attending is a sub-process, or a small but effective eddy in a whirlwind of psychic energy. Alan Watts somewhere speaks of the individual self as a nerve-ending through which the universe is taking a peek at itself. Seeing selves as process leaves room for convenient discrimina- tion of different centers, but also facilitates relation, connection, and ultimate union. Selves seen as immaterial spiritual substances are divided, are ultimately different from each other, but self as process has no boundaries.
[2nd & 3rd Transcendent experience]—The 2nd transcendent experi- ence was at Pendle Hill years later. A bushy-bearded friend & I were faithful attenders at the daily meeting for worship. One Saturday morning during a conference weekend I was again overwhelm or “zapped,” this time with what I can only describe as an over-whelming feeling of love, for all of Pendle Hill staff, for conference people I had never seen before, even for food particles in my friends beard, something one would ordinarily regard as an annoyance. As in the first experience, there was no “presence,” no “Thou,” no “person” standing in relation to me. I felt loving in the divine sense of the word. I felt love itself, & in some way, I felt loved; I encountered & temporarily embodied that love.
[2nd & 3rd Transcendent experience]—The 2nd transcendent experi- ence was at Pendle Hill years later. A bushy-bearded friend & I were faithful attenders at the daily meeting for worship. One Saturday morning during a conference weekend I was again overwhelm or “zapped,” this time with what I can only describe as an over-whelming feeling of love, for all of Pendle Hill staff, for conference people I had never seen before, even for food particles in my friends beard, something one would ordinarily regard as an annoyance. As in the first experience, there was no “presence,” no “Thou,” no “person” standing in relation to me. I felt loving in the divine sense of the word. I felt love itself, & in some way, I felt loved; I encountered & temporarily embodied that love.
For years I struggled with the philosophical issue God. I was in the uncomfortable position [of not being able to] bridge the gap between scientific ways of thinking and the language of Scripture, early or even 18th century Friends. A book I read later said that, since God is Love, an experience of love may well be an experience of God. Yes, God is love, but not all love is God. [So I was back to regarding] my experience as religious, as an encounter with transcendence, but I could not feel easy about calling it an encounter with God.
The 3rd experience also took place at Pendle Hill, 5 or 6 years later. [I had a son studying overseas], coping with a number of difficult situations requiring a maturity beyond his years. During morning meeting for worship, I had a vivid visual image, [which is unusual because] my mental content tends to be strings of words, phrases or sentences. [While I “held my son in the Light,” I “saw” 2 cupped hands, in which the figure of my son stood. The light, at first a radiance became focused in a powerful beam. Under that beam, my son’s image began to melt. Soon nothing was left except a puddle of slag.
In a moment that puddle began to stir, and gradually the figure rose again. It was smaller, more compact, yet clearly stronger, as if the dross had been burned away. [As compared to the first 2 experiences, in this 3rd case there seemed to be a highly specific content; there was again no sense of presence, no I-Thou reciprocity. The final moment of the experience con- tained a clear sense of reassurance. I was personally shown what it means to say that God does not give us what we want, but what we need.
[God-Colored Lens/Transcendence]—Terms often used for God, such as Creator, Redeemer, Judge, or Father, are pointers, or the least misleading terms which we have been able to produce. Of all the terms used to refer to the ultimate, I am most comfortable with “Light,” which can serve as three parts of speech, & doesn't confine us to any specific category of object, event, or qua- lity. Those who live in a world with God are refracting their encounter through a God-colored lens. God is that framework which makes their experience intelligible.
At this point arises the grave danger of moving insensibly from a hea- ling function to an explanatory function. To use language therapeutically is very different from using it either discursively or to explain, but the similarity of the surface forms of expression makes the trap very subtle. I try to remain consci- ous of the purpose of my speech; if it is explanatory I use a structure which does not include God.
Do I find “transcendence” a useful category? Do I view the world through a transcendence-colored lens? Transcendence is “real,” is an in- gredient of my world, is a functioning part of the framework of my experience; transcendence is the source of meaning, in both senses of that word: impor- tance; intelligibility. In encounters with transcendence, we both see reality & are real, because we are in tune. The mystery is still there, but in embracing it, we become it, and the mystery is no longer a problem.
Transcendence is that which transcends, which goes beyond, or sur- passes; it is an aspect of the intersection of “out there” and “in here” which is our experienced reality. It goes beyond the ordinary or routine, not in any spatial direction, but in quality. What meaning can we attach to “an experi- ence of the transcendence,” which is not the same as “a transcendent experi- ence” [i.e. one which exceeds previous attempts]? One can discuss religi- ous transcendence only so far. In the end, it must remain an undefined term.
[Paradox of Transcendence]—“Psychic distance” is the conscious awareness that one is a spectator, not an actual participant. Optimal psychic distance is actually the minimal distance, short of its total disappearance. The optimal transcendence is the minimal transcendence. Awareness of alienation produces a desire for reconciliation, for going beyond the self. My encounters show an order of increasing specificity & awareness of self.
[In many ways the 1st experience was the “best.”] It was the best be- cause it was the most unalienated, & reconciled. That “purest” experience would approach what I could call a “lenless” experience. It is such moment- less moments, such content-less experiences which give meaning to my life. I do not believe that one can deliberately or intentionally produce such mo- ments. Louis Nordstrom says: “True transcendence is radical immanence,” and “Transcendence is devoid of cognitive content, and … when this is per- ceived, transcendence has in fact been transcended.”
If I am to function in the world, to respond to the needs of others, it is necessary for me to wear “world-colored” lenses. It is both possible and necessary sometimes simply to be. And those occasions when we most are are precisely those in which we aren't. When we most clearly encounter that transcendence which is radically immanent, we are most at home, doing absolutely nothing special.
268. In God We Live (by Warren Ostrom; 1986)
About the Author: Warren Ostrom has lived almost all his life near Puget Sound in Washington State Seattle
“The Ocean is within as well as without; and the path of the mystic is a gradual awakening … a remembrance of the Supreme Self which infinitely transcends the human ego and which is none other than the Deep towards which the wave ebbs.” Martin Lings
Through the lens of wholeness all of life, all existence is revealed to be holy friendly and familiar; no one is a stranger…Loving from the center means channeling the love which pervades the universe through my heart and my hands…“I go for refuge to the spirit of which all reality partakes, to the great teachings and writings that lead me towards that spirit, to the community of believers. Warren Ostrom
THE GEESE—The geese are an affirmation, a benediction, a reward. Their number dwindles when I slip from what I should be doing, & rises when my course is true. The geese told me I was being who I should be. A Friend said: “If you don’t listen, the voice inside gets softer, harder to hear, over time." 2½ years ago I started a comparative religion program. Doors opened, [things fell in place; time and resources were provided].
I am a normal middle-class American man; so much so that I feel safe in guessing that it is normal for middle-class Americans to feel empty and adrift when we pause long enough to realize how we feel. Not even children are enough; we still need to come to terms with ourselves. We are afraid of who we aren’t, afraid of the light we’re given, afraid of what the geese might tell us.
My beliefs began as a boy with the Apostle’s Creed. [I did all the church things]. I was told there was only one way to God. Once I told a deacon that we shouldn’t recite the creeds, because nobody believed them anyway; [he got angry]. I delivered papers in the dark, in the fog. Still, I felt completely safe. [In spite of my increasing doubts about the church], there was no doubt that the author of the 23rd Psalm said something true. At times I knew the presence of the divine with unmistakable certainty; but I didn’t sense the divine presence in church.
At age 19, a friend of mine told me that if I saw only one thing in Europe , I had to see Chartres
THE GROUND OF BEING—The theologian Bernard Lonergan writes that the mind must move from experience, through understanding, to judgment of truth. Most of us simply don't talk about our religious experiences, because religious experience doesn’t fit smoothly into out every day social and intel- lectual world. When I have felt the divine presence most profoundly, that pre- sence has made its Self known in an outpouring from my depths, & in a simul- taneous exultation of the divine in all existence. When I am true to my Self— when I cut through to what is at the core of the soul—I find not only pure me but pure God, and union in God with all reality.
Once, I was sitting in meditation in my living room at sunset. I found my Self in a consciousness awash in light. My mind joined a far bigger mind, and I could feel my neighbors moving through their houses and knew what they were preparing for dinner. Awareness spread wider and wider, to more and more people, until the universe seemed to pulse to its single beat. I have observed meeting for worship through the eyes of a bird perched high on a window looking in. I have felt everything in the room and the Presence penetrating everything. My “drop” of consciousness flowed together with all consciousness, [and then separated again].
There is really in essence no I, you, and it—just we, and we are within the much larger identity of holy universality, what I call the Spirit or the Pre- sence. Union with the Spirit is at once a profoundly humbling and a profoundly exhilarating revelation. Martin Lings writes: “The Ocean is within as well as without; and the path of the mystic is a gradual awakening … a remembrance of the Supreme Self which infinitely transcends the human ego and which is none other than the Deep towards which the wave ebbs.”
Mainstream Christianity and Judaism tend to maintain a clear divide between the human and the divine. In all the centuries of discussion it seems never to have been suggested that humanity and divinity are one. For me the experience of oneness amounts to being saved; it is salvation from isolation to total communion.
I have come to a new understanding of the Apostles’ Creed: A divine presence reveals [God’s self] as the ongoing creator, sustainer, and substance & spirit of all existence. Jesus seems to have had the access to and intimacy with God [that one] associates with only-childship. The spirit is so limitless we each can be as close to the Source as an only child to a loving parent. We are all “conceived by the Holy Ghost.”
I think the essence of a dying person returns to the divine wholeness and continues in the incorporated-but-separate condition which characterized him or her in life. I can’t see where Jesus affirms judging the “quick and the dead.” All worshipers of the Spirit and the Truth meld in their focus on the Holy. When the sin is renounced, that obstacle is removed; so the sin can be said to be forgiven. “Amen” is a fine old word related to “omm.” It returns us to the meditation from which our awareness springs. I affirm the Apostles’ Creed as my own.
I don't deny that Jesus was Christos’ most complete fulfillment. I simply add that we are all the Christ when we are true to our deepest natures. We are a tiny part of God, but a precious part. All my joy, all of my hurt resounds in an awareness that has not limit in time or space. War is so repugnant be- cause it is the slaughter of the Spirit’s incarnation. It is one thing to rejoin the divine ocean after a good death; it is quite different for any limited, partial con- sciousness to decide when a death should occur. Through the lens of whole- ness all of life, all existence is revealed to be holy friendly and familiar; no one is a stranger.
Sin is whatever blocks our union with the divine. That which dulls intui- tion and spiritual alertness is sinful. [Remembering this] I walk more, listen more, and meditate more. I re-experience that every person is composed fundamentally of the divine. [If I find myself full of hate], I summon my memo- ry of the unity experience and let that fill my mind. The Light has never misled me, & each time I turn to it, I emerge feeling tuned and nourished. The Spirit does not work against itself. The center of adversary is the same as my cen- ter, no matter how repulsive the shell which has grown around it.
Somehow we’ve let the idea develop that we are all separate and in competition. I was afraid that if I looked deeply into myself I would find emp- tiness. I even feared that God was an idea that I had adopted, an ego defense mechanism, & had no reality. I began meditation fir stress-reduction; when I risked a little deeper meditation. I found my refreshment & appreciation for life steadily grew. The miracle grows; when my own competitiveness is dissolved, my adversary’s [eventually] melts away too.
I volunteered to work with some of the inmates of a minimum security prison for young men. They were me; they were you; they were God. And they were grasping desperately for acknowledgment of that. They showed me that the answer is not more prisons, or any other kind of walls between people. The answer is more love from the center, the love of understanding identification. Most people in jail have never come face to face—spirit to spirit—with love from the center. Loving from the center means channeling the love which pervades the universe through my heart and my hands.
BOUND AND BOUNDLESS—A major category of psychological distur- bance is partly defined as a condition where the individual does not know where he or she begins. Am I sick because I believe the boundaries be- tween [all substance, energy, consciousness, and emptiness] are more illusion than real? I know that while people are all part of a single identity, we also have separate identities, which for certain functions are quite impor- tant; we are at once separate and inseparable, bounded and boundless.
People with borderline personality disorders have difficulty believing that they are real, that they exist at all. When I am able to live in awareness of unity, reality is exquisitely obvious [as I participate in all the substance, energy, con- sciousness, and emptiness around me]. In the hours, the days, the weeks in between, I need community, and I need religion.
RELIGION—[The Buddhist have a saying about Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I would translate it as] “I go for refuge to the spirit of which all reality partakes, to the great teachings and writings that lead me towards that spirit, to the community of believers; [it is what we all need]. [I was alone one night at work, between clients. The stillness steadily grew. Gradually it filled me, filled the room, and peace flowed in. What was stunning was that I knew it wasn’t just me being peaceful.
At times I felt taken up by a powerful stream—as though all I needed to be sure of the right thing to do, was to be tuned in, in harmony with a powerful stream. I found a resounding chord in reading about Zen. In Zen meditation, I felt lifted by luminous flood waters, and the world was fresh, new, and specta- cularly beautiful. And whole. When I thought of going to seminary, my wife suggested a Friends meeting. In Meeting we both felt at home. Friends of- fered a convincing understanding of the Presence.
As the years pass, I also find the love support, and challenges of a Christian Sangha. I encounter the Christ among Friends—in Friends who call themselves Christian and in Friends who don’t. Other people following their own inner promptings and experiences find the Christ in other places. Some even find it in the very church which for me was an airtight, imprisoning box. [5 geese are on the pond]. Life swirls around and through me, rich and full of meaning. I am—you are—we are all—in the palm of Christ’s hand.
269. THE SEED AND THE TREE: A Reflection on Non-violence (by
Daniel A. Seeger; 1986)
About the Author—Daniel A. Seeger became a conscientious objector (CO) to military service during the Korean War after reading Gandhi in a re- quired “Contemporary Civilization” course in college. His challenge became the Supreme Court case The USA vs. Daniel A. Seeger, which broadened the basis for religious objection to military service. He serves as Regional Exec. Secretary to the New York American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). This essay addresses the theory of “just revolution” which has found expres- sion in the corporate activities and statements of Friends’ bodies and agencies.
About the Author—Daniel A. Seeger became a conscientious objector (CO) to military service during the Korean War after reading Gandhi in a re- quired “Contemporary Civilization” course in college. His challenge became the Supreme Court case The USA vs. Daniel A. Seeger, which broadened the basis for religious objection to military service. He serves as Regional Exec. Secretary to the New York American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). This essay addresses the theory of “just revolution” which has found expres- sion in the corporate activities and statements of Friends’ bodies and agencies.
To free ourselves from established violence without appealing to armed violence requires us to adopt positive, courageous, dynamic, effective nonvio- lent action… Non-violence must walk with its eyes on heaven, but its feet on the ground. Dom Helder Camara
Being peacemakers is essentially an affair of the heart, rather than of the mind. We shall not debate each other into the ways of love. For we touch people’s hearts not by what we debate with them about, but rather by the qua- lity of our being. Daniel A. Seeger
“The whole Gandhian concept of nonviolent action & satyagraha is in- comprehensible if it is thought to be a means of achieving unity rather than as the fruit of inner unity already achieved.” Thomas Merton
Introduction—There are critical moments in history when it becomes necessary to refocus on the basic insights & renew the gifts of the Spirit which inform our approach to social realities and authentic expressions of the Truth. [Currently] the way of nonviolence has become blurred & its strategies uncer- tain. Gandhi and King have advanced the nonviolent cause, but transformation of Indian society & the struggle for full equality [are incomplete]. Contemporary history’s chaos has sown uncertainty among well-meaning people longing for justice. What does it mean to be committed to the way of nonviolence?
Being peacemakers is essentially an affair of the heart, rather than of the mind. We shall not debate each other into the ways of love. For we touch people’s hearts not by what we debate with them about, but rather by the qua- lity of our being. Daniel A. Seeger
“The whole Gandhian concept of nonviolent action & satyagraha is in- comprehensible if it is thought to be a means of achieving unity rather than as the fruit of inner unity already achieved.” Thomas Merton
Introduction—There are critical moments in history when it becomes necessary to refocus on the basic insights & renew the gifts of the Spirit which inform our approach to social realities and authentic expressions of the Truth. [Currently] the way of nonviolence has become blurred & its strategies uncer- tain. Gandhi and King have advanced the nonviolent cause, but transformation of Indian society & the struggle for full equality [are incomplete]. Contemporary history’s chaos has sown uncertainty among well-meaning people longing for justice. What does it mean to be committed to the way of nonviolence?
The Skepticism Bred of Compassion—A South American woman was impressed with the Nicaraguan revolution, especially the neighborhood councils that had been the Revolution’s backbone. She came to believe that not to pick up arms & act in self-defense is unethical. Another Latin American said: “True violence does not lie in the act of someone resisting oppression, but in the starving wage & the expulsion of farmers from their land… Today the Church is changing & is working with the labor movement to bring about justice. It is wor- king with the farmers to save their land.
One of the most significant dialogues grows out of the encounters of the leaders & people of the Latin American Church with oppression in their coun- tries, & the liberation theology movement. Cardinal Paulo Everisto Arns, Arch- bishop of Sao Paulo said: The real power of a revolution is moral, and if it doesn’t have that the revolution doesn’t exist. Violence isolates. I cannot say [to the poor] ‘I’d rather see you all dead than to see you defend yourselves’ [with violence]. If they have no training in nonviolence, won’t they be led to respond with violence?
Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife in Brazil said: “To free our- selves from established violence without appealing to armed violence re- quires us to adopt positive, courageous, dynamic, effective nonviolent action … Non-violence must walk with its eyes on heaven, but its feet on the ground.” He started religious life as a priest and a Trappist Monk. He died as a Sandi- nista guerilla. Again he said: “We would prefer there not be fighting in Nicara- gua, but this is not the fault of the pueblo, of the oppressed, who only defend themselves.
Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife in Brazil said: “To free our- selves from established violence without appealing to armed violence re- quires us to adopt positive, courageous, dynamic, effective nonviolent action … Non-violence must walk with its eyes on heaven, but its feet on the ground.” He started religious life as a priest and a Trappist Monk. He died as a Sandi- nista guerilla. Again he said: “We would prefer there not be fighting in Nicara- gua, but this is not the fault of the pueblo, of the oppressed, who only defend themselves.
Peter Matheson took the fruits of labor and thoughts of some 20 people and wrote [excerpt follows]: “Christians agree that: some forms of violence are never justified (e.g. torture, conquest, oppression); churches and resistance movements alike have not explored adequately the strategies and effectiveness of nonviolence in the struggle for a just society; nonviolence should not be seen as a morally unambiguous, uncontroversial and apolitical form of action, or as one that necessarily excludes others.”
“In “revolutionary situations,” the majority are either accepting of the “just revolution” concept, or believing that peace and justice can't be obtained by violent means. Martin Luther King and Helder Camara believe that Chris- tians and other men are bound to work for peace and justice here on earth. In come cases their nonviolence is a provisional option and represents a con- viction that violence can only legitimately be used as a last resort and that nonviolent options are still open and have rarely been used on a large & sys- tematic scale.”
“In “revolutionary situations,” the majority are either accepting of the “just revolution” concept, or believing that peace and justice can't be obtained by violent means. Martin Luther King and Helder Camara believe that Chris- tians and other men are bound to work for peace and justice here on earth. In come cases their nonviolence is a provisional option and represents a con- viction that violence can only legitimately be used as a last resort and that nonviolent options are still open and have rarely been used on a large & sys- tematic scale.”
“Those willing to sanction violence for a just revolution are represented by the writers Camillo Torres, Richard Schaull, James Cone, & by the contem- porary Christians Abel Muzorewa, Robert Mugabe, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda in Southern Africa. These 2 options are in some ways much closer to each other than earlier “pacifist” and “just war” position. A confessional chasm lies between those on the side of liberation and those who support the oppres- sive structures of the status quo.”
The Church and the Gospel of Peace—It is commonly accepted that the 1st Christians understood pacifism to be an integral part of their faith. [In Matthew 5:38-48, Jesus explains how to “love your enemy]. This passage is only one of many which unambiguously sets forth a non-violent ethic. People were not accepted into the Christian community unless they renounced taking part in any function whose processes were ultimately enforced by weaponry. Constantine I [the Great] began the process over an 80 year period of co-op- ting a fledgling spiritual movement by “the establishment” in an attempt to regenerate itself.
The schizophrenic character within the Christian community throughout its subsequent history is accounted for by dividing the clergy from the laity (a distinction unknown in the earlier Church). The clergy tended to maintain a personal code of nonviolence, while in un-Christlike fashion blessing the orga- nized violence of diverse temporal powers during the course of Western history. The prospect that the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America may now be shaking itself loose from a centuries-old collaboration with repressive oligar- chies kindles the imagination. Vatican Council II, provided a precedent for reviewing the Church’s mission.
There are 2 paths down which the Church could conceivably proceed: a recommitment to its vast constituency of the oppressed poor while translating 17 centuries of just war theory into a just revolution theory, or it could recommit to the poor & return to the Gospel of Peace as practiced in primitive Christianity. It is tempting to canonize as non-violent heroes persons whose approach is actually consistent with the just war theory. It's easy to misappropriate the good names of Gandhi, King, & Merton & to choose selectively from their teachings.
Judgmentalism and Solidarity—A 1st step for developing a truly non- violent sensibility is to stop being judgmental. During WW II many people who are still active in the American Friends Service Committee refused to participate in a violent struggle against evil German and Japanese fascism. I think I would have found that they were not sitting in judgment of those participating in the military effort, [or even the Germans or the Japanese]. Condemnation has no part in a truly peaceable outlook. If our minds are full of hatred and condem- nation, this ultimately will be expressed in acts of violence and destruction and murder.
The Church and the Gospel of Peace—It is commonly accepted that the 1st Christians understood pacifism to be an integral part of their faith. [In Matthew 5:38-48, Jesus explains how to “love your enemy]. This passage is only one of many which unambiguously sets forth a non-violent ethic. People were not accepted into the Christian community unless they renounced taking part in any function whose processes were ultimately enforced by weaponry. Constantine I [the Great] began the process over an 80 year period of co-op- ting a fledgling spiritual movement by “the establishment” in an attempt to regenerate itself.
The schizophrenic character within the Christian community throughout its subsequent history is accounted for by dividing the clergy from the laity (a distinction unknown in the earlier Church). The clergy tended to maintain a personal code of nonviolence, while in un-Christlike fashion blessing the orga- nized violence of diverse temporal powers during the course of Western history. The prospect that the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America may now be shaking itself loose from a centuries-old collaboration with repressive oligar- chies kindles the imagination. Vatican Council II, provided a precedent for reviewing the Church’s mission.
There are 2 paths down which the Church could conceivably proceed: a recommitment to its vast constituency of the oppressed poor while translating 17 centuries of just war theory into a just revolution theory, or it could recommit to the poor & return to the Gospel of Peace as practiced in primitive Christianity. It is tempting to canonize as non-violent heroes persons whose approach is actually consistent with the just war theory. It's easy to misappropriate the good names of Gandhi, King, & Merton & to choose selectively from their teachings.
Judgmentalism and Solidarity—A 1st step for developing a truly non- violent sensibility is to stop being judgmental. During WW II many people who are still active in the American Friends Service Committee refused to participate in a violent struggle against evil German and Japanese fascism. I think I would have found that they were not sitting in judgment of those participating in the military effort, [or even the Germans or the Japanese]. Condemnation has no part in a truly peaceable outlook. If our minds are full of hatred and condem- nation, this ultimately will be expressed in acts of violence and destruction and murder.
A feeling of pride at having come to understandings which are not yet widely grasped is also corrupting; it disables us as instruments of Truth. For how can one take credit for the experiences one has been given. We should not congratulate ourselves or each other for superior wisdom. True prophets never take credit for the wisdom it is given them to speak. Guilt is another form of judgmentalism which is equally fatal. It is not even necessary to be morosely preoccupied with one’s own past lapses from virtue. [If we dwell on such things] our spirits will grow coarse, our hearts stubborn and we will be over- come with gloom.
[If we manage to avoid all these traps] we are left with an overwhelming feeling of solidarity. We begin to get a glimmer of the whole of humankind as one family. Such solidarity is not real unless it is given concrete expression in the way we behave toward the specific individual human beings whom life brings across our path. Love of neighbor is the basis not only of Christ’s tea- chings, but also of all other great spiritual teachings. The Bhagavad Gita says: “Who burns with the bliss and suffers the sorrow of every creature within his own heart, making his own each bliss and each sorrow; him I hold the highest of all sages.” Does loving everyone mean assenting to everything they say? Does it relativize our search for Truth?
The Discernment of Truth—Once it is clearly established that our love for our fellow human beings is not a function of their beliefs and attitudes, it no longer becomes necessary to betray the truth by pretending that the diverse ideas of everyone within some arbitrarily defined “in group” are equally valid. The nonviolent sensibility believes in a credible alternative to the spiritual and intellectual conditions which exist; the task is to create it, not compromise it.
To find a way out of the present impasse will require a calm and lucid pursuit of Truth, unencumbered by sentimentalism, guilt, or comradeship at the expense of honesty. Seeking the Truth with impartiality, trying to live the Truth as clearly as we know how, and speaking the Truth without ego investment, is always a service. We should move forward with a new confidence that to pursue the Truth is the 1st and noblest objective, and 2nd is to encourage the sound of Truth.
Pragmatism in Perspective—When people try to compare the costs and the results of violent and nonviolent programs, a profound bias creeps into the discussion. [Since risky, bloody, imperfect, & even unsuccessful crusades are the accepted norm], people arguing nonviolence often appear to be on the defensive if they cannot demonstrate to skeptics’ satisfaction that nonvio- lent action will work as if by magic and be without human cost. When dealing with the pragmatic aspects of nonviolence, we must recognize the biases that allow for loss of life in weighing the effective use of violence and prohibits any when judging nonviolent strategies.
One of the difficulties we face in conducting pragmatic appraisals is that it is impossible to run through history twice. [Because of the unchangeable fact of history], arguments based upon pragmatic considerations are apt to de- generate into wishful thinking on the part of all those in the discussion. Paci- fist armchair philosophers are not immune from the “rose-colored glasses” syndrome. With nonviolence having been tried relatively infrequently, the facts of real experience are much less available to encumber the imagination.
Throughout history people have varied in their readiness to resort to arms & in their creativity in perceiving alternative courses of action before a resort to violence appeared inevitable. The pacifist understands that the arena of social utility assessments is an inadequate one in which finally to secure one’s convictions either for or against nonviolence. It is beyond pragmatism that nonviolent people locate the well-springs of their commitment.
The Reality of the Spiritual Realm—The universe we see is but a series of tokens representing a deeper reality, a reality of spirit and meaning. As human beings we have a still imperfectly developed capacity to experience the spirituality underlying and permeating all that we know with the senses. This special layer of being has to do with areas of reality which are uniquely human and which do not have, nor ever will have intellectually precise deli- neation. Whether this special human level of functioning be called wisdom, or enlightenment, or compassion, it is a capacity without which the human race clearly will not survive.
The peacemaker knows that the good will never be assured once and for all by one heroic act, or by one final war to make the world safe for demo- cracy. War drives whole populations to one side or the other into insoluble dichotomies. [Not seeing the enemy as evil] becomes criminal. Fortitude equals fanaticism; all the sinners will be wiped out. Thus is violence human- kind’s descent to the lower levels of being. Being peacemakers is essentially an affair of the heart, rather than of the mind. We shall not debate each other into the ways of love. For we touch people’s hearts not by what we debate with them about, but rather by the quality of our being.
The peacemaker knows that the good will never be assured once and for all by one heroic act, or by one final war to make the world safe for demo- cracy. War drives whole populations to one side or the other into insoluble dichotomies. [Not seeing the enemy as evil] becomes criminal. Fortitude equals fanaticism; all the sinners will be wiped out. Thus is violence human- kind’s descent to the lower levels of being. Being peacemakers is essentially an affair of the heart, rather than of the mind. We shall not debate each other into the ways of love. For we touch people’s hearts not by what we debate with them about, but rather by the quality of our being.
The higher capacity of human nature to transcend the insoluble dicho- tomies is the beyond the power of manipulation. [Theorizing about how to af- fect the future and ignoring the present moment is a wasted effort]. Each mo- ment affords a choice between life and death, between good and evil. All to which we aspire can find expression in time present. Indeed, there is no time but this present.
No Time but this Present—In our society where worth is equated with productivity, patient action is very difficult. It is easy for activists to forget that their vocation is not to give visibility to their own powers, but to give witness in a free, joyful, and grateful way to the power of Truth. Work for the future isn't based on anxiety, but on a vision worthwhile in the present.
The nonviolent sensibility will steadfastly renounce a calculus which weighs the absolutes of death and destruction in the present against the un- certain promise of relative social advancement in the future. The most difficult thing for well-meaning people to come to terms with is the reality that it may not be for them to see or significantly help with lifting the oppression from people to whom they reach out in loving service. Inevitably, untruthful means of seeking of the same results will seem seductive.
How do we develop our capacity for seeking & expressing Truth? The various practices have in common the cultivation of a capacity for impar- tiality. William James said: “Practice may change our theoretical horizon; it may lead into new worlds & secure new powers.” In practice, what Isaac Penington called “the wanderings and rovings of the mind” are stilled. Inner silence is a way of becoming poor [beggars] in spirit, which brings the practitioner close to the Kingdom of God. Through our inner silence we create a small space in our hearts where the seed of eternal things, which is already within, can come to the fore and can establish the solid foundation on which all right living and true peace is based.
[Our part to play in Creation] is held out to us, and it is always suited to our external condition and our inner resources. Bhagavad Gita says: “One at- tains perfection when his work is the worship of God from whom all things come and who is in all.” [We don’t have to go to a Central American jungle, or be in a South African prison to do our work]. We can reduce our recreational consumption of gasoline, or buy local. To paraphrase [the Buddhist] Hui Neng: “The truth is to be lived; it is not to be merely pronounced with the mouth.” St. Francis of Assisi said: “One possesses only so much wisdom as he puts into practice.” Among the range of options available one which is suitable to our present spiritual resources and our practical circumstances, and which we can choose if we are not oblivious to it and choose another by default.
The Lawfulness of the Creation—The nonviolent sensibility sees the universe as one governed by law. But a close reading of the great prophets of nonviolence discloses that they are careful not to promise that those practicing the way of Truth will see concrete results. Salvation or nirvana may be pro- mised: the reward of visible historical impact is not. Thomas Merton said: “The whole Gandhian concept of nonviolent action and satyagraha is incomprehen- sible if it is thought to be a means of achieving unity rather than as the fruit of inner unity already achieved… When seen only as useful in achieving political independence, no inner peace is achieved, no inner unity, only the same divi- sions, the conflicts & the scandals that were ripping the rest of the world to pieces.
The search for “political results” or “social change” has caused a grave erosion in the authenticity of nonviolent practice among activists in our time. At the time they were martyred, both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were in danger of being overwhelmed even by those among their own con- stituents who were seeking results rather than Truth.
[Our part to play in Creation] is held out to us, and it is always suited to our external condition and our inner resources. Bhagavad Gita says: “One at- tains perfection when his work is the worship of God from whom all things come and who is in all.” [We don’t have to go to a Central American jungle, or be in a South African prison to do our work]. We can reduce our recreational consumption of gasoline, or buy local. To paraphrase [the Buddhist] Hui Neng: “The truth is to be lived; it is not to be merely pronounced with the mouth.” St. Francis of Assisi said: “One possesses only so much wisdom as he puts into practice.” Among the range of options available one which is suitable to our present spiritual resources and our practical circumstances, and which we can choose if we are not oblivious to it and choose another by default.
The Lawfulness of the Creation—The nonviolent sensibility sees the universe as one governed by law. But a close reading of the great prophets of nonviolence discloses that they are careful not to promise that those practicing the way of Truth will see concrete results. Salvation or nirvana may be pro- mised: the reward of visible historical impact is not. Thomas Merton said: “The whole Gandhian concept of nonviolent action and satyagraha is incomprehen- sible if it is thought to be a means of achieving unity rather than as the fruit of inner unity already achieved… When seen only as useful in achieving political independence, no inner peace is achieved, no inner unity, only the same divi- sions, the conflicts & the scandals that were ripping the rest of the world to pieces.
The search for “political results” or “social change” has caused a grave erosion in the authenticity of nonviolent practice among activists in our time. At the time they were martyred, both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were in danger of being overwhelmed even by those among their own con- stituents who were seeking results rather than Truth.
There will be times when our work will affect the course of human events for the better in spectacular ways; there will be other times when the most clearly conceived & purely motivated works will appear to be submerged unnoticed by the wave of history. A truly nonviolent sensibility sees the stamp of eternity even in the smallest project, and this sense of appropriateness is immediate; it does not depend upon results upon the completion of causal chains stretching into the future, for its realization.
Cesar Chavez and the many women and men who had joined him in the campaign for Proposition 14 (farm workers’ right to organize) were so con- vinced of their actions' righteousness that the final results became secondary to the value of the action itself. They felt there were reasons to celebrate and to be grateful even when the proposition did not pass.
On the inner, spiritual level, the nonviolent sensibility conceives its ac- tions of witness to the Truth as the giving of a gift. That gift in personal affairs is pure which is given without expectation of results, but which is given because of the fitness of the gift at the time. In the inward being of the practitioner, non- violent action has the character of such a gift, offered because of its fitness as an expression, and not as a stratagem for having one’s way with the unfolding drama of existence.
Knowing that there is no time
but this present, the nonviolent sensibility stops to listen, to wait
and look, to taste and see, to pay attention and to be awake. The
tyranny of past, present, and future gives way to a joyful awareness
of the eternal now, of how universal and eternal things are revealed
and can be fully apprehended in the present moment. The nonviolent
sensibility is an unshakeable commitment to make of ourselves a free
gift to that Spirit which patiently awaits our discovery of its power
and beauty.
270. The Sanctuary Church
About the Author—Born in Wyoming Arizona Central Ameri can refu- gees’ need for protection from federal officials, he began guiding them through the southern borderlands & put together a refugee relay network; he was a defendant in the Arizona
If we give up our position of privilege, [we can only find] a place to stand with the dispossessed and serve the Peaceable Kingdom in a special kind of community that dedicates itself to such service… a catholic church that is a people rather than creed or rite [or one culture]. Jim Corbett
“The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls of the world are everywhere of one religion; when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers.” William Penn
All causes to which life must be sacrificed are among Moloch’s many names. He delights most in sacrifices that give him the name of a good cause… We can't serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. Jim Corbett
All causes to which life must be sacrificed are among Moloch’s many names. He delights most in sacrifices that give him the name of a good cause… We can't serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. Jim Corbett
[Introduction]—[ I used to be] struck with the Mexican cathedrals’ ob- session with the agonies of the cross. But as I struggled to cope emotionally with having become a peripheral witness to the crucifixion of the Salvadoran people, a suspicion grew that the Cross opens a way beyond breakdown. Pro- viding sanctuary for Central American refugees is gathering into a recombi- nant church that is more nearly catholic than ever before. [It has brought to- gether refugee, rabbi, & Catholic priest in providing sanctuary]. History & com- mon language offer no better term than “church’ for people who covenant to serve the Kingdom. I address you about the ways our practice of sanctuary is bringing us together & about the tasks ahead as the sanctuary church faces the security state.
[“Sanctuary” and “Church”]—“Sanctuary” refers to protective com- munity with people whose basic human rights are being violated by govern- ment officials. The public practice of sanctuary holds the state accountable for its violations of human rights. In the wake of the Arizona US
[Central to] liberation is the early Quaker understanding of church to be the catholic community of human beings who in obedience to the light dedicate themselves to serving the Kingdom. William Penn states: “The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, & devout souls of the world are everywhere of one religion; when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers.”
Dom Helder Camara, Bishop of Recife, calls Covenant communities “Abrahamic communities.” He also includes atheist humanists, encourages them to “translate what I say into your language … if you think selfishness is narrow and choking, if you hunger for truth, justice, and love, you can and should go with us.” In 1968 at Medellin Columbia
In Anglo America, this choice means sharing our privileges with the poor and persecuted and turning towards a radically different ground of empower- ment. Sanctuary is the communion that unites and empowers us in spirit and truth. Renewal in the Catholic Church involves local communities assuming powers & initiatives formerly restricted to clergy. Quakers, [on the other hand], need to overcome our tendency to fragment the corporate guidance we receive in a gathered meeting into issues of individual conscience.
The Quaker meeting usually aspires to be fully engaged while remaining radically unassimililated. As a faith practice, sanctuary brings back into focus our community’s covenant to serve Peaceable Kingdom Peaceable Kingdom
[Sanctuary in Church-State relations]—Sanctuary has to do with church-state relations. It presupposes that the church has come to occupy an institutional place with society that permits it to limit and even challenge the state’s use of violence. The church-state fashion by the Reformation [and nationalism] left little room for sanctuary [or the integration of kingdoms and principalities]. The dismantling of the transnational church and subordination of the church to the nation state was a guiding objective of the Reformation.
The state’s ability to enforce its will, when put to the test, rests on the use of its police powers, but this serves to stimulate rather than crush non- compliance when used against the community practice of a society’s formative religious insights. The [emerging] church aspires to be the kind of worldwide catholic community that opens the way toward peace and justice in the rela- tions among racial economic and national groups. Constructive involvement with the nations’ legal systems as both an initiator and an advocate for hu- man rights, is one of the keys.
[Because of the] covenant to do justice through community cohesion rather than state coercion, the church has unequaled power to mobilize itself as a communion that transcends national boundaries. When police power is used to coerce cooperation from a recalcitrant society, it is soon forced either to concede its impotence or else to transmute into a military force making war on the citizenry.
Hypnotized by the modern state’s destructive powers, we often ignore our own empowerment and choose instead to be moralizing bystanders. If life on earth is now jeopardized by the absence of an international rule of law, active responsibility for the essential primary task at hand must assumed by the church rather than the state. The local community agency is now of unpre- cedented importance as the church builds the social order that is a prere- quisite for developing the rule law among nations.
Sanctuary is demonstrating how international morality can take root in local community practice. Meeting and knowing Central Americans personally, we also come to care deeply about what is happening in Central America . At this point in the development of law among nations, the church is the institution that can incorporate into community practice international law that mandates civil initiative to maintain human rights in the face of governmental violations. The church is building a foundation that brings individual actions into a sus- tained community task through its congregational practice of sanctuary.
[Defending Human Rights]—The defense of human rights by the sanc tuary church is faith-based & worship-initiated. Our country was founded on the premise that a society’s constituent individuals & communities retain pri- mary responsibility for protecting human rights. “Civil disobedience,” or more accurately civil initiative is individuals’ or communities’ exercise of their legally established duty to protect the victims of government officials violations of fundamental rights.
Justice Robert H. Jackson stated at the beginning of the Nuremberg Tribunal that: “[The] principle of personal liability is a necessary as well as a logical one if International Law is to render real help to the maintenance of peace.” Implementing the Nuremberg
Many of the strategies of civil disobedience that have been devised to topple unjust laws are counter-productive in civil initiatives to protect good laws; they undercut the very statutes and treaties we wish to protect. Any resistance to state-enforced injustice must complement rather than cancel the commu- nity’s constructive task.
[Defending Good Laws/Accountability]—Sanctuary for Central Ame- rican refugees defends good laws that US government officials are violating. A 9th Circuit Court Judge found that the INS “engages in widespread illega- lity, so widespread that it is not a matter of individual misconduct but a broad systematic process.” Among the good laws are the UN refugee Protocol and the 1980 Refugee Act that implemented the Protocol.
[Key to the Protocol] is the prohibition against expulsion or return of re- fugees to any country in which they would face persecution.” [A key difference is that between] refugees & illegal immigrants. [The legal system’s treatment of sanctuary cases is such that] the government is unlikely to hold itself ac- countable for human rights violations. Jurors rarely realize that they have the power and responsibility to shield the community whenever the judicial system is subverted to serve injustice, nor are they likely to learn this in court.
Few Salvadorans & Guatemalans make it through Mexico US
The sanctuary network’s screening, placement and protection of Central American refugees is an emergency alternative to the INS. Our responsibility for protecting the persecuted must be balanced by our accountability to the le- gal order. [There are 7 characteristics of civil initiative: nonviolent (neither seizing police power or resisting arrest); truthfulness (open & subject to public examination); catholic (victim’s ideology and political usefulness is irrelevant); dialogical (joint seeking of solution that does not compromise human rights); germane (actions are not primarily symbolic or expressive); volunteer-based (community responsibility without creating non-government bureaucracy); community-based (outreaching and outlasting individual acts of conscience).
[From “Just War” to “Just Revolution”]—The “just war” doctrines de- signed to convert the Christian church to service of empire are equally relevant to justification of revolutionary warfare. Whether war is waged by the state or revolutionaries, the idea is to assault your adversary’s life & liberties until he is either destroyed or else submits to your will. Political parties struggling to gain & maintain power are unreliable advocates of human rights. How radically unassimilated from the rule of violence must the church become to go free from its [“service to empire”]? It cannot serve as a sanctuary for hu- man rights while supporting any warfare.
Prophetic faith has long elicited complaints from government officials who think religion should observe an otherworldly lack of concern for justice; the prophetic faith rejects any separation of “political” from “religious” con- cerns. Is the practice of sanctuary by Covenant communities “political?” Protective community with the violated limits the state’s exercise of coercive political power. It counters state’s power of domination with community cohe- sion, not by seizing control of state powers. The church is neither pseudo-state nor political party.
The communities’ practice of Covenant faith shakes the very foundation of politics. Its vitality depends on sanctuary’s being genuine communion, not on its being a serious contender for political power. The [emerging] church’s faith in communion contrasts with the faith in violence shown by state and revolutio- naries. It seeks to establish new liberties rather than new states. The network of sanctuary communities rejects the politicized treatment of refugees by bu- reaucrats and revolutionaries alike. How are we to work with those whose dedication to winning the good war entails using us as medics in their crusade?
Each sanctuary’s response, whether restricted by government or revo- lution, is woven into the full spectrum of responses required to assure that all refugees’ rights will be protected. The sanctuary network’s refusal to politicize its response to refugees seems as counter-revolutionary to one side as it seems insurrectionary to the other. Sanctuaries have their own decision- making procedures; most are part of an established denominational network, & the networks are intertwined. The sanctuary church is thus highly resistant to centralization & takeover.
In responding to refugees according to their needs rather than political alignments or usefulness, sanctuary network’s response will vary according to refugees’ national origin. The Nicaraguan refugee situation called for a letter to the INS Office of Refugee Asylum & Parole insisting that the government abide by its obligation under international law not to return deserters, draft resisters, or war victims to a “gross violator of human rights.”
Providers of sanctuary services in Arizona US
[Educating State and Local Governments]—Even individuals who belong to no sanctuary-providing community can help build a sanctuary so- ciety by educating city, county, & state officials to refuse to collaborate with INS violations of refugee rights. Whenever state & local governments colla- borate in the capture & deportation of Salvadoran & Guatemalan refugees, their law enforcement agencies hold the gun for them to raped, robbed, & violated. Governor Toney Anaya proclaimed New Mexico Sanctuary
Few local & state government officials are aware that they are respon- sible for complying with international human rights & humanitarian laws regar- ding persons within their jurisdiction. Sanctuary-providing communities should also clarify with local officials the policies their agencies will follow concerning refugees who are receiving sanctuary services. Communities not having hidden refugees now are likely to host them soon, so all local governments should be prepared.
[Congregational Pre-conceptions/Government Pacification/ Conclusion]—Many congregations initiate their sanctuary deliberations with limiting preconceptions about the form sanctuary should take & the facilities resources it requires. Questions about the kinds of sanctuary services to provide & when to provide them should be determined. No faith community is so small & poor that it could not stand by to help relay refugees who are passing through. No faith community is so remote that it could not participate with others in sponsoring sanctuary volunteer services on the border or in refugee settlement areas. Above all, there is a need for the sanctuary network to prepare now for the long-term refugee producing crises being instituted in Latin America .
The US US Latin America .
Pacification is becoming America
Partisans who say that sanctuary must be political rather than apolitically humanitarian mean that sanctuary services should be extended only to those among the oppressed who serve the oppressed's cause, according to correct political analysis. Moloch’s correct political analyses are also legion. We can't serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. Gathering in attentive stillness, we hear our- selves being called to become a people that covenants to do justice & love kindness, the Kingdom may come on earth, in our lives, & during our days.
1987)
About the Author—Nancy Alexander is a member of Hartford (CT) MM & an active attender of Friends Meeting of Washington; she is a member of Ministry & Worship Committee there. Nancy’s special interest is in how religion, psychology, & politics converge to change hearts & societies. In her early ca- reer, she marketed systems & publications, & was a legislative assistant. Cur- rently, she is a lobbyist with the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). 1 part of this pamphlet was developed for Wilmington YM Peace lec- ture. Other parts were developed for “Anger, Conflict & Spiritual Growth” & “Why Bother with Feminist Theology” workshops.
[Introduction]—Luke 10:29-37 [“Good Samaritan” cited]. Who is my neighbor? Who do I consider a stranger? After FCNL, I broadened my “neighbor” definition to include all the world’s people. Most conflicts [at all levels], stem from we humans setting up “we/they” situations which make the “other” a stranger, someone unacceptable as is, to be isolated & avoided.
About the Author—Nancy Alexander is a member of Hartford (CT) MM & an active attender of Friends Meeting of Washington; she is a member of Ministry & Worship Committee there. Nancy’s special interest is in how religion, psychology, & politics converge to change hearts & societies. In her early ca- reer, she marketed systems & publications, & was a legislative assistant. Cur- rently, she is a lobbyist with the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). 1 part of this pamphlet was developed for Wilmington YM Peace lec- ture. Other parts were developed for “Anger, Conflict & Spiritual Growth” & “Why Bother with Feminist Theology” workshops.
[Introduction]—Luke 10:29-37 [“Good Samaritan” cited]. Who is my neighbor? Who do I consider a stranger? After FCNL, I broadened my “neighbor” definition to include all the world’s people. Most conflicts [at all levels], stem from we humans setting up “we/they” situations which make the “other” a stranger, someone unacceptable as is, to be isolated & avoided.
How can we transcend our habit of thinking in “we/they” terms? When the stranger is within us, & is ignored & repressed, then we can’t act from our center. If we embrace the stranger within ourselves, we gain access to stores of compassion for the strangers in our life. [I will work with the defini- tion of neighbors and embracing strangers, and embracing the “feminine” principle]. If men & women reintegrate the “heart sense,” then someday, goals of a compassionate world may be within our grasp.
The Abbot & the Rabbi (by Scott Peck)—An old monk lived in a mona stery, which had dwindled to only him & 3 other monks. They disagreed on how to find new postulants; the abbot told them to “Pray fervently... God will show us how to make this monastery a place of light & love.” One day, feeling parti- cularly desperate, the abbot decided to visit the rabbi & seek advice. [As they shared a morning meal, they bemoaned the lack of interest in the spiritual life; they spent the day together.
The Abbot & the Rabbi (by Scott Peck)—An old monk lived in a mona stery, which had dwindled to only him & 3 other monks. They disagreed on how to find new postulants; the abbot told them to “Pray fervently... God will show us how to make this monastery a place of light & love.” One day, feeling parti- cularly desperate, the abbot decided to visit the rabbi & seek advice. [As they shared a morning meal, they bemoaned the lack of interest in the spiritual life; they spent the day together.
The abbot asked, “Rabbi, what can I do about my monastery. The rabbi said, “You don’t need to worry about it. One of you is the Messiah.” The abbot stumbled back to the monastery & repeated the rabbi’s answer to the other monks. They [speculated & saw] one another with new eyes. Each person thought it couldn’t possibly be himself. The abbot & the monks treated each other with a new reverence & respect. People noticed, & soon the monastery became a great center of light & love in the land.
PRACTICING COMPASSION FOR THE STRANGER IN THE WORLD—The 1st step in loving the stranger is defining one’s community in an inclusive way. Are we using a we/they view of reality, or are we using the view of a family with I/Thou relationships? Practicing compassion means overcoming our fear and separateness and being willing to give & receive from a stranger. Do we define our world community or the commu- nity of Friends in an inclusive way? The US and USSR exclude each other from their definition of world community. Their threats to use destructive wea- pons makes the developing nations pawns of the super-powers and strangers to each other.
PRACTICING COMPASSION FOR THE STRANGER IN THE WORLD—The 1st step in loving the stranger is defining one’s community in an inclusive way. Are we using a we/they view of reality, or are we using the view of a family with I/Thou relationships? Practicing compassion means overcoming our fear and separateness and being willing to give & receive from a stranger. Do we define our world community or the commu- nity of Friends in an inclusive way? The US and USSR exclude each other from their definition of world community. Their threats to use destructive wea- pons makes the developing nations pawns of the super-powers and strangers to each other.
The question of whom Friends consider strangers is important because the Religious Society is numerically shrinking in the US. Within our meeting- community do we allow differing ideas to divide us? Whether we define the Society of Friends in an inclusive or exclusive way will determine whether we grow, spiritually as well as numerically. In the 19th century, Quaker women were deemed the spiritual equals of men, but socially & politically they were subject to a different standard, estranged from some Friends for speaking to mixed- race and mixed-gender audiences.
The 2nd step in practicing compassion is learning to separate people from problems. When we can separate people from problems, it frees us to work through problems in a healthy, non-violent way. No matter how much we differ with people, we can still affirm them as people. I’m not my problems & others aren’t the problems or conflicts I experience with them. The mind-set that [seeks to overcome a fatal flaw] & to become better educated, more skillful, better dressed, or even more spiritual is a mind-set that tries to con- quer rather than experience God.
The 2nd step in practicing compassion is learning to separate people from problems. When we can separate people from problems, it frees us to work through problems in a healthy, non-violent way. No matter how much we differ with people, we can still affirm them as people. I’m not my problems & others aren’t the problems or conflicts I experience with them. The mind-set that [seeks to overcome a fatal flaw] & to become better educated, more skillful, better dressed, or even more spiritual is a mind-set that tries to con- quer rather than experience God.
In a Washington leadership seminar, a large group of Quakers met with a major general. He was asked: “If there are 2 bulls in a china shop, does it matter which one is stronger.” The major general replied without hesitation, “Of course.” [Derision and fright was the reaction of the mostly Quaker audi- ence]. I became aware of the negative impact of speaking to the major gene- ral rather than with him. How easy it is to see this Pentagonian as a symbol of the powers and principalities.
It was we righteous Quakers against Pentagon death merchants. I want to ask: “What has shaped your choice of profession? When and how has your political philosophy undergone change? How does the Pen- tagon’s mission fit with Jesus’ message? What is the most effective way you think we can work together for peace? What are your pro- fessional objectives?
Learning to differentiate between positions & goals is the 3rd step in loving the stranger. As Friends we often have differences about how to walk the path of faith and works, but we share an underlying goal of being faithful to the inner light. As an FCNL lobbyist, the positions I take are usually different from positions of the majority of Congressmen & women. FCNL’s goals are that we seek: a world free of war and threat of it; a society with equity and justice for all; a community where every person’s potential may be fulfilled; an earth restored. Members of Congress share the goals of Friends. We differ on how we should achieve our common goals.
[There are differing positions but the same goals between couples wanting to parent, & between parents who want to supervise their child, & the child who wants independence]. Internationally, Israel had a position of keeping the Sinai Peninsula, with an underlying goal of security. Realizing the parties’ goals, the negotiators facilitated an agreement in which Israel relinquished land for security by demilitarizing the Sinai & resuming diplomatic relations. It is evi- dent that win/win solutions are possible when we differentiate between goals & positions.
PRACTICING COMPASSION FOR THE STRANGER WITHIN—Whe- ther the above steps work depends on our hearts’ attitude. If we are hard- hearted, all the steps in the world won’t work. [One has to have compassion for the stranger within before there is transformation]. [The 1st [of 3] things is that one has the courage to name one’s hopes. When we tune God in & dare to hope for & name specific things that we need to carry on, it removes an [ob- stacle] & enables God to move in our lives. When I have just a grain of faith, a way often opens.
The 2nd of 3 things is that one names one’s fears. Scott Peck writes: “Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the taking of action in spite of fear, the moving out against the resistance engendered by fear, into the future. Many of us are taught too well to practice fear. Some of our defenses are necessary; many are not. Our questions [revolve] around survival. [Fear causing] distance allows us to ignore the other as having no significance. [Fear causing clinging] offers us an excuse for never expressing or confessing our feelings of hurt and brokenness. Both men and women have a choice to practice compassion for or rejection of the stranger within.
The 3rd step is to assume responsibility for one’s hopes & fears. Not assuming responsibility leads to projection, where we attribute our own emo- tions to someone else. When we dare to be whole, we invite greater respon- sibility, commitment & change. Most of us need a true community to enable us to take these compassionate steps. False community only offers a flimsy security by becoming an “in” group which projects its fears onto an “out” group.
Learning to differentiate between positions & goals is the 3rd step in loving the stranger. As Friends we often have differences about how to walk the path of faith and works, but we share an underlying goal of being faithful to the inner light. As an FCNL lobbyist, the positions I take are usually different from positions of the majority of Congressmen & women. FCNL’s goals are that we seek: a world free of war and threat of it; a society with equity and justice for all; a community where every person’s potential may be fulfilled; an earth restored. Members of Congress share the goals of Friends. We differ on how we should achieve our common goals.
[There are differing positions but the same goals between couples wanting to parent, & between parents who want to supervise their child, & the child who wants independence]. Internationally, Israel had a position of keeping the Sinai Peninsula, with an underlying goal of security. Realizing the parties’ goals, the negotiators facilitated an agreement in which Israel relinquished land for security by demilitarizing the Sinai & resuming diplomatic relations. It is evi- dent that win/win solutions are possible when we differentiate between goals & positions.
PRACTICING COMPASSION FOR THE STRANGER WITHIN—Whe- ther the above steps work depends on our hearts’ attitude. If we are hard- hearted, all the steps in the world won’t work. [One has to have compassion for the stranger within before there is transformation]. [The 1st [of 3] things is that one has the courage to name one’s hopes. When we tune God in & dare to hope for & name specific things that we need to carry on, it removes an [ob- stacle] & enables God to move in our lives. When I have just a grain of faith, a way often opens.
The 2nd of 3 things is that one names one’s fears. Scott Peck writes: “Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the taking of action in spite of fear, the moving out against the resistance engendered by fear, into the future. Many of us are taught too well to practice fear. Some of our defenses are necessary; many are not. Our questions [revolve] around survival. [Fear causing] distance allows us to ignore the other as having no significance. [Fear causing clinging] offers us an excuse for never expressing or confessing our feelings of hurt and brokenness. Both men and women have a choice to practice compassion for or rejection of the stranger within.
The 3rd step is to assume responsibility for one’s hopes & fears. Not assuming responsibility leads to projection, where we attribute our own emo- tions to someone else. When we dare to be whole, we invite greater respon- sibility, commitment & change. Most of us need a true community to enable us to take these compassionate steps. False community only offers a flimsy security by becoming an “in” group which projects its fears onto an “out” group.
Real community engages us in healing & transformation by its inclu- siveness & compassion. Community can enable us to deal with our individual & collective strangers, & help create a more just & peaceful world. By seeking to know others, we learn to know ourselves, & thereby gain access to the inner light, our power, compassion & wisdom. A spiritual community can nurture the spirit [“love mercy, & do justice.”]
RECLAIMING THE HEART SENSOR—LOVE—The particular focus of this section is on the challenge before women & men of integrating the “heart sense” with the “head sense.” Men can be more genuinely masculine, & wo- men more thoroughly feminine when they have integrated the “heart sense” and the “head sense.” Love and intimacy are not possible unless we integrate head, heart & soul. Our culture assigns the heart or feeling sense to women and the head or decision-making sense, to men.
RECLAIMING THE HEART SENSOR—LOVE—The particular focus of this section is on the challenge before women & men of integrating the “heart sense” with the “head sense.” Men can be more genuinely masculine, & wo- men more thoroughly feminine when they have integrated the “heart sense” and the “head sense.” Love and intimacy are not possible unless we integrate head, heart & soul. Our culture assigns the heart or feeling sense to women and the head or decision-making sense, to men.
Head Sense is: objective; reasonable; powerful; analytical; strong; cool, unfeeling, aggressive, productivity-oriented; initiative-taking. Heart Sense is: needy; emotional; dependent; intuitive; vulnerable; cooperative; nurturing; responsive; sensitive. Too much head sense and women are dubbed unfe- minine. Too much heart and they are deemed weak, too emotional, and incap- able. The concept of man as the head of the relationship and women as the heart breeds men who are alienated from their vulnerable, caring selves, while breeding women alienated from their logical, rational selves.
Men need to express caring values in the privacy of the home. Men are taught not to say “I love you,” especially to sons. Children need father love as well as mother love. Men need to recognize that they might not develop their heart unless they strive to know their vulnerable, emotional self as the stranger. The woman’s pitfall is becoming so consumed with being a heart for others that they lose touch with their own needs. They are unable to name hopes, fears, & take responsibility for them. The role of the women and the heart [is greatly] devalued in our society. Women are often taught that what is feminine is uncontrollable and mysterious and to be feared. [Attempts at role reversal for husband and wife result in labels of ]“free-loading bum” and “negligent mother.”
In addition to accepting heart sense, women are challenged to develop their head sense, exercise leadership capability, [& overcoming the view that] she has claimed power not her own. It is unfortunate [that decision-making isn’t shared], that people have so little faith in the power of prayerful joint de- cision-making. Many families in the traditional form don’t segregate head & heart functions, but instead contribute to the full development of both part- ners. The division of labor is recognized as a transitory arrangement only until the children are grown. Opportunities for the woman’s self-expression & self-development are planned for. [Sometimes home maintenance & child care responsibilities are shared] to make her independent activity possible.
Men need to express caring values in the privacy of the home. Men are taught not to say “I love you,” especially to sons. Children need father love as well as mother love. Men need to recognize that they might not develop their heart unless they strive to know their vulnerable, emotional self as the stranger. The woman’s pitfall is becoming so consumed with being a heart for others that they lose touch with their own needs. They are unable to name hopes, fears, & take responsibility for them. The role of the women and the heart [is greatly] devalued in our society. Women are often taught that what is feminine is uncontrollable and mysterious and to be feared. [Attempts at role reversal for husband and wife result in labels of ]“free-loading bum” and “negligent mother.”
In addition to accepting heart sense, women are challenged to develop their head sense, exercise leadership capability, [& overcoming the view that] she has claimed power not her own. It is unfortunate [that decision-making isn’t shared], that people have so little faith in the power of prayerful joint de- cision-making. Many families in the traditional form don’t segregate head & heart functions, but instead contribute to the full development of both part- ners. The division of labor is recognized as a transitory arrangement only until the children are grown. Opportunities for the woman’s self-expression & self-development are planned for. [Sometimes home maintenance & child care responsibilities are shared] to make her independent activity possible.
WORK—Men & women need courage to practice caring values in the public realm, especially where decisions affect the planet. [When world leaders are urged to macho behavior & violence], Friends need to speak out. When the nurturing stranger within one is rejected & violence is used, one creates stran- gers in the world. Women are living alone, heading families, & working in the public sphere. The danger is that we will adopt macho values & lose touch with our vulnerable, caring selves.
The opportunity for women is to ignore such advice & retain our heart sense while developing skills in analysis & judgment. [Largely from the wo- man’s role in the working world], the workplace is becoming more humanized. Woman are twice as likely as men to question technological decisions. Questioning of assumptions & applications [is necessary to avoid] great catastrophes. Men & women may be concerned about the same issues, but their specific concerns on the issue may be different.
RELIGION—If we bind together traditional religious understanding with distinctly feminist understandings, we can live more compassionate spirit-filled lives. People won’t be strangers in a world in which women & men are whole, compassionate individuals. Feminist theology helps me name my hopes for wholeness, & my fears about parts of myself that feel lost or broken. It seems that we don’t name or take responsibility for our hopes & fears because we have been made to feel inadequate & unaccepted as we are. Women as care- givers, may work harder & harder at “pumping up” others as fear of their own emptiness grows. Men as achievers may over-compensate by becoming workaholics.
[My points on theology in general and feminist theology in particular are:] traditional theology is political, strategic & exclusive on the whole; heart sense is a devalued aspect of women’s and men’s experience necessary for spiritual wholeness; feminist theology is necessary for the next step toward theology affirming the sacredness of life. 3 tasks of feminist theology are: naming the great women in religion; correct female stereotypes & symbolic misrepresen- tation of women; re-imaging Christianity in a more wholistic way.
[Our spiritual fore-mothers such as Mary, mother of Jesus, and Eve, and our Quaker] fore-mothers such as Fell, Dyer, Mott, Grimke, and Foster usually get short-shrift compared to any forefathers. Mary and Eve are misrepresented in theology. Feminine symbols are used in institutions & fields that until recently excluded women. The symbol for wisdom is a woman in a land where women are [excluded from positions requiring wise decisions].
[Our spiritual fore-mothers such as Mary, mother of Jesus, and Eve, and our Quaker] fore-mothers such as Fell, Dyer, Mott, Grimke, and Foster usually get short-shrift compared to any forefathers. Mary and Eve are misrepresented in theology. Feminine symbols are used in institutions & fields that until recently excluded women. The symbol for wisdom is a woman in a land where women are [excluded from positions requiring wise decisions].
The visions of spirituality, images of Jesus and of God which Harvard Divinity School & Women’s Research Associate Program conveyed were very different. They sometimes complemented & other times flatly contradicted one another. The images “Kingdom of God and “peaceable kingdom” need to be updated with inclusive and non-patriarchal language. In the ovumary [women’s school], there was an emphasis on the horizontal community path rather than on a lonely, ascetic vertical spiritual path.
Feminist Theology magnifies the Christianity’s central message, that when we touch the stranger, or the outcast pain in ourselves, we touch the outcast in others. We need to engage some Quaker churches and other faith communities struggling with the role of women in the church. Women and men need to work together to restore the vision of wholeness in private and public life. Surely a deepened faith will empower us to know God in a caring and personal way and build communities that welcome and nurture the stranger.
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272. Going Back: A poet who was once a Marine returns to Vietnam
Feminist Theology magnifies the Christianity’s central message, that when we touch the stranger, or the outcast pain in ourselves, we touch the outcast in others. We need to engage some Quaker churches and other faith communities struggling with the role of women in the church. Women and men need to work together to restore the vision of wholeness in private and public life. Surely a deepened faith will empower us to know God in a caring and personal way and build communities that welcome and nurture the stranger.
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272. Going Back: A poet who was once a Marine returns to Vietnam
(by W.D. Ehrhart; 1987)
About the Author—W.D. Ehrhart enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age 17 (June 1966). After serving in Vietnam & receiving an honorable Dis- charge, he earned a BA from Swarthmore College & an MA from the Univ. of Illinois, Chicago. [He has written many poems that were published &] has taught at Sandy Springs Friends School, George School, & Germantown Friends School. In December 1985 Ehrhart returned to Vietnam to see the country against which he had once waged war. This pamphlet is an account of that journey.
[Excerpt from TWICE BETRAYED, about an Amer-Asian child left be- hind]: Some American soldier/ came to your mother for love, or lust…or respite from loneliness/ and you happened… I have no way to tell you that I cannot stay here/ & I cannot take you with me… I will dream you are my own daugh- ter./ But none of that will matter when you come here tomorrow and I’m gone.
W.D. Ehrhart
[Excerpt from FOR MRS. NA]: I’d never say I’m sorry…Here I am at last —/and here you are./ And you lost 5 sons in the war./ and you haven’t any left./ And I’m staring at my hands /and eating tears,/ trying to think of something else to say/ besides “I’m sorry.” W.D. Ehrhart
[Introduction]—Nguyen Thi Na is 67 years old. She lives in a small hamlet in Cu Chi District 35 km west of the city once called Saigon. There, ½ a dozen small children giggle nervously and scurried out of sight. [Inside her house], I bow uneasily to Mrs. Na & take a seat. [During the introduction], Mrs. Na’s eyes are brimming with tears. “I gave all 5 of my sons to the Revolution…I have suffered so much misery—& you did this to me.” I can only sit in stunned silence dizzy from heat and shock. Why have I put myself deeply into debt and traveled halfway around the world just to confront a reality more terrible than imagination? This is not what I wanted, I think as another wave of nausea washes over me.
[Traveling to Vietnam/Arriving in Hanoi]—What I wanted was a great catharsis, a personal healing that would finally allow me to put demons to bed & get on with my life. I had served 13 months in an infantry battalion in central Vietnam. I had been a model Marine, [wounded, decorated, and promoted]. [In the process] I wreaked havoc upon the people of Vietnam. The memories of Vietnam at war, & my complicity in that war, have never left me. If I could only see the Vietnamese getting on with their lives, I too would be able to let go.
[Excerpt from FOR MRS. NA]: I’d never say I’m sorry…Here I am at last —/and here you are./ And you lost 5 sons in the war./ and you haven’t any left./ And I’m staring at my hands /and eating tears,/ trying to think of something else to say/ besides “I’m sorry.” W.D. Ehrhart
[Introduction]—Nguyen Thi Na is 67 years old. She lives in a small hamlet in Cu Chi District 35 km west of the city once called Saigon. There, ½ a dozen small children giggle nervously and scurried out of sight. [Inside her house], I bow uneasily to Mrs. Na & take a seat. [During the introduction], Mrs. Na’s eyes are brimming with tears. “I gave all 5 of my sons to the Revolution…I have suffered so much misery—& you did this to me.” I can only sit in stunned silence dizzy from heat and shock. Why have I put myself deeply into debt and traveled halfway around the world just to confront a reality more terrible than imagination? This is not what I wanted, I think as another wave of nausea washes over me.
[Traveling to Vietnam/Arriving in Hanoi]—What I wanted was a great catharsis, a personal healing that would finally allow me to put demons to bed & get on with my life. I had served 13 months in an infantry battalion in central Vietnam. I had been a model Marine, [wounded, decorated, and promoted]. [In the process] I wreaked havoc upon the people of Vietnam. The memories of Vietnam at war, & my complicity in that war, have never left me. If I could only see the Vietnamese getting on with their lives, I too would be able to let go.
It is no easy task to travel to Vietnam. After 4 long years of false starts & dead ends, in December 1985, I finally found myself aboard a Russian-built Air Laos turboprop. Scattered among the fields & houses were pockmarks of craters left behind by American bombers a full 13 years earlier.
In the city of Hanoi, [bikes were everywhere, thousands of them]; they were the workhorses of everyday life. The north Vietnamese army used bicy- cles [on the Ho Chi Minh trail] to haul ammunition and medical supplies 1,000 miles through American bombs to the South's battlefields. Now, cars, trucks, and bicycles seem remarkably considerate of each other.
I had hardly arrived when I was told that I would not be able to visit a single place that I had served in. I had need to see those places again, to see children playing & old men tending water buffalo on the once-bloody soil upon which I had nearly died. I had come a long way physically and emotionally to see them. It is hard for a man of 37 to have come to terms with his own foolish romanticism.
Hanoi Tour—My hosts had planned a full schedule for me, & there was no use trying to explain that I was not interested. [We visited several committee headquarters having to do with Vietnamese culture, and war history]. And a funny thing happened; in spite of my bitter personal disappointment, I began to get interested. I visited Van Mieu Pagoda—the Temple of Literature. Founded in 1077, it operated continuously for 8 centuries; now it is preserved as a museum and cultural shrine. [I heard the war experiences of several people in Hanoi. I found myself feeling a bond and sometimes liking those once my enemies].
Then there was Jade Hill Pagoda, on an island in Restoration Sword Lake. It was built to honor a 13th century Vietnamese general who defeated Chinese invaders. China has invaded Vietnam repeatedly over the course of the past 4 millennia, at one time occupying Vietnam for nearly 1,000 years. The recent intrusions by Japan, France, and the US are mere aberrations in the great sweep of Vietnamese history.
“China is our natural enemy,” General Kinh Chi said, “If only American policymakers had taken the time to learn what every Vietnamese school child knows, how very different might have been the course of the past 40 years.” Many Vietnamese revered Ho Chi Minh, and thought of him in much the same way that we think of George Washington. How many Viet Cong did our blun- dering ignorance produce?
Hanoi is a poor city in a poor country. There are a few new buildings. Most were built by the French before WWII. I walked alone through the streets of Hanoi for many hours & many miles during my week there. I found a Bud- dhist pagoda & a Catholic cathedral. Most people assumed I was Russian. In the older section of the city, Old Hanoi, the streets were clogged with small shops. Young soldiers are everywhere, but armed soldiers are rare. There was a kind of pride and strength that was real and undeniable.
Ho Chi Minh City—[As I flew over the places where I’d actually been stationed, I was feeling a bit ashamed of myself about] pouting because I couldn’t play out my private little fantasy [in visiting those places]. Once one of the busiest airports in the world, Tan Son Nhut is now hardly a shadow of its former self. Much of the older French architecture has been supplanted by new American-style buildings. Ho Chi Minh City is a madhouse of buses 3-wheeled Lambrettas, motorbikes, and motor scooters compared to Hanoi.
The war crimes exhibit in Ho Chi Minh City contains as much material about post-liberation Chinese crimes and the crimes of Pol Pot as it does about the long American war. I am reminded again that we were hardly more than a brief interlude in Vietnam’s struggle against their giant northern neighbor. My guide spent 6 years in prison under the Saigon regime (1968-1974). She said, “If we do not have successful national reunification, history has taught us that we will end up as a province of China.”
Hanoi Tour—My hosts had planned a full schedule for me, & there was no use trying to explain that I was not interested. [We visited several committee headquarters having to do with Vietnamese culture, and war history]. And a funny thing happened; in spite of my bitter personal disappointment, I began to get interested. I visited Van Mieu Pagoda—the Temple of Literature. Founded in 1077, it operated continuously for 8 centuries; now it is preserved as a museum and cultural shrine. [I heard the war experiences of several people in Hanoi. I found myself feeling a bond and sometimes liking those once my enemies].
Then there was Jade Hill Pagoda, on an island in Restoration Sword Lake. It was built to honor a 13th century Vietnamese general who defeated Chinese invaders. China has invaded Vietnam repeatedly over the course of the past 4 millennia, at one time occupying Vietnam for nearly 1,000 years. The recent intrusions by Japan, France, and the US are mere aberrations in the great sweep of Vietnamese history.
“China is our natural enemy,” General Kinh Chi said, “If only American policymakers had taken the time to learn what every Vietnamese school child knows, how very different might have been the course of the past 40 years.” Many Vietnamese revered Ho Chi Minh, and thought of him in much the same way that we think of George Washington. How many Viet Cong did our blun- dering ignorance produce?
Hanoi is a poor city in a poor country. There are a few new buildings. Most were built by the French before WWII. I walked alone through the streets of Hanoi for many hours & many miles during my week there. I found a Bud- dhist pagoda & a Catholic cathedral. Most people assumed I was Russian. In the older section of the city, Old Hanoi, the streets were clogged with small shops. Young soldiers are everywhere, but armed soldiers are rare. There was a kind of pride and strength that was real and undeniable.
Ho Chi Minh City—[As I flew over the places where I’d actually been stationed, I was feeling a bit ashamed of myself about] pouting because I couldn’t play out my private little fantasy [in visiting those places]. Once one of the busiest airports in the world, Tan Son Nhut is now hardly a shadow of its former self. Much of the older French architecture has been supplanted by new American-style buildings. Ho Chi Minh City is a madhouse of buses 3-wheeled Lambrettas, motorbikes, and motor scooters compared to Hanoi.
The war crimes exhibit in Ho Chi Minh City contains as much material about post-liberation Chinese crimes and the crimes of Pol Pot as it does about the long American war. I am reminded again that we were hardly more than a brief interlude in Vietnam’s struggle against their giant northern neighbor. My guide spent 6 years in prison under the Saigon regime (1968-1974). She said, “If we do not have successful national reunification, history has taught us that we will end up as a province of China.”
[I met 2 men in restaurants; one was educated under the defeated re- gime, the other fought in the Viet Minh army for 20 or 30 years. I asked the veteran, “Doesn’t it seem dull sometimes to lead such a quiet life?” “Oh, no,” he quickly replied. “I did what was necessary, but I never liked it. Give me 100 years of peace. A thousand. I don’t want any more war. He held my hand like I was his grandson, [which is a long standing], curious and beautiful custom. [As a young man, I saw it and thought they must be “queer.”]
[A former secretary for the Americans, now running a coffee shop asked for my help. She had an official document from US immigration saying she had been accepted for the Orderly Departure Program]. “I can’t get an exit visa,” she says. “I don’t know what I can do,” I reply. I leave the coffeeshop with a [helpless], hollow feeling inside. The rich and powerful got out. The junior lieu- tenants and faithful servants we left behind.
[A former secretary for the Americans, now running a coffee shop asked for my help. She had an official document from US immigration saying she had been accepted for the Orderly Departure Program]. “I can’t get an exit visa,” she says. “I don’t know what I can do,” I reply. I leave the coffeeshop with a [helpless], hollow feeling inside. The rich and powerful got out. The junior lieu- tenants and faithful servants we left behind.
General Nguyen Huu Hanh spent 29 years in the Saigon army fighting the communists. He said, “I am not a communist, but this is my country and the important thing now is to get on with rebuilding it. [US advisors interfered with his command, forced him to sack a senior lieutenant, and he was relieved of command when he refused to call an air strike on an area with heavy civilian population. The entire area, including the local army garrison went over to the Viet Cong after the air strike.
[Mr. Duc of the district People’s Committee showed me around the Cu Chi District: a state farm that used to be an American base (no sign of the base remains); a “field” of craters from B-52 bombings. Mr. Duc says “We’re filling them in as fast as we can. But we have to haul earth from a long distance, and we have very little heavy equipment; it has to be done by manual labor. He took me to the district hospital].
[I see water buffalo plowing, rice being threshed, graceful fishing nets above small waterways. This is the Vietnam I remember: rural, simple, almost eternal. What’s different is the absence of war, the absence of Americans, barbed wire, artillery, choppers, and jet fighters. Half my life I have longed to witness peace in this land I have never been able to see in my mind’s eye ex- cept in the midst of war. Remember this. The world continues. There are win- ners and there are losers, but the war is over. [Mr. Duc also introduced me to Mrs. Na, the woman I visited at the beginning of this pamphlet]. [Excerpt from “Guerilla War”: It’s practically impossible/ to tell civilians/ from the Viet Cong./ After awhile/ you quit trying.]
[I met] Tran Thi Bich at the open pavilion commemorating the tunnels of Cu Chi. Beginning in 1965, the VC constructed over 320 km of interconnecting [tunnels]. Americans never found more than a small portion of them. Some even ran under US military installations [and were use to blow up US chop- pers]. Miss Bich grew up in the tunnels, from age 8 to 18. [I took a trip down 50 yards of pitch black and horribly confining tunnels]. [They endured life in the tunnels and fought an effective war]. No wonder they beat us.
[Mr. Duc of the district People’s Committee showed me around the Cu Chi District: a state farm that used to be an American base (no sign of the base remains); a “field” of craters from B-52 bombings. Mr. Duc says “We’re filling them in as fast as we can. But we have to haul earth from a long distance, and we have very little heavy equipment; it has to be done by manual labor. He took me to the district hospital].
[I see water buffalo plowing, rice being threshed, graceful fishing nets above small waterways. This is the Vietnam I remember: rural, simple, almost eternal. What’s different is the absence of war, the absence of Americans, barbed wire, artillery, choppers, and jet fighters. Half my life I have longed to witness peace in this land I have never been able to see in my mind’s eye ex- cept in the midst of war. Remember this. The world continues. There are win- ners and there are losers, but the war is over. [Mr. Duc also introduced me to Mrs. Na, the woman I visited at the beginning of this pamphlet]. [Excerpt from “Guerilla War”: It’s practically impossible/ to tell civilians/ from the Viet Cong./ After awhile/ you quit trying.]
[I met] Tran Thi Bich at the open pavilion commemorating the tunnels of Cu Chi. Beginning in 1965, the VC constructed over 320 km of interconnecting [tunnels]. Americans never found more than a small portion of them. Some even ran under US military installations [and were use to blow up US chop- pers]. Miss Bich grew up in the tunnels, from age 8 to 18. [I took a trip down 50 yards of pitch black and horribly confining tunnels]. [They endured life in the tunnels and fought an effective war]. No wonder they beat us.
It isn’t just the American architecture or the awful smog that makes Ho Chi Minh City different from Hanoi, or the fact that things are only 10 years rundown instead of 40. Most of the street punks, draft evaders, prostitutes, & drug dealers that pandered to off-duty American GIs are gone. Ho Chi Minh City is a much safer & saner place than Saigon ever was during the war. I am much more at ease out in the country amid the rice fields & irrigation ditches & twisting waterways. I had forgotten the dust of Vietnam; powdery fine & six inches thick on the road to Tay Ninh. [A soldier with a loaded AK-47 prevents me from getting pictures of the river there].
The Pagoda of the [30 ft. pink] Sleeping Buddha perches on a hillside high above the South China Sea on the outskirts of Vung Tau, 125 km east of Ho Chi Minh City. [Years ago I took “souvenirs” from another Buddhist temple before the roof collapsed; we had spent a ½ hour battering in the walls]. [This time] I take incense sticks & hold them while the old man lights them. I bow three times, then place the incense in a large painted vase.
[Excerpt from TWICE BETRAYED, by Ehrhart, about Nguyen Thi My Huong, an Amer-Asian child left behind]: Some American soldier/ came to your mother for love, or lust…or respite from loneliness/ & you happened… I have no way to tell you that I cannot stay here/ & I cannot take you with me… I will dream you are my own daughter./ But none of that will matter when you come here tomorrow and I’m gone.
Nguyen Thi My Huong is 14 years old, a beautiful white Amerasian. Perhaps it is true, as General Kinh has told me, that most Amerasians really have been successfully integrated into Vietnamese society. I don’t know. I met Huong and her friend Nguyen Ngoc Tuan in the park across from the old Na- tional Assembly on my 1st night in Ho Chi Minh City. Huong says she has papers and will be going to America in 4 months, [but I don’t think so]. Our last night I tell her I’ll miss her, and she shyly asks for a kiss goodbye].
[Excerpt from TWICE BETRAYED, by Ehrhart, about Nguyen Thi My Huong, an Amer-Asian child left behind]: Some American soldier/ came to your mother for love, or lust…or respite from loneliness/ & you happened… I have no way to tell you that I cannot stay here/ & I cannot take you with me… I will dream you are my own daughter./ But none of that will matter when you come here tomorrow and I’m gone.
Nguyen Thi My Huong is 14 years old, a beautiful white Amerasian. Perhaps it is true, as General Kinh has told me, that most Amerasians really have been successfully integrated into Vietnamese society. I don’t know. I met Huong and her friend Nguyen Ngoc Tuan in the park across from the old Na- tional Assembly on my 1st night in Ho Chi Minh City. Huong says she has papers and will be going to America in 4 months, [but I don’t think so]. Our last night I tell her I’ll miss her, and she shyly asks for a kiss goodbye].
General Kinh Chi joined the Viet Minh in 1945; all 7 of his children served in the army; he is no longer an active general. He is waiting for me in the hotel lobby on the morning I am to leave. I have grown very fond of this man who has been a kind host and solicitous companion, full of humor and grace. It is hard to believe that in another time he might have killed me. Most of my fellow passengers are Vietnamese, Orderly Departure Program emi- grants bound for new lives in France and the United States.
[Conclusion]—[8 American veterans were allowed to go to central Vietnam at the same time I was told I could not]. But now when I think of Vietnam, I will not see in my mind’s eye the barbed wire, the grim patrols, and the [sudden], violent death. Now I will see those graceful fishing boats gliding out of the late afternoon sun across the South China Sea toward safe harbor at Vung Tau, and buffalo boys riding the backs of those great gray beasts in the fields. I do not think for a moment that all is well in Vietnam. The effects of 80 years of colonial exploitation, 30 years of war, and 10 years of economic and diplomatic isolation were everywhere painfully evident, as was the austere presence of a government I can hardly feel too comfortable with. [Along with the memory of some faithful lieutenants and servants left behind, I will carry forever the kiss I received from Nguyen Thi My Huong.
I am more concerned these days about the war my children may one day be asked or ordered to fight. Now we are being told that if we don’t stop communist in Nicaragua, we will have to fight in the streets of Brownsville, TX. How long will it be before my government sends my children to wage war against the children of another Nguyen Thi Na? Old Mrs. Na wanted little else than for us to stop killing her children and go home.
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[Other Works—“Incarnation in Hinduism and Christianity: The Myth of the God-Man”; “A Quaker anthology from the Brave Old World of Aldous Huxley”; Rufus Jones and Mysticism.]
O Lord, if it is all the same to Thee, give us a little more light and a little less noise. A. Lincoln
Introduction—Abraham Lincoln is America Lincoln Lincoln
He applied the same reasoning to theology & law. [He distinguished between] the essential & incidental, & rejected anything not essential. J. G. Randall emphasized that: “Lincoln US Lincoln Lincoln
Lincoln’s Communication with the Quakers—
Address in Harrisburg, PA, Feb. 22, 1861: “I hope no one of the Friends who originally settled here, or who have lived here since that time, or who live there now … is a more devoted lover of peace, harmony and concord than my humble self.
London Friends Meeting for Suffering Memorial, Dec. ‘61: “It would be deeply humiliating if, by being involved in this War, our own country would ultimately find itself in active cooperation with the South & Slavery against the North & Freedom … we do not intend to express our [total] approval of the course pursued by the North in reference to Slavery ... We shall apprize our American Friends of the step which we have now taken, and shall urge them also to use their influence in furtherance of the cause of Peace. May He who still ruleth the Earth … grant that … war may be averted from the kindred na- tions on each side of the Atlantic .
Abraham Lincoln June 20, ’62 : 3 men & 3 women visited to urge the immediate emancipation of the slaves. The Presi- dent agreed that slavery was wrong, but the practical question was the method of its removal, & its enforcement ... The Progressive Friends said, “We have no hesitancy in declaring that the government had no alternative but to seek to suppress this treasonable outbreak by all the means & forces at its disposal …” The President said that he was deeply sensible of his need of Divine assistance & thought that he might be an instrument in God’s hands of accomplishing great work. It would be his earnest endeavor, with a reliance upon the Divine arm, & seeking light from above, to do his duty to which he had been called.
Meeting of Isaac & Sarah Harvey with Abraham Lincoln, Sept. 19, ’62 : Isaac & Sarah, Quakers from Clinton County , Ohio
The President wrote: ‘I take pleasure to assert that I have had profitable intercourse with friends Isaac Harvey & Sarah. May the Lord comfort them as they have sustained me.” This happened within the 2 weeks that included: a Protestant church delegation urging slavery’s overthrow; Battle of Antietam, a Union victory; Lee returns to Virginia
Abraham Lincoln and Eliza P. Gurney, Oct. 26, ’62 : A pious, lovable old Quaker woman came to the White House with an address of thanks & prayers of hope for the future. She and 3 others came only to give spiritual support to one who sorely needed it; they shared in silence and prayer. Lincoln said: “I am glad of this interview, and glad to know that I have your sympathy and prayers … I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it might be so, I have sought his aid … We must believe that God permits the war for some wise purpose of His own, mysterious and unknown to us.”
Eliza P. Gurney & Abraham exchange letters, Aug. 18, ’63 & Sept. 4, ’64: Eliza wrote: “Many times … my mind has turned towards thee with feelings of sincere & Christian interest … I believe the prayers of thousands whose hearts thou hast gladdened by thy praiseworthy & successful efforts to burst the bands of wickedness, & let the oppressed go free … may strengthen thee to accomplish all the blessed purposes … [that] I do assuredly believe He did design to make thee instrumental in accomplishing.”
Lincoln responds: “I haven’t forgotten … the occasion [when you visited] 2 years ago, [or your letter] written nearly a year later … The Almighty's purpo- ses are perfect, & must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accu- rately perceive them in advance … Surely He intends some great good to fol- low this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, & no mortal could stay … I have done & shall do, the best I could & can, in my own conscience, under my oath to the law … I shall still receive for our country & myself, your ear- nest prayers to our Father in Heaven.”
Abraham Lincoln and 2 Quaker women Dec. ’62 or Jan. ’63 [During a period of hopelessness] Lincoln
George Hartley relates from Elizabeth: “We told him that we had been impressed that we ought to come to him with a message of love, cheer, & en- couragement; he looked downcast & ready to give up … [We delivered a mes- sage from the Lord of encouragement & an invitation to] ‘cast all thy burdens upon Him’ …
We arose to go & he asked: ‘Aren’t you going to pray with me?’ … We knelt with our hands clasped in front. He clasped mine in his right hand and Rachel’s in his left; his hands trembled … We felt as if we were helping him to roll the burden off his shoulders, and that Jesus was there to receive them … When we arose his countenance was so changed he looked as though he had the victory.”
Correspondence between Iowa Lincoln
Lincoln to Philadelphia Quaker, winter ’64 A tiny Quaker lady said: “Yes, Friend Abraham, thee needs not think thee stands alone. We are all praying for thee. All our hearts, the hearts of all the people are behind thee, and thee can- not fail! …God is with thee!” Lincoln
Lincoln & Conscientious Objectors—In 1861 a 3rd-generation Quaker from Lake Champlain was drafted. He said: “I shall never raise my hand to kill anyone.” All the forms of punishment devised for refractory soldiers were visited on him. [He was threatened with being shot]. Lincoln
A young man wrote: “My name was drawn with 2 others in our little meeting … The 2 others paid $300 each; I felt it right to do nothing; I couldn’t go nor hire others to go. A military officer told me I would either have to come or pay $300, or he would be forced to sell my property. The officer said: ‘If you would get mad & order me out of the house, I could do this work easier, but you are feeding me & my horse … We told him we had no unkind feelings toward him. We supposed he was obeying the orders of those superior to him. The sale was postponed. Years later I learned that Governor Morton spoke to President Lincoln, who ordered the sale stopped.
Peter Dakin, Lindley M. Macomber and Cyrus Pringle, who kept a diary (PHP #122), were drafted for service in 1863. At Camp Vermont in Boston Harbor
Isaac Newton, a Friend and official in the Department of Agriculture undertook their case. The youths were assigned to a civilian hospital. Isaac was able to bring their case directly before the president who considered it and exclaimed, “I want you to go and tell Stanton Massachusetts Lincoln Lincoln
Clearly Lincoln Lincoln Lincoln
274. Nonviolence on Trial (by Robert W. Hillegass; 1987)
about the author—Robert Hillegrass writes: “The earliest seeds for my exploration of nonviolence were sown at Swarthmore college… Each of us is responsible for life” [Aside from family life-experience] the chief preparation for this account was participation in the nonviolent direct actions of the peace group Ailanthus. Friends who read the jail log encouraged him to give a more complete account of his experience with non-violence.
Your works, your works, they are your discovery.” William Tomlinson
We live truth into being in tacit partnership with God.
One cornerstone conviction [must be] that the principle of love is a reality grounded in Being itself; it is only a latent reality that always needs to be called into existence anew by the faith of individuals expressed in action. Robert Hillegrass
preface—Here I will give an account of personal experiences with non- violent thinking & acting that took place over a 9-year period. Then I want to describe the process by which I learned that truth can be mediated through action, in the absence of a fully formed faith position. Acting out nonviolent witness for peace provided for rediscovery of Quaker Peace Testimony. Some kinds of truth can only be known through direct experience.
The actions I describe in this paper are small-scale & low-risk by most standards; I believe that faithfully undertaken, any nonviolent action can evoke the same inner dynamics & yield the same insights & conclusions as any other. Because the nuclear genie has taken command of so many areas of our lives & deadened sensibilities, I have come to regard nonviolent resistance to mili- tarism as something very close to a self-evident responsibility for Friends & other Christians. Simple living, reconciliation, efforts at self-empowering eco- nomics, improving race relations, legislative initiatives, protest & resistance all become integral aspects of a complete peace witness.
stirrings of change—[I read an article by James Douglass, the Catholic theologian/activist], which described his 5-year witness against the Trident submarine by prayer, fasting, & nonviolent civil disobedience. What struck me [most] was his unwavering faith in the invincible power of nonviolent, suffering love to prevail over the nuclear threat & the world’s alienation. Confronted with the integrity of Douglass’ witness, I was stopped in my spiritual tracks. It was some time before I was ready to try to change my life by taking my first non- violent action.
What is the problem or evil we are addressing? Is it the trident submarine, nuclear weapons, or something even deeper & more perva- sive? The age-old human lusts to possess and control, now [elevated and magnified] in demonic, unmanageable technologies, threaten apocalyptic consequences of all kinds. The nuclear arms race is both sustained and necessitated by the inflated living styles of vast numbers of Americans. Be- cause the root problem was spiritual, the disorder reached into every area of our lives, making it a crisis of civilization.
Change would have to begin with me—starting with my personal rela- tions & habits of consumption. Neither reason nor prudence could avail to stop the arms race which was premised on absurd contradictions rooted in fear. It was becoming clearer that in our militarized society traditional channels of dissent could no longer be used to change nuclear policy. Not to resist was to acquiesce, & to acquiesce was to be complicit. [The spiritual shift needed] was the understanding that I was inextricably joined in the web of creation itself.
Ernest Becker writes that we human have 2 opposite drives: to assert ourselves as individuals who matter & can make a difference in the world, & to feel that we are giving ourselves to the eternal purposes & processes of a Higher Reality within the universe. For me, nonviolent direct action eventually came to satisfy Becker’s conditions better than anything else. I have found a number of ways of bridging [my separation from the rest of creation that involve seeking personal connection with people in need, & attentiveness to what is going on around me in creation]. All of this was preparation for personal witness but preparation of a kind that is never finished.
ailanthus: the first action—Paul, a Quaker friend, & several others had called together some friends to form a nonviolent peace community. The focus of the witness would be Draper Laboratory in Cambridge
I joined Ailanthus, full of anxiety & incredulity. I was embarking on a course with unforeseeable consequences. Risking arrest & jail frightened me partly because of what I knew about the eventuality, but even more for what I didn’t. After watching & being deeply affected by a film about Hiroshima Hiroshima
With the names of Hiroshima
a new order in the court—During the following Advent season, along with a dozen other Ailanthus members, I was arrested for trespass in the Dra- per Courtyard; we all received suspended sentences. Two years later, I was in Cambridge
[From our preparation] for trial, we emerged with essentially two goals: to witness to the loving presence of God in ourselves and all others in court; & to defend what seemed to us to be the self-evident human right to act non- violently to try to preserve life. We had determined to go pro se, i.e. represent ourselves to make clear that our reason for being in court was to witness to the truth, rather than to “win” the case.
The state 1st called arresting officers & Draper security people to testify; we were on a 1st-name basis with some. They clearly had no heart for arres- ting us, but [they] “had their job to do.” As what we testified overstepped the constraints of the in limine motion, the District Attorney had objected imme- diately. The judge on his part became afflicted with a odd sort of “blindness.” He would allow the D.A. to stand for a long time with her objection before he “saw” her. It was not long before the jury and everyone else in the courtroom knew exactly what the real issue was: a citizen's right to call attention to the government’s genocidal nuclear policy.
Within an hour the jury was back with a “guilty” verdict. To our asto- nishment the foreman then asked to read a statement. They found us guilty “only under narrowest interpretation of the law,” & the case “raised deep moral & philosophical questions that urgently need the widest possible public discus- sion.” The judge offered the alternative sentence of community service. We each responded individually. I acknowledged the judge’s partnership in our witness, but said I could not accept any penalty, because I was innocent. [My codefendants joined in my response]; we stood crying in each other’s arms.
The judge told us he was refusing to execute sentence until we had taken 6 weeks to consider appealing the case. We appealed in order to carry our witness to a higher level of judiciary. The ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of MA affirmed the verdict of the lower court & established the necessity defense as legally available to defendants in MA under a number of stringent conditions.
some problems of witness—A decision to witness brings up difficult questions: Why [call me to witness] rather than someone more gifted? Since I enjoy American privileges & advantages, am I not personally responsible for what my nation does? The US Nuremberg
[There is a conflict, for] on the one hand we want to “name the evil” On the other, we labor to separate the deed from the doer, who is sister or brother & at least as open to divine influence as I am. We feel impelled to dialogue with our adversaries, to try to win them over by love & reason to be reconciled. This strain of witness leads to what might be called “peace evangelism,” an effort to move together toward a world without weapons.
The resolution of this conflict is to be found in the prophets’ compas- sionate identification with and anguished outcry on behalf of the suffering of innocents. Unlike some of the group’s members whose lives are devoted to direct service to the sick, the hungry and the homeless in the inner city, I re- main very much a suburbanite with the usual attachments and obligations of that way of living. My wife became a silent but effective partner in my peace witness [by becoming the sole breadwinner]. [In my Wellesley
siftings and sightings—I have discovered what I believe by acting. The early Quaker William Tomlinson wrote: “Your works, your works, they are your discovery.” We live truth into being in tacit partnership with God. I dis- covered that it was only in the process of giving myself to an action I felt im- pelled to take that I began to appropriate truths that until then had been little more than Sunday morning commonplaces for me.
[Then], there is the need to overcome one’s own inner violence, which may take the subtler forms of competition, personal domination, or manipu- lation. In prison, the emotional needs of other prisoners and the overriding need to maintain a calm and humane atmosphere provide constant opportuni- ties for self-forgetful, creative actions. I found that in an anesthetized society, the witness helped to keep me in touch with reality; witnessing has kept me whole and alive. Ernest Becker said: “The only secure truth men have is that which they themselves create and dramatize; to live is to play at the meaning of life.” Such an approach to expanding our minds & spirits is what is required of us humans if we are to evolve spiritually.
Nonviolence as a political act cannot be said to “work”; as practiced by religious persons it is not a tactic for change, but a spiritual response grounded in a transcendent faith. Gandhi said: “We must renounce our actions' fruits in advance.” Nonviolence rejects the secular, pragmatic approach that begins with a goal & then searches for the most “effective,” way of reaching it. Non- violent faith holds that means & ends are inseparable; the latter grows out of the former as “fruit out of a seed.” It's to be used “as an instrument of peace.”
I have formed a working belief that nonviolence is most likely to flourish over the long term when it issues from a small community of faith [made up of autonomous, self-directed individuals]. Such faith communities, combining resistance with experiments in simple living, might well provide nuclei for a new society, if the present one meets catastrophe. What is need now is a growing network of such communities. One cornerstone conviction [must be] that the principle of love is a reality grounded in Being itself; it is only a latent reality that always needs to be called into existence anew by the faith of individuals expressed in action. It is clear that it is we who are on trial; it is only by our active witness that we can hope to keep this Court alive and in session.
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275. The Needle’s Eye: (by Carol Reilley Urner ; 1987)
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275. The Needle’s Eye: (by Carol Reilley Urner ; 1987)
About the Author—During the last 21 years Carol Reilley Urner has moved with her family around the world while her husband, Jack has served as a consultant to governments in Libya, the Philippines, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. She has work as a grassroots volunteer with [the dispossessed]. Her activities in 4 countries have led to FWCC Right Sharing of World Resources projects there. This pamphlet contains the undelivered portions of her experi- ences given after her 1986 talk on “The Spirit, The Light, and The Way.”
Normally, I avoid confrontation. Terrified, I took the first steps. I felt a strength not my own that helped me keep my balance. If I could keep faithful I would reach the other side. Carol Reilley Urner
Our lives can only be of use in this world if we dwell in the Spirit that was in Christ Jesus, stay in the Light, & walk firmly in the Way he showed us: [with the poor], in love, truth, purity & humility. I know that I still have a long, long way to grow. Carol Reilley Urner
Normally, I avoid confrontation. Terrified, I took the first steps. I felt a strength not my own that helped me keep my balance. If I could keep faithful I would reach the other side. Carol Reilley Urner
Our lives can only be of use in this world if we dwell in the Spirit that was in Christ Jesus, stay in the Light, & walk firmly in the Way he showed us: [with the poor], in love, truth, purity & humility. I know that I still have a long, long way to grow. Carol Reilley Urner
1-2—I found myself thrust in the midst of controversy between church & state & between martial law dictatorship & rebels inspired by Chinese Maoists. What I learned inwardly & spiritually moved me closer to the gospel root of my Quaker faith. Each of us must be honed & purified [by God] if we are to be of use. We had lived 4 years in the Philippines
We were forced to realize that what we called Quaker simplicity” was not simplicity at all: we were very wealthy in a poor world. We were part of the 1st world shielded from [the poor] within an armed fortress. I recognized the evil, but did not have the moral strength to radically change my family’s life style. I volunteered as a teacher in a slum community, & became part of an advocacy and self-help organization working with Manila
3-4—My husband took me to visit a Catholic mission to the isolated T’boli people. I found myself responding to the emphasis on the “raw Gospel” shorn of doctrine, & its sensitivity to tribal culture. [The culture had been re- spected, taught, and even introduced into the Mass]. [Land was retrieved from exploiters & malnutrition was reversed]. That night we heard the guns. PANAMIN had armed non-Christian tribal people. 4 years of martial law con- vinced me that Penn was right in saying good government discourages vio- lence in settling disputes.
At an US
My own weakness and errors, the presence of roots of war and oppres- sion could not shield me from the demands I suddenly felt placed upon me. I had to try to follow in that way, and draw others with me into it. And so I rushed in where I had no business going, no outside authorization. Whatever moved inwardly in me was moving in others as well. I found unexpected new friends every step along the way.
5-7—My 1st leading was to take steps to protect the T’boli mission from attack. A few phone calls & personal visits pulled into place a network of “friends” from the international community, offering real & moral support. Moves to deport, imprison, or introduce guns became embarrassments for the government. Powers of government were being used by the ruling class to gain control of natural resources to develop for their own profit.
I sensed clearly the need to organize. I insisted that whatever we did must be in the spirit of nonviolence; this was accepted, even though my husband and I were probably the only ones involved with a thorough pacifist commitment. How could we insure that tribal people's voices would be heard above those of others like ourselves who too often sought to speak for them? A friend pointed that our best alternative to violence lay in the cre- ation of sound legal structures; we should begin as a legal body ourselves. The Philippine Association for Intercultural Development (PAFID) still existed as a registered non-profit organization. All we had to do was summon the old board. I served as the 1st chairperson because no Filipino cared to risk the post. As PAFID grew in strength Filipinos assumed more and more of the visi- ble leadership positions.
During those early weeks I was inwardly striving for balance, seeking to live with unfamiliar power & energy surging through me that seemed from a source other than myself. The Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines
Though I was undoubtedly one of the least apt and experienced mem- bers of PAFID, I continued to hold a disproportionate authority within it; partly because I had drawn it together, but also because my husband was its chief funder the 1st 2 years. I insisted on 2 policies: truthfulness and openness; [speaking to that of God in everyone, including the opposition]. Even in the unbalanced director of PANAMIN and in the dictator Marcos the seed of God lay hidden under evil and corruption. It was a martial law colonel who helped us find our way through the jungle of government power and who became one of our most effective advocates. Normally, I avoid confrontation. Terrified, I took the first steps. I felt a strength not my own that helped me keep my ba- lance. If I could keep faithful I would reach the other side.
8-9—Soon tribal people, sometimes barefoot, came into our tiny unfur- nished office. We went through their problems & looked for 1st steps to take. A group of negritos were forced from a plantation after complaining of being cheated at the plantation store. The sisters secured church land & PAFID found a grant for self-help housing. Other problems [had to do] with the lack of protection against predators high in the power pyramid.
Tribal claims to “ancestral lands” were ignored, and such lands were decreed under government control. One tribal group had stumbled on a for- mula that seemed to protect their lands even under martial law. The Kala- han formed into a legal corporation & signed a lease. For the government to break the lease, would have called into question the legality of similar con- tracts held [by those exploiting resources for profit].
Even such a government must operate within its own legal framework, or risk chaos; the experiment continued and flourished. Their success poin- ted a way to other tribal groups. The search for land contracts combined with simple development assistance and self-help projects [became a consistent PAFID policy]. Each group chose its own approaches. It interested me to find that the groups themselves almost universally preferred nonviolence.
[One tribe resisted replacement of a duly elected mayor with a Marcos crony]. [A dam that would flood ancestral lands was resisted by a petition]. [Since they could not] publicize their petition in the censored press, it was prin- ted on hand bills & circulated widely throughout the Philippines
10-12—The Marcos government had developed a scheme for a vast timber farm in northern Luzon . [It involved virgin forest being cut] and a Carib- bean pine, as yet untested in the Philippines
My own arguments for nonviolence still made sense to some, but there was not the moral force to hold us together, or give clear direction. I saw with terrible clarity that I had been of use to this point, but could be used no fur- ther. Why should [violent young Maoists] heed my cries to “love also the oppressor” when I myself seemed too much a beneficiary of oppres- sion? What moral challenge did corporate official see in my life, when I risked little & already possessed the affluence for which they strove? [The time drew near for me to leave, and I hated to go]. I found only one— Bishop Claver—with an equally deep commitment to gospel teachings on non- violence. Could PAFID possibly survive as a witness, however feeble, to another way?
One day I called on an aide to the US
During our next few months in the US
In spite of [Marcos having Claver’s priests murdered, parishioners im- prisoned, and his radio station shut down], the little Bishop would not be si- lenced. Ninoy Aquino, Marcos’ chief political opponent, had encountered Gandhi. His dramatic martyrdom launched a rapidly building revolution, with his widow as its chosen leader. In February of 1986 the remarkable and bloodless revolution of the Filipino occurred.
As hard as it was for me to leave the Philippines
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276. Meditations on a D Major scale (by Bertha May Nicholson;
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276. Meditations on a D Major scale (by Bertha May Nicholson;
1987)
About the Author—Both a birthright & a convinced Friend, Bertha May Nicholson 1st came to Pendle Hill in 1948-49. Newly married, she was Anna Brinton’s secretary; her husband was a Haverford-Pendle Hill scholar. In 1984, she rejoined the staff as a part-time receptionist. Besides serving on different Worship & Ministry committees, she has traveled in ministry to England
Introduction—Specific ideas for these meditations have emerged in the last few years, but I have been asking questions about Friends and the arts for a long time. Is there a relationship between music and the spiritual life? The writing, having taken form during a week-day Meeting for Worship, has had a life of its own. My theme is a D scale, a moment of truth explored from several perspectives.
And I was to bring (people) off/ from all the world’s fellowships/ and prayings and singings/which stood in forms without power … that they might pray in the Holy Ghost,/ and sing in the spirit/ and with the grace that comes by Jesus,/ making melody in their hearts to the Lord.” George Fox
Scales—For a number of years I have given private [violin] lessons. I enjoy working with young musicians and developing a style that will help them lean well. 20th century western music has been built on the major and minor scales. For learning classical music, the scale is a given to be explored. I find it helpful to show my string students visually on the piano the pattern of whole and half steps making up a scale of 8 notes.
Young violinists usually find D a comfortable key, since it begins with an open string. The memory of his D scale remained with me. How do you acknowledge a golden moment, & then move beyond it? At each new stage you are vulnerable, running the risk of mistakes & tempted to stay with easy things. If you really want to become a performer there is always more to be learned, as you apply your growing technique to your repertoire. What is the truth that is like a scale, that could help us learn more about God? Both individual experience and tradition can be seen in the development of music, biblical tradition, and Quakerism.
Musicians in our culture discovered that major & minor scales support the most potential for musical expression; the groundwork was laid for classi- cal music. In Judeo-Christian history there has often been tension between prophet & priest. Quakers are understandably concerned about the use of form without inspiration. If individual inspirations are true they should not be unrelated to the corporate experience in the end. Mendelssohn wrote in a tenor air: “If with all your hearts ye truly seek Me,/Ye shall surely find Me/ Thus saith our God.”
Songs—I enjoy searching out a good piece for a given key, one that has both technical challenge & intellectual interest for a specific student. [La- ter], in a group you learn to keep together, to sustain your part while others are playing theirs, and to contribute to something larger than yourself. I was born into a Quaker family that enjoyed music. My parents welcomed my interest in the violin.
Moving into Philadelphia YM gave me a new perspective on the Quaker testimony against music. There were understandable reasons supporting early Quaker attitudes towards the arts. In Puritan England many serious-minded people were sharply critical of both church & secular music. It was a creaturely invention, distracting people from the life that was eternal. As years went by Friends put more emphasis on controlling behavior. Because time was better spent on spiritual pursuits, you were discouraged from trying the arts for yourself.
From the middle of the last century interest in the arts began to surface among members of the Society. We see the creative side of our nature as positive, and we are free to sing. As musicians are supported by playing or singing with others so are seekers of any age uplifted by gathering together to worship God. My early church recollections include hymn-singing, my father’s sermons and the primarily silent midweek Meeting.
Etudes—An etude is a musical study piece. Teachers write collections of them in different ranges of difficulty, with each etude having one or more techniques, which are important to acquire. Mazas’ Etude #20 teaches the distances between notes and how to move up and down the fingerboard from one note to another smoothly & in tune. Your teacher listens & makes further suggestions for practice. [There is a balance between expecting too much be- fore students are ready, & introducing all that the student is capable of at each level of development].
Each teacher I had brought something new to my understanding of etude #20, something I would not have thought of myself. It was valuable to learn to concentrate on just one thing. Growth is always intangible while it is happening, but sometimes I could look back & see improvement. God can come to you in any discipline, for secular paths, important & valuable in them- selves, can also bring you glimpses into spiritual life in special ways.
I also was beginning identify what I now recognize as spiritual etudes. Their discovery comes out of your experience. When you grope and finally stumble upon a prayer, God answers, very individually within your space and understanding, at the time and in the way that is right for you, [perhaps] coming from a source you wouldn't have found alone. This is your etude to practice. Progress may not be easy, but when you accept the Light that is given and make use of it in your heart and life over a period of time, then more can be revealed. If I try to quiet my fears and work with words that have been given to me, sometimes I have a sense of being above the concern, or find that one struggle helps in the next, as one etude builds into another in difficulty.
Orchestra—Since it was 1st performed in the music hall in Dublin
George Fox said of Pendle Hill: “the Lord let me see a-top of the hill in what places he had a great people to be gathered.” That undertaking was a large work of another kind. After an inspired religious leader appears, it often happens that individuals interpret the vision partially and defend the partial vision as the whole.
[As a result, Splits have occurred in Quakerism over 300 years]. There are 4 major groups in American Quakerism: Friends General Conference (FGC); Conservative; Friends United Meeting; and Evangelical Friends Alli- ance. The Meetings range from small, 300 year-old meetings held primarily in silence to large, modern churches with team ministry, choirs and organ.
When we find our places, when we listen to other Quaker voices, when we attend YM, when we visit other Meetings and YM, when we are led to vari- ous kinds of Quaker service, we become part of a larger family. When we are open to the Spirit, when we are aware of the presence of the living God, diver- sity can bring us a fuller experience of corporate faith and practice.
The Minor Mode/Composing—After a student has studied the easiest major scales & reviewed them in depth, it is a good time to introduce the rela- tive minor scales. Johann S. Bach wrote B Minor Mass between 1731-1737; it was 1st performed as a whole in Berlin Bethlehem , PA
When you do not know the reasons, or the way out, when you are hur- ting, when the sun is hidden behind clouds for days—if you reach out to God in prayer, strength is given. I now find that I am sometimes changing the “Kyrie eleison” to “Lord having mercy,” [because] God is doing just that. Understan- ding can come through sorrow as we reach out for God’s hand in the dark. We receive not just the energy to survive, but the growing awareness that God is here with us in a way that [only a search will reveal].
In 1921 Arthur Honegger wrote a Symphonic Psalm, King David, which was 1st performed in 1923. [It has] added sharps and flats and unexpected intervals and rhythms. George Fox’s experience with music was such that he understood something which all musicians experience at one time or another —the negative aspects of the music craft—superficiality, self-consciousness, pride. George Fox himself knew and valued the psalms and would have known that they had been set to various musical accompaniments.
In his view a 2nd-hand musical rendition of a psalm was inadequate to describe either David’s faith or the glory of God. George Fox wrote: And I was to bring (people) off/ from all the world’s fellowships/ & prayings & singings/ which stood in forms without power … that they might pray in the Holy Ghost, and sing in the spirit/ and with the grace that comes by Jesus,/ making melody in their hearts to the Lord.”
Assuming a wide knowledge of scripture, he interweaves and develops biblical references together with his own insight & gives us verbal song. While inspired men & women still may speak profoundly across the years, the reality of God’s continuing presence needs to be re-expressed in fresh ways for each new generation, that our Creator's love may be further and forever revealed.
Teachers/A Still Small Voice—Studying with a teacher is an important part of becoming a musician, [learning the finer points of bringing out good sound, good music selection, encouragement, etc]. Even concert artists need to think about refreshing their technique; sometimes a master teacher will listen as concert preparations are being made. “Every person is a crowd—a combination of people who have really influenced you.” I sensed that others besides myself were aware of the connection between learning a musical instrument & developing your potential as a person.
Where do we look for direction in the spiritual life? Where are our guides, our teachers? They are all around us, if only we can see & hear. God has spoken to me through: parents; children; friends; relatives; nature; men & women, living & passed; the Hebrew people. Sorrow has also been one of my teachers, although it takes time to comprehend that this can be so. I am recognizing the Inward Christ, the combination of all my teachers.
[God spoke to the Hebrew people & their leaders in unexpected ways, both dramatic & unassuming]. God speaks in unexpected fashion still. As father & mother, God is with each one of us for every step. For an interval our lives are illumined, & the memory remains. We need then to take up the measure of light that is given, making it a part of our lives, as we are called. Julian of Nor- wich uses a word—courtesy, the courtesy of God. God reaches out to us all in the best way for each of us, where we are. Love appears to be the name of the next scale.
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277. What is Quakerism: A Primer (by George T. Peck; 1988)
A WAY
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277. What is Quakerism: A Primer (by George T. Peck; 1988)
About the Author/ Acknowledgements—George Peck was trained as a historian & received his doctorate in Italian history from the University of Chi- cago London Philadelphia , Ohio Indiana Pendle Hill , Australia London
INTRODUCTION—[This primer is for someone who]: is a genuine see- ker; felt an immediate bond with [a Quaker] and wants to know why; reads Quaker authors; delights to hear the Source spoken of with love; asks the question: “What is Quakerism?” Probably most Quakers think of themselves as beginners and seekers.
Some preliminary observations are: Quakers are Friends. Justice Ben- net derisively called George Fox & his followers Quakers. They most often use “Friends” to identify themselves & address each other; Quakerism’s truths are simple but not easy. A child can understand them. One 1st listens for the truth, then discerns God’s will from [all the input]. After discernment comes conviction & ability to live the Truth; it is not easy.
Do we cherish our Variety?—It seems that there are almost as many different kinds of Quakers as there are Christians. We all proclaim the basics of William Penn’s “primitive Christianity revived.” Our conviction is that Quakers are united in faith & express that unity in various manners. Jack L. Willicuts writes: “To be one in the Spirit is true togetherness … [but] unity is spiritual, uniformity is mechanical.” Isaac Penington writes: “And oh, how sweet and pleasant it is to the truly spiritual eye to see several sorts of believers, several forms of Christians in the school of Christ, every one learning their own lesson, performing their own peculiar service … and loving one another in their several places … [each one feeling] the same Spirit and life in him … this is far more pleasing to me than if he walked just that track wherein I walk.” #222
REACHED—Early Quakers used “reached” to express the living action of God in men & women. George Fox despaired & found no help in fellow creatures. He said: “Then I heard a voice which said: ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition’; when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.” #5 Fox called this event an “opening.” Under any name the experience is surrender to the one source of grace, faith & power. We think Fox to be stern. We learn with surprise that many who knew him thought of him as “dear George.” [When Fox speaks of knowing, it was] knowing that still had its Biblical dimension of the union of knower & known. Quakers today can be weighed down with compassion for suffering & injustice & yet be touched with divine joy.
Margaret Fell, when [dear George] asked: “You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light?, Margaret Fell responded with: “This opened me so that it cut me to the heart … and I cried: ‘We are all thieves, we have taken the Scriptures in words and know nothing of them in ourselves.” #20 She was called “the nursing mother of Israel Boston Turkey
Many know the longing for God which Penington expressed, but perhaps may not realize that God is also longing for them. Barclay, the laird of a great house in Scotland
GATHERED—Although founded in individual experience, Quakerism isn’t a religion of hermits, for it is nourished in community. George Fox said: “The Lord let me see … in what places he had a great people to be gathered.” Friends would recognize Francis Howgill’s being gathered, caught “as in a net” … [so that] our hearts were knit unto the Lord and one unto another in true & fervent love.” #184
After [a gathered] meeting for worship, one Friend may remark to ano- ther who has given a spoken message: “You spoke to my condition,” meaning the message fit in with his own worship. Thomas Kelly wrote: “In the gathered meeting the sense is present that a new Life & Power has entered our midst … We are in communication with one another because we are being commu- nicated to, & through, by the Divine Presence … In such an experience the brittle bounds of our selfhood seem softened, & instead of saying “I pray” or “He prays it becomes better to say “Prayer is taking place.” #249
WORSHIP—Divine openings [in worship] don’t come without periods of prayer & reading, contemplation & study. Worship doesn’t just happen. In the 17th century, early Friends were passionately devoted to the Scriptures. Today it is Friends that emphasize preparation for meeting through Scriptures' study. [Devotional] material includes The Fruit of the Vine (Barclay Press), & Daily Word (Unity). Some use devotional literature of other traditions. Fox respected spiritual insights of Native Americans, & Barclay accepted as Christians “those who by providence are in the remote parts of the world where knowledge of history is wanting”; he also included ancient Greek philosophers, “since all such lived according to the divine word in them.”
Daily devotions are essential to a full Quakerly life. A message may form out of daily meditation and may develop to be shared with others on 1st Day; Sunday morning worship is not an isolated act. Worship is the realiza- tion of the eternal in the temporal, the discernment of the infinite cosmos in the finite individual, and the experience of the transcendental divine reality in the indwelling Christ. Anyone present who does not participate detracts from the worship of the group. The 2 [Friendly] ways of waiting upon the Spirit are: The programmed & the unprogrammed meeting. Worldwide, more attend programmed meetings. The unprogrammed meeting is almost unique to Quakerism and has been practiced for over 300 years in the same form.
UNPROGRAMMED & PROGRAMMED MEETINGS—Unprogrammed meeting has silence. Silence is not an end in itself but a way toward worship. [Everyday flotsam of the mind] must be calmly put aside. Worries should not stand in the way of submerging your individual self in the one eternal Self. The way to this Union is through prayer, which can be a petition to set your deepest longings in the Light to see if they are pure.
Silence will at times be broken by vocal ministry, when a worshipper feels led to share an opening with Friends. Thomas Kelly writes: “When one rises to speak … one has the sense of being used, being played upon, being spoken & prayed through.” #249 Messages should deal with God’s king- dom, never with business. Messages should be simple & brief & expressed in the speaker’s own words, & not argumentative, for when persons argue, God retires.
Friends try not to be judgmental in listening to messages, but bless the speaker & hearer in their hearts. None should come expecting to speak, nor should they come expecting not to speak. After usually an hour, Friends close the meeting by shaking hands with their neighbors. Thomas Kelly writes: “Such a discovery of an Eternal Life & Love breaking in, nay, always there … makes life glorious & new.” #114 Friends may find joyful unity not only with their own but with all worshipping communities who experience Living Presence.
[Friends Church
In the 1870’s missions were sent out to Jamaica Palestine , Kenya
Quaker worship stresses a revolutionary discovery; the sacred always lies within each of us and so can infuse the profane continually. Every day is a holy day. Friends can worship in a magnificent cathedral, plain room or pri- vate home. Friends don't deny the sacraments but affirm them in their every- day lives. Jack L. Willcuts writes: “God has sent God’s Spirit to be not only with us but in us. So we can enjoy God’s actual presence all the time. Using only symbols or the elements can become a hollow substitute for feasting on the Bread of Life. In marriage the [Quaker] couple makes their vows before God and before a community, each of whom shares the presence of God and witnesses to the vows. The Quaker way of life is dynamic process of spiritual growth deeply rooted in daily behavior.
Friends aim to achieve a thoroughgoing honesty, knowing it is useless to try to hide from God. This quality of life is the simplicity testimony. Friends try to express with clarity & brevity the truths that they perceive. Candor to- ward others often makes Friends seem brusque. Friends seek moderation in their choices about life style. It is a blessing to have time to enjoy God’s creation.
The most important aspect of the simplicity testimony is the economic. John Woolman wrote: “To turn all that we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives.” Woolman taught us to avoid exploita- tion, give up greed, live frugally, & have a deep sensitivity for the plight of poor. Akin to simplicity is their “regard for the integrity of others, regard for their indi- viduality, their needs, their strengths, [& their divine centers].” You may con- clude that Friends are confident, loving, unprejudiced, considerate, generous, joyous, & strong. Most Friends would be thankful if after years of living in the Light, they were less anxious, smug hateful, depressed, etc. than they had been.
THE WORLD—The early Quaker’s impact on the world came mostly through ministry. [They had a] goal that the world be called off from outward things and come to live by the Inward Light. [They traveled & wrote extensively]. When Friends realized that the world wouldn’t become Quaker, they started cultivating the “remnant” of God’s people. Howard Brinton described Quaker outreach as: “A Friend might ask for “an opportunity” in a home or school. Such a one desired to hold a brief and informal meeting, and perhaps unburden one’s self.”
Penn’s colony, his Holy Experiment, under Quaker tutelage for over 50 years, thrived in peace & prosperity. Few realize how much of the American Constitution parallels Penn’s Frame of government. Almost all Friends feel that their efforts at furthering the politics of conciliation are tragically inadequate in the face of the politics of confrontation. British Friends are likely to have their views represented in the political parties and the Commons. In the US
PEACE—Friends Peace Testimony is based on the spirit of divine love. James Nayler said: “There is a spirit which I feel delights to do no evil, nor revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things … Its hope is to outlive all wrath & contention … whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned … In God alone can it rejoice.” #25 George Fox responded to suspicions of subversion with: “We deny all outward wars & strife & fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever … [Christ’s spirit, which leads us into all Truth will never move us to fight & war against any man.” #614
[However], many Friends believe in the use of a limited amount of force to keep the peace. Quakers have been divided in every major wartime situa- tion between those who refuse to fight and those who join up in what they be- lieve to be a just war. [In] this last ¼ of the 20th century, the aggressive acqui- sitiveness that served more primitive people has outlasted its usefulness in a world that must rapidly learn the ways of love and trust if it wishes to survive. Howard Brinton writes: “In the long run reconciliation & love, the main charac- teristics of the divine Logos, as expressed in the New Testament by its grea- test human incarnation, triumph over the aggressive forms of life …The fit- test is the one who best complies with the gospel of reconciliation or love.”
SERVICE/ COMPASSION/ EDUCATION—When Quakers were faced with WWI's hard choices, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) & its British counterpart, the Peace & Service Committee were founded so that Friends could serve humanity while others served their countries. The 2 orga- nizations have joined with others in the drive to eliminate causes of war. They jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. [For Quakers], the perception of divine unity among all creatures leads to an innovative vision. The work begins. When the needs are much greater than Friends alone can meet, others are welcomed into the work. Eventually the innovation becomes the norm for a social service.
Quakers’ emphasis on fairness, toleration, simplicity, & social respon- sibility is important in education, always a major concern among Friends. Non- Friends greatly outnumber Friends in the large number of fine Quaker schools & colleges in Britain America England
HOW THE WORK GETS DONE—Most Friends try to express their reli- gious insights in their daily lives, & to participate in the work of their local mee- ting. Each meeting comes together usually once a month to handle its busi- ness in a [“meeting for worship with attention to business].” The newcomer would first notice what does not happen—no voting, no debating, no Roberts Rules of Order, no minority, no compromises, no consensus.
Quakerism assumes unity in God’s will. Unity is created by Truth. Penn writes: “there is no one who presides after the manner of the assemblies of other people; Christ only being their president, as He is pleased to appear in wisdom to any one or more members … to arrive at a firm unity of conviction.” The clerk prepares the agenda, guides the discussions, and records the decisions. Widely different ideas are often expressed, and frequently new syntheses emerge.
[It is part of the clerk’s task to discern the syntheses, “the sense of the meeting” & express it]. If even a few trusted Friends are firmly convinced that the move is wrong, then the clerk can't find unity and the matter is laid over to a future date. John Willcuts finds in Acts 15 a similar process used by the Council of Jerusalem. A number of committees carry out the work [e.g. Peace & Social Concerns]. A central one is that on ministry & oversight [or counsel], which is responsible for cultivating the quality of the spoken ministry and for pastoral care, including marriages, memorials, membership, and visits.
Meetings are organized regionally into quarterly and yearly meetings. In the larger groups Friends can initiate larger scale projects. Beginners should get a copy of the book of disciplines from their yearly meeting. One of its most important features is the “Queries and Advices”—questions which individual Friends should ask themselves about their lives and parallel advices containing what many Friends believe, “not as a rule or form to live by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided.”
Are you ready to join in the Society of Friends' worship and life? Don’t answer quickly, for it is a decision that will change your life. Wait. Attend. Listen. Talk. Ask hard questions. Challenge. Receive. No one will hurry you. No one will knowingly hinder you. It is your life. And God’s. Should God lead you into a corporate life of worship and work, Friends are glad to share the voyage of discovery.
Queries—How did you first come to the Society of Friends? Would you say that you have felt the living action of God within yourself [i.e “been reached”] Have you ever experienced a gathered meeting? What teaching do you use to prepare for worship? How do you center down in meeting for worship? How do you accept & offer vocal ministry? Do you set aside daily periods of reading & prayer? Are you surprised by wonder & worship outside of formal struc- tures? Do you find Jesus of Nazareth
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278. Education and the Inward Teacher (by Paul A. Lacey; 1988)
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278. Education and the Inward Teacher (by Paul A. Lacey; 1988)
About the Author—Paul A. Lacey was born in Philadelphia
How good a society does human nature permit? How good a human nature does society permit? Abraham Maslow
“Every healthy effort is directed from the inward to the outward world," Johann W. von Goethe
“A man possesses of learning only so much as comes out of him in action.” Francis of Assissi
[Introduction]—Very little comes to us solely by instinct, and even where we have innate capacities, we must be taught how to use them. Tea- ching and learning make up a single intricate process of interchange in rela- tionship, interplay between people and with content. Because we must learn virtually everything we know, the image of the teacher is a powerful one. If the truth makes us free, our liberators are teachers.
Perhaps in no tradition is [seeing] God as Teacher more central than in Quakerism. George Fox describes his ministry as turning people toward the Teacher within. This is the Inward Christ, imprisoned until we set Him free. What can we know about the nature of the Teacher? The Teaching? What is the content & method of the Teaching? How can we take the reality of the Inward Teacher seriously, in how we teach & learn? What relevance does the Inward Teacher metaphor have for all forms of education, the disciplines and basic skills which are needed to live effectively in the world?
The Teacher and the Lesson/Minding and Answering—The image of the Inward Teacher is common in the earliest Quaker writings. The teacher teaches only everlasting Truth. He will show them who their false teachers have been & will give ways by which they can have assurance that they are no longer misled. The emphasis is on knowing from within, because that is where Christ does His work. The image of the Inward Teacher stresses the primary saving work of the spirit as teaching rather than priestly.
The Inward Teacher is the only Teacher; preaching, silence, scripture are all valuable, but each can only prepare & point the way to the true Teacher. The Teacher & teaching are known directly, experimentally or experientially. To know experientially is to find correspondence between the law written on our hearts and put in our minds and what is happening in our daily lives. Though arriving at the power to act is painful & long-delayed, when one has capacity to follow the Teacher, the teaching itself is simple. Rather than looking down on the sin, which will only swallow us up, we are to look to the Light, which will let us see over the sins & transgressions.
2 strenuous actions are associated with worship or waiting on the Lord: minding and answering. To mind the spirit is to yield up to it, to be corrected and guided by it, to test actions and impulses against its leading. To answer “that of God” or “the witness” in others is to behave in such a way that they are turned toward their Inward Teacher; it is not the conscience. The consci- ence must be taught by the Inward Teacher. Answering that of God in ano- ther comes through minding it in oneself. Minding and answering are reci- procal, dialogic actions. They reflect the social or communal nature of the Inward Teacher’s work.
The Inward Teacher & the Community of Faith—The community ga- thered together for the purpose of being led could and must practice discern- ment to test when an individual or the group was rightly led. [In communal power] there is: the power of knowledge, confirmed by a common witness; the power of unity, mutual support and encouragement; and the capacity [and confidence] to act, because the worshipping community affirms it. [Community] decision-making is, 1st of all, a search for clearness, a full understanding of what the Teacher calls us to do. Individuals may be making a stock response to a situation they believe they know all about, but where further information would point to new responses.
The Quaker business method is looking for the gathered wisdom of the worshipping community, both the practical experience & good sense of the meeting, & the insights of those seasoned in placing matters in the Light or before the Teacher. [Is the individual/group ready to put self-will aside? Is the leading consistent with other past leadings of the spirit, which “is not changeable”? Will the proposed action deepen the fruits of the spirit?
We are enabled to turn our own attention to the Teacher when we are among people who are already minding Him. The Teacher teaches us indivi- dually & collectively. The teaching differs from person to person, because people are in different stages of understanding, or are called to respond diffe- rently to what is being taught; [people receive different “measures” of the Light]. By being channels through which the Teacher may reach others, by minding & answering the witness within, we participate in the teachings of the Inward Christ.
Natural and Spiritual Learning—Higher and lower knowledge (sacred and secular knowledge) are not contradictory but complementary goals for education. Fox objects that the foundations of the [medicine], divinity, and law professions are false, so that what can be built on them cannot be true. They are in need of re-formation, turning to the wisdom, equity & perfect law of God. [Fox says] that being bred at Oxford
The features of schools organized in accord with Quaker principles were community based on the model of family, sharing practical work, simplicity & a spirit of reverence & sincerity, peaceable living, some degree of equality among student & faculty, & on education as a means to the end of growth in the reli- gious life. The most common feature of Friends schools was that children were regarded as having the potential to be nurtured. The Inward Teacher lives in them as a birthright.
Quaker schools will have an ethos in which respect and cooperation are valued, in which formal learning will be embedded in deep spiritual milieu. No- thing in Quaker expectations led them to expect what we would call creativity from their students. They had no philosophical or theological foundation for connecting the “natural” sources of inspiration with the inspiration of the Inward Teacher.
Witnesses to the Voice—Are there other kinds of learning where it is necessary to assert the work of an Inward Teacher to explain how the learning happened? Donald Hall says that in every human there is what he calls the vatic [oracular] voice. For most people this voice speaks only in dreams, & mostly unremembered dreams. The vatic voice takes us by surprise; what it gives us is incomplete but original. It is within us; we do not own it or determine it. Its speaking activates processes within which have 2 results— concrete products & changed lives. It also leads to health, feeling good, self- understanding and the capacity to love other people.
Denise Levertov writes that there is an inner voice, a reader within who must be spoken to, in order for a poem to be well done. [This] reader is that aspect of the self which can be detached about what one has produced. The poet is enabled to meet the needs of the reader out there by facing her own deepest needs. A triple communion takes place between: maker & needer within; maker & needer without; human & divine in both poet & reader. The divine is called forth, “summoned by needing & making.” Hall’s vatic voice is an inward teacher. Levertov focuses on the labor to achieve communion be- tween needer & maker as the means by which the divine is called.
[Hall and Levertov use non-Judeo-Christian language to avoid obscuring the wonder of the creative process]. With both poets, something must occur akin to the minding and answering which Friends describe as the appropriate response to Christ the Inward Teacher. Socrates says that the dialogue in pursuit of wisdom, can only be pursued among friends, so [it is natural that] he should frequently discuss the nature of friendship and love. He is the cham- pion of the examined life, the life of dialogue, and the life of love.
Many other philosophers, scientists, and artists speak in similar ways about how the germinal insight or the finished work come into being. [Through the work of psychologists] we have come to anticipate that messages, leadings, creation can come from the depths of our being & from the wells of knowledge which the common human heritage. The voice calls us to knowledge of [and connection with] both world out there and the world in here.
One Voice or Many?—How can we best prepare ourselves to hear and respond to the inner voice which may be available to each of us? Is every voice the same voice? The content of teaching which Fox, Barclay, or Penington identify with Inward Teacher gives us little warrant for imagining a poem, a scientific discovery or a philosophical insight as the product of such an encounter with Him. I am aware that identification of the divine exclusively with the Christian revelation is both difficult and offensive for many people. For example, I can practice conceiving of God as feminine, but perhaps this will always feel like translation for me. I may not correct my companion’s experi ence by substituting my favorite pronouns for hers. Nor may she correct my pronouns. Neither may we evade the challenge of these contrasting ways by claiming that they do not matter.
Metaphors, especially those for the divine seem to choose us, for they come as our discovery about ultimate reality, and how we understand our pur- poses in life. Metaphors have the force of truth but not the whole truth, for by giving emphasis they also omit. Perhaps we can be content with saying that wherever people experience an inner voice which unites Truth and Love, Guidance and Comfort, which makes those who hear it know joy, peace, kindness, care for others and a sense of their own value, this Spirit is what Christians understand by Christ, though it is authentic under [whatever] name people have used to enter into dialogue with it.
These [approaches] have in common: a powerful encounter which has the character of a conversation; that humans are capable to hear and respond to the inner voice, to participate in a dialogue with what is frequently perceived to be the divine; a similarity with other important experiences having to do with relationships; producing a work, a calling, a changed relationship with others. When we are open to the Inward Teacher, we know joy, wholeness and renewed capacity to love other people.
Leading in and Drawing Out—We hope our students can find personal fulfillment and satisfaction, can discover creative powers in themselves, can come to love learning for its own sake, & be prepared for doing well eventually in the world of work. Approaches to educational goals and pedagogical me- thods tend to divide according to 2 emphases; one approach stresses the integrity of the discipline and the truth-content of the material; the other holds before us the issues of accommodating a subject to the condition of the lear- ner. [From different researchers we learn different aspects of educational development].
Developmental education continually asks what the student is ready for now, how content and discipline can be best accommodated to her or his needs and abilities. As teachers we try to be both student- and discipline-centered, and both our satisfactions and our frustration grow from attempting to meet these 2 sets of complex demands simultaneously. When it's faithful to its foun- dations, Quaker education is neither student-centered nor disciplined centered; it is inward centered. The child will learn by having the knowledge led into its consciousness, and then through having it drawn out.
Welcoming the Inward Teacher—The most significant question for teaching in Quaker education is: What can we do to open our classrooms, our schools, ourselves, to the possibility of such an encounter? 1st, hold out the expectation that human beings can hear and follow the inner voice, that it is an expression of our deepest hopes, the response to our truest needs. [It is possible] to discern the true from the false voice, which doesn't bring us into more loving relations with others.
2nd, provide occasions [i.e. meetings for worship, where we can invite the Inward Teacher]. Those times will require planning and perhaps even the introduction of music, singing or reading as aids to center down. Being still is a way we can better attend to what someone else has to say or to let our minds give us images and ideas worth attending to.
3rd, we can fill the curriculum with works & activities which reveal the Inward Teacher’s presence in their fabric. John Yungblut says that a critical aspect of religious education is teaching a child its inter-relatedness with all of nature. And to learn how a world-wide community of scientists works with inte- grity & cooperation is to be richly prepared for discovering the ethical impera- tives of one’s own life. Social science has similar benefits. Abraham Maslow asks: How good a society does human nature permit? How good a hu- man nature does society permit? Without neglecting the content & methods of any discipline taught, the Quaker school curriculum must also allow connec- tions to be made with ethical question & in relation to the spiritual dimensions of life.
4th, the faculty, staff, and administration should be people who live their lives in opening to the Inward Teacher and obedience to His or Her leadings. We encourage our students to listen for the Inward Teacher by showing them living examples of people who do. And faculty and staff should be supported in finding the practices and disciplines which enrich their inner lives & the [means to practice] what enriches them. The good [outward] teacher tries hard to be available to students’ needs without making them dependent.
5th, we can search for the methods & disciplines which best open us to the inner voice. [It could be] writing letters to spiritual companions, poems essays, personal journals. The journal must be one which does not demand to be written in every day, nor pursue set themes; it's important not to over- stolemnize writing. Learning to look at art & listening to music can aid in wri- ting. Thomas Merton knew the importance of warming the intellect through the senses. The individual’s appropriate rhythm of leading in & drawing out needs to be found.
6th, we can look for ways which balance inwardness with productive outward activity. Meister Eckhart says that we can only spend in good works what we earn in contemplation. [One problem that arises] is that we have become the self-made man who worships his creator. Goethe reminds us that “every healthy effort is direct from the inward to the outward world.”
Schools which require community participation in food preparation, dishwashing and school maintenance, & those which require a service project outside of school are addressing the balance between inward and outward. Francis of Assisi says “A man possesses of learning only so much as comes out of him in action.” Self knowledge must bear fruit, and it is not enough to face honestly that one is selfish and cruel to others; one must resolve not to be so in the future. [These teaching practices will help students] touch the deepest well- springs of education.
Returning to the Source—It is all so simple. For every complex pro- blem there is a simple solution, it has been said, usually wrong. [But] learning goes from the simple to the complex, and we are suspicious of anyone who would tell us that all we need to know is simple. How then can we deal with the embarrassingly simple truths on which Quakerism rests? All we need know about living the centered spiritual life we can learn by turning within ourselves, where Christ the Inward Teacher waits to instruct us.
[But] we must begin at the beginning, with an unfamiliar alphabet, the rudiments of a vocabulary and grammar for which we have nothing to compare it to. We must work hard to translate the other pages in the book, & as we do we learn the context for our single page. How is the Inward Teacher known? In joy and health, in loneliness and alienation, but also in commu- nity. Wherever we are is the starting place for encountering the voice that can speak to our condition. Fortunately it is our nature as human beings, and it is God’s nature, that we can reach what Levertov calls the triple com- munion, the communion within ourselves, with other people, and with that of God within each of us. Taking those promises seriously is the work of Qua- ker education. It is the bright page which leads us into all books.
(by William R. Durland; 1988)
About the Author—Bill Durland is a resident teacher of religion & social concerns at Pendle Hill; he is the author of several publications. He will move to Burlington MM (VT), where they will join with others to begin a Quaker inten- tional community called to practice the witness described in this pamphlet. He grew up a Catholic. During the late 60’s he had a religious experience which resulted in his commitment to Christian pacifism, simplicity, community and equality; these values led him to Quakerism. It is hoped that this pamphlet will help those seeking ways to act on their leadings as part of a Quaker witnessing community.
The Apocalyptic Background—In these urgent and fearful times, I suggest that there is a dynamic and ever-present power to be found in Qua- kerism’s roots and in its forerunners capable of transforming lives and nations with spiritual activism; I call it apocalyptic witness. The apocalyptic seer of the Bible’s last book finds the “end times” present in every moment. We cannot equivocate about lesser evils & greater goods. We must act urgently, foolishly, precipitously in recognition of the immediate presence of the Kingdom of God.
How can the apocalyptic vision be recovered? [This pamphlet] seeks the relationship of the life & message of George Fox & Quakers to the radical call to live a life of faith & witness. The Book of Revelation was a marginal book in the early church, reluctantly accepted into the Canon; it remains suspect. Only sectarian splinter groups in our times, fundamentalists & radical revolu- tionaries, use it for their own purposes. “Apocalyptic” is from a Greek word meaning revelation, & is “a divine message of the imminent end of the world’s present form.” Prophets received a specific message; mystics entered a sin- gular & intimate union with God through contemplation, without receiving a specific message. The apocalyptic contains elements of the prophetic & mystical.
The Apocalyptic Background—In these urgent and fearful times, I suggest that there is a dynamic and ever-present power to be found in Qua- kerism’s roots and in its forerunners capable of transforming lives and nations with spiritual activism; I call it apocalyptic witness. The apocalyptic seer of the Bible’s last book finds the “end times” present in every moment. We cannot equivocate about lesser evils & greater goods. We must act urgently, foolishly, precipitously in recognition of the immediate presence of the Kingdom of God.
How can the apocalyptic vision be recovered? [This pamphlet] seeks the relationship of the life & message of George Fox & Quakers to the radical call to live a life of faith & witness. The Book of Revelation was a marginal book in the early church, reluctantly accepted into the Canon; it remains suspect. Only sectarian splinter groups in our times, fundamentalists & radical revolu- tionaries, use it for their own purposes. “Apocalyptic” is from a Greek word meaning revelation, & is “a divine message of the imminent end of the world’s present form.” Prophets received a specific message; mystics entered a sin- gular & intimate union with God through contemplation, without receiving a specific message. The apocalyptic contains elements of the prophetic & mystical.
The apocalyptic historical sense has profound pessimism about tempo- ral structures, but is ultimately optimistic in good’s triumph over evil & death. It calls for steadfast endurance in times of trial & persecution while providing strength for testimony & witness. [Rather than examining & rejecting much of] existing economic, political, religious, and social structures, [most reject the message]. There abides the hope of final joy in under-standing the revelation is true.
The church buried the apocalyptic thought deeply away very early on. A natural tension existed between institutional church & apocalyptic vision, which was counter-cultural & anti-institutional. The truth repressed simply emerges in a different form. The so-called “heretical” sects of the early centuries gave apo- calyptic vision its 1st rebirth. The 2nd century Montanists were a charismatic, apocalyptic sect who encouraged women to preach, moved peacefully to col- lective decisions, and witnessed to the Holy Spirit’s independent role. Re- leasing themselves from society’s attachments was a response to their under- standing of moral radicalism & apocalyptic vision.
Another group were the 4th century Donatists, who saw the world as hostile & themselves as an alternative model to society. [Their Christianity was to] transform, absorb, & perfect all existing facets of human activities & institu- tions. Augustine smote them with the [Holy Roman Empire’s] law & retribution. The Donatist church rejected political & economic convenience. They glorified the martyr’s call, & agreed with Cyprian that the Holy Spirit wasn’t present in the church where the Bishop was guilty of apostasy. They were subdued by the world.
From the fall of Roman Empire to medieval times, the history of Europe was characterized by a continuous struggle for power. The apostolic life of early Christianity was hidden within monastic cloisters. [The official] church merely duplicated and imitated the secular values and practices of the political institu- tions. Some refused to allow the early church’s spirit to be quenched and be- came itinerant preachers, with lives of poverty and simplicity in opposition to [society’s values]. The explosive power of the apocalyptic life was lived in the 12th century by men like Peter Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, & Joachim of Fiore.
From the fall of Roman Empire to medieval times, the history of Europe was characterized by a continuous struggle for power. The apostolic life of early Christianity was hidden within monastic cloisters. [The official] church merely duplicated and imitated the secular values and practices of the political institu- tions. Some refused to allow the early church’s spirit to be quenched and be- came itinerant preachers, with lives of poverty and simplicity in opposition to [society’s values]. The explosive power of the apocalyptic life was lived in the 12th century by men like Peter Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, & Joachim of Fiore.
Peter taught people to be responsible for their own salvation. [All of the churches functions and functionaries were superfluous. Life was to be lived in a radical sense of the presence of the end times. Henry was a Benedictine monk and wandering preacher. The true church is spiritual where one lives in apo- tolic simplicity; only poor itinerant preachers were needed to proclaim the Word. Joachim influenced apocalyptic witness in later centuries, especially Francis of Assisi. The apocalyptic/ethical mix was the seed for all future generations.
The charismatic Cathari, the “pure ones,” believed in spiritual baptism. They believed that redemption was by admission to Christ’s teaching; they later used violence & gnosticism. The Waldensians were applauded by Pope Alex- ander III for their devotion to poverty, but weren’t allowed to preach. They were excommunicated because they refused oaths, the shedding of blood, marriage & earthly goods. Women preached, laity celebrated the Lord’s Supper & held all things in common. Ecclesiastical authorities, fearing a takeover, drove them out.
Their revelation of an alternative gospel re-entered the institutional church by way of early Franciscans. The original rule of his order was deemed too harsh by ecclesiastical authority. In the 3rd order, lay people refused court oaths, taking up of arms, & accumulation of wealth. Peter John Olivi pointed out a conflict between the “carnal” & the spiritual church. The apocalyptic Dominican Savaronola was condemned & burned at the stake in 1497.
Out of this great dualism of worldly pessimism & heavenly optimism, came the Reformation. The sects arising in England were Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Seekers, and 5th Monarchists; a group for every discontent. Christ would come as a prophetic voice revealing God’s word through his messen- gers. Baptists were talking about the Light within. The Seekers denied hire- ling ministry; they began their gatherings in silence, & prayed aloud, or wit- nessed as the Spirit moved them. Jesus Christ’s revelation through George Fox was being revealed. God’s revelation was a continuing process; the Holy Spirit was necessary to illuminate Scripture. The Quakers held the balance between the 5th Monarchists’ outer kingdom & the Seekers’ inner kingdom, [embracing both].
Out of this great dualism of worldly pessimism & heavenly optimism, came the Reformation. The sects arising in England were Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Seekers, and 5th Monarchists; a group for every discontent. Christ would come as a prophetic voice revealing God’s word through his messen- gers. Baptists were talking about the Light within. The Seekers denied hire- ling ministry; they began their gatherings in silence, & prayed aloud, or wit- nessed as the Spirit moved them. Jesus Christ’s revelation through George Fox was being revealed. God’s revelation was a continuing process; the Holy Spirit was necessary to illuminate Scripture. The Quakers held the balance between the 5th Monarchists’ outer kingdom & the Seekers’ inner kingdom, [embracing both].
Revelations of Jesus in George Fox—George Fox wrote: “The priests and professors would say [Revelation] was a sealed-up book, would have kept me out of it, but I told them Christ could open the seals ... and teach his people himself.” During the early days of revelation, Fox spent time in solitary wan- derings. He would write: “Though I had great openings, yet trouble and temp- tation came many times upon me ...” Eventually, Fox heard a voice from within which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition.” Fox’s vision was truly unique, but was not without some influence from the charismatics and spirituals mentioned earlier, whether consciously or uncon- sciously assimilated. Fox preached in taverns, prisons, marketplaces, on hilltops.
The places Fox preached have become special for Quakers as places which embody the memory of his understanding of his revelations and his actions. [At Mansfield and Nottingham, Fox spoke of the Holy Spirit as teacher and as the instrument “by which the holy people of God gave forth the scrip- tures. When Fox spoke, officers came and took him away and put him in prison. There 16 arrests and 9 imprisonments over the next 25 years. Fox poured the food of Jesus who spoke to his condition as well as to that of those who were gathered. God had indeed come again to be the Lord of history. At Sedbergh and Firbank Chapel, he spoke to large crowds. Like Jesus, Fox too, was run out of town. And likewise, his relations thought him shameful.
Swarthmoor Hall became a place of gathering for his followers to listen to his sermons, which were taken out by the community. He admonished rich folk of the nations not to exalt themselves above their fellow creatures. [He certainly would not exalt them]. His failure to do so, or to take an oath caused him many imprisonments. George Fox said: “I told them our allegiance does not be in oaths but in truth and faithfulness.” Fox was convinced that to take an oath guaranteed neither truthfulness nor evidence. Fox said: “I receive not the honor of men, Christ saith, and all true Christians should be of this mind.”
Swarthmoor Hall became a place of gathering for his followers to listen to his sermons, which were taken out by the community. He admonished rich folk of the nations not to exalt themselves above their fellow creatures. [He certainly would not exalt them]. His failure to do so, or to take an oath caused him many imprisonments. George Fox said: “I told them our allegiance does not be in oaths but in truth and faithfulness.” Fox was convinced that to take an oath guaranteed neither truthfulness nor evidence. Fox said: “I receive not the honor of men, Christ saith, and all true Christians should be of this mind.”
Fox revealed that Jesus’ call to “resist not the evildoer but to love one’s enemies” was a special call to witness to the nations. He lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars; he said he knew from whence all wars did issue, from the lusts according to James’ doctrine. From the beginning he had seen his mission “to bring people off from all the world’s religions which are vain that they might know the true religion and might visit the [helpless]. Fox had been commanded to turn people to that inward light, spirit and grace by which all might know their salvation and their way to God and Christ, and from their churches gathered to the church of God, the general assembly written in heaven which Christ is the head of.
Both Fox, Jesus, and many of the medieval visionaries recognized that a fundamental and painful hostility attends the activation of spiritual truth in the midst of established structures. This hostility must be embraced and trans- formed rather than avoided and denied. George Fox wrote: “So the peace of all religions ... all worship ... all ways must be broken that men and people are in, before they come into the way of Christ Jesus.” And “Spare no place, spare not tongue nor pen; but be obedient to the Lord God and go through the work and be valiant for the Truth upon earth ... then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world answering that of God in everyone; whereby in them you may be a blessing and make the witness of God in them to bless you.”
Religious discipline had been of some concern from the beginning of his ministry in the 1650’s. The Quaker movement was becoming one of individuals living together as a people in a new order of community. [A time-tested query is, “Is your meeting a loving community of which Christ is the center?” Fox’s vision was of a communitarian order, belong to the people as a whole by virtue of their inclusion in the New Covenant. He called this Gospel Order, & under- stood the New Covenant community to have form, structure, order and government.
Religious discipline had been of some concern from the beginning of his ministry in the 1650’s. The Quaker movement was becoming one of individuals living together as a people in a new order of community. [A time-tested query is, “Is your meeting a loving community of which Christ is the center?” Fox’s vision was of a communitarian order, belong to the people as a whole by virtue of their inclusion in the New Covenant. He called this Gospel Order, & under- stood the New Covenant community to have form, structure, order and government.
Fox’s belief was that Jesus came to teach [and govern us] himself. [In the apocalyptic framework], the discipline & organization is derived solely from a radical sense of accountability to the inward Christ, his values and require- ments, as perceived by community. Fox said: “All who receive this Gospel, the power of God unto salvation, in their hearts, receive Christ ... and his govern- ment and order in the power. And Christ reigns in their hearts in his power, and such come into Gospel order ...”
Early Friends saw the prophetic and apocalyptic side of the revelations of Jesus & so were thrown into prison for meeting illegally. Fox’s blasphemy was that the worship set up Christ 1600 years before was lost by the end of the 1st century. Silent worship had been suggested by Paul at least 3 times (I Corin- thians 28, 30, & 34), Psalms and prophets (Zechariah 2; Habakkuk 2; Zepha- niah 1). Fox was easily misunderstood [in his denial of outward sacraments, for the scriptures are ambiguous about the perpetuation of water baptism.
The “eucharist” used as a basis for sacramental communion, is described in the Gospel of John as the light of Jesus’s own life and witness. Faithfulness requires us to take on his flesh and blood as our own, to follow radically in his footsteps. Those who feed on Jesus’ life, his example, his spirit, his inner light practiced in an outward witness, will live forever because they become part of that [body] which inspires and continues the Body of Christ in the world. The baptism and eucharist are received when one encounters Christ spiritually and expresses that encounter outwardly in witness.
Early Friends saw the prophetic and apocalyptic side of the revelations of Jesus & so were thrown into prison for meeting illegally. Fox’s blasphemy was that the worship set up Christ 1600 years before was lost by the end of the 1st century. Silent worship had been suggested by Paul at least 3 times (I Corin- thians 28, 30, & 34), Psalms and prophets (Zechariah 2; Habakkuk 2; Zepha- niah 1). Fox was easily misunderstood [in his denial of outward sacraments, for the scriptures are ambiguous about the perpetuation of water baptism.
The “eucharist” used as a basis for sacramental communion, is described in the Gospel of John as the light of Jesus’s own life and witness. Faithfulness requires us to take on his flesh and blood as our own, to follow radically in his footsteps. Those who feed on Jesus’ life, his example, his spirit, his inner light practiced in an outward witness, will live forever because they become part of that [body] which inspires and continues the Body of Christ in the world. The baptism and eucharist are received when one encounters Christ spiritually and expresses that encounter outwardly in witness.
Fox said to the king, “Christ dwelleth in us by his Spirit and by the Spirit of Christ we are led out of unrighteousness and ungodliness.” Fox also said: “[We] are not a sect but are in the power of God before sects were and ... come to live in the life as the prophets and apostles did that gave forth scriptures. Therefore are we hated by envious, wrathful, wicked and persecuting men. But God is the upholder of us all by his mighty power from the wrath of the wicked.”
The Apocalyptic Witness—Indeed Fox was at war, an apocalyptic war, which he waged in a prophetic manner; he & other early Quakers would call it the Lamb’s War. Friends followed a path of holy vocal judgment and spiritual bodily witness. Doug Gwyn writes: “Fox’s confrontations in steeple-houses in- spired a sense of crisis & decision which demanded action. [The reaction to those 1st Quakers varied from violence to individual & whole-sale conversion]. The Quaker phenomenon was born of apocalyptic moments ... The inward experience of the risen Christ engages with history & the world, & gathers a community around the gospel’s preaching. Fox’s tone & style is that of apoca- lyptic preaching of the gospel.” Theirs was a rebirth of apocalyptic Christian community.
“Quakers” [received the additional] label of “enthusiasts.” In the sense of the Greek root’s meaning of “Divine Indwelling,” the early Friends were una- shamed enthusiasts. Quakers broke the religious laws of the carnal nation as a witness to a greater & more spiritually grounded order. The apocalyptic call is to recognize that God is the Lord of history, & to wage the Lamb’s War in behalf of that reality. Jacques Ellul writes of the Book of Revelation: “[It is a report of] all that has been successively revealed in Old and New Testament history about the Lord God.” It is the idea that the end times are now as well as later that makes our time urgent and immediate.
Doug Gwyn writes: “When Fox spoke, apparently there was little middle ground where a listener could stand. One was forced to be either with Fox or against him. It was probably this phenomenon more than any other that ac- counted for both the great vitality of the 1st generation Quaker movement and the tremendous hostility it engendered.” It had been revealed to George Fox that, as we gather in Meeting, waiting on the Lord, we begin to live as if the end of the world has come. It was out of this revelation that the Society of Friends was corporately taken up in the spirit to venture forth in witness to a revealed morality and community.
The Apocalyptic Witness—Indeed Fox was at war, an apocalyptic war, which he waged in a prophetic manner; he & other early Quakers would call it the Lamb’s War. Friends followed a path of holy vocal judgment and spiritual bodily witness. Doug Gwyn writes: “Fox’s confrontations in steeple-houses in- spired a sense of crisis & decision which demanded action. [The reaction to those 1st Quakers varied from violence to individual & whole-sale conversion]. The Quaker phenomenon was born of apocalyptic moments ... The inward experience of the risen Christ engages with history & the world, & gathers a community around the gospel’s preaching. Fox’s tone & style is that of apoca- lyptic preaching of the gospel.” Theirs was a rebirth of apocalyptic Christian community.
“Quakers” [received the additional] label of “enthusiasts.” In the sense of the Greek root’s meaning of “Divine Indwelling,” the early Friends were una- shamed enthusiasts. Quakers broke the religious laws of the carnal nation as a witness to a greater & more spiritually grounded order. The apocalyptic call is to recognize that God is the Lord of history, & to wage the Lamb’s War in behalf of that reality. Jacques Ellul writes of the Book of Revelation: “[It is a report of] all that has been successively revealed in Old and New Testament history about the Lord God.” It is the idea that the end times are now as well as later that makes our time urgent and immediate.
Doug Gwyn writes: “When Fox spoke, apparently there was little middle ground where a listener could stand. One was forced to be either with Fox or against him. It was probably this phenomenon more than any other that ac- counted for both the great vitality of the 1st generation Quaker movement and the tremendous hostility it engendered.” It had been revealed to George Fox that, as we gather in Meeting, waiting on the Lord, we begin to live as if the end of the world has come. It was out of this revelation that the Society of Friends was corporately taken up in the spirit to venture forth in witness to a revealed morality and community.
It was self-evident to them that wars, slavery, prisons, all oppressive and violent structures, were not part of God’s kingdom. They were ready to witness to that revelation and to endure tribulation. Even more people will have to en- dure persecution and suffering before the final in-breaking of the kingdom of God comes, replacing the kingdoms of earth. They did this for half a century, after which a reaction took place within Quakerism. [It’s not clear why], but a fallback position prevailed and Quakers gained a respectability. Ben Franklin and his followers took over Pennsylvania. A radical, apocalyptic movement became a reform movement with liberal terminology.
Howard Brinton said: “The Society of Friends exists today because its more moderate elements prevailed without altogether extinguishing the flame of the Spirit.” I have a feeling that the Quakers so internalized this Spirit that its outward flame became bare distinguishable. Waging the Lamb’s War was lost in the swing to moderation.
It is my vision that Quakers perpetually seat themselves on a tinder box, primed by the centuries to ignite corporately. [We do not ignite it], perhaps for fear of past or future persecutions. What is the form of this witness today? It is not “hippyish,” utopian, or politically anarchic. The basis for such a force is gathered community, and a Gospel Order spiritually centered inwardly, with outward manifestations of corporate witness. Some security is essential in the face of impending world catastrophe. That [new] security is discovered only by those who live at risk, on the edge [of a new world and a new age]. Our call is to be faithful in the witness, and trust that God and Holy Spirit will do the rest [for the rest of the people]. Faith leads us to the conclusion that God’s effec- tiveness will ultimately be historical reality.
A model of apocalyptic community finds its focus in the early Christian attributes of simplicity, community, pacifism and equality. Elias Hicks said: “[There] were grave spiritual dangers involved in getting and holding great wealth ... We should hold all things in common and call nothing our own.” At the end of his life, he would not be covered with a cotton sheet, [steeped] in slave labor, but was only content with a wool blanket. The communal life among the 1st generations of Quakers brought suffering after suffering upon them simply by living out the light of Christ which dwelt within them. Neces- sity formed a community, to care for Friends in prison, and their stranded children, and to share resources left after the rest was confiscated.
Apocalyptic witness is characterized by a corporate identity, which for Quakers in part was a church where every member was a minister in direct contact with God. This witness calls for a witness of not paying for war without equivocation as an essential corollary to the original peace testimony. Early Quakers acted to replace outward cult and ceremony in religious worship with inward spiritual relationships and the baptism and spirit of fire.
A model of apocalyptic community finds its focus in the early Christian attributes of simplicity, community, pacifism and equality. Elias Hicks said: “[There] were grave spiritual dangers involved in getting and holding great wealth ... We should hold all things in common and call nothing our own.” At the end of his life, he would not be covered with a cotton sheet, [steeped] in slave labor, but was only content with a wool blanket. The communal life among the 1st generations of Quakers brought suffering after suffering upon them simply by living out the light of Christ which dwelt within them. Neces- sity formed a community, to care for Friends in prison, and their stranded children, and to share resources left after the rest was confiscated.
Apocalyptic witness is characterized by a corporate identity, which for Quakers in part was a church where every member was a minister in direct contact with God. This witness calls for a witness of not paying for war without equivocation as an essential corollary to the original peace testimony. Early Quakers acted to replace outward cult and ceremony in religious worship with inward spiritual relationships and the baptism and spirit of fire.
An outward, spiritual activation of the inward Light was imperative. Without it we would simply be left with a passive, inward spirit with no function but to nourish our own individual idiosyncracies. The loss of outward spiritual witness in turn reduces the flame which kindles the inward spirit as well. In- ward revelation cries out for the outward spiritual witness of pacifism and non- violence, & for corporate, radical community. Today it isn't primarily the “stee- plehouses” which incarnate the apostasy which brings forth witness. It is ra- ther secular centers of the worship of violent power at the Pentagon and sites of nuclear weapons manufacturing which receive obeisance from churches as well as individual and civil organizations.
A community is no community at all, if its light is hidden from the world. But as light is revealed in witness, the community shines forth as fire. Where that flame will take us, how witness will empower us, and what changes there will be must be left to the continuous revelation of our times. The message of Jesus Christ revealed in George Fox is a message of a life of spirit and truth. The very function and nature of light is not to be hidden nor darkened in an enclosure, but to be revealed to shine forth outwardly and to overcome the darkness.
Our calling is to release the light and be ready to suffer the conse- quences of the conflict created by the release. The Street of Lichfeld [with its martyrs] are still before us; the prisons of Scarborough Castle still hold our own in prisons around the world whether we recognize their faces or not. Religion can be practiced as a public & political undertaking in a light not hidden under a basket but as a fire revealed to all the nations in our actions. God has called upon us to be his apocalyptic witnesses.
280. An Attender at the Altar: A Sacramental Christian Responds to
Silence (by Jay C. Rochelle; 1988)
About the Author—Jay Cooper Rochelle serves as an associate pro- fessor of worship and dean of the chapel at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Bloomburg University
[In ancient Greece
How shall we live when we know in our hearts that the place where we stand is holy ground because God meets us here? How shall we live when we know in our hearts that the time in which we live is eternal because God meets us in it? How shall we live when we know in our hearts that Christ meets us in the faces and hands of our community?
Jay C. Rochelle
[Liturgical Background]—I grew up in a liturgical church. God came among us in ways both prescribed and proscribed. A preacher who sought a sermon text in common experience [was not welcome]. Between me and God a great gulf was fixed; God overcame that gulf in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. From early on I saw contradictions. I didn’t see what the church was for ince it seemed that if I found communion with God through Christ that was a movable feast and all I needed was faith. My church did not consider emotion a good thing in religion; I thought emotion might mean you were interested. At 17, I would have said a person didn't need outward sacraments at all, because faith was important.
For someone with my background at 17, the Quakers were both an im- mediate attraction & a deep puzzle. What I have come to learn is that among Friends, waiting upon the Spirit attunes people to the Presence in all of life, in order that life itself might be seen a sacrament. I grew up hearing the emphasis put on the external action, & so I find stress on inner meaning of the sacrament intriguing. I am always ready to focus on the inner meaning; I am not yet ready to dismiss the outward form. Caroline Stephens wrote that Quakers were “ra- tional mystics.”
The word “symbol” is used in Quaker writing [about sacraments] to mean that which is the substitute for the reality; “sign” would be more appro- priate. [Symbol for sacramental Christians] is that which participates in and evokes the reality. The stress on the inner meaning of the sacraments is both winsome & captivating, but I am a sensual person. A sacramental community transcends barriers of class, race, age, sex and so forth.
Memory and Making—We are remembered into one another as com- munity in Christ. This is a confession which grants insight; it is clinging to that which grants you insight. In the sacrament of bread and wine something is made and not merely done. When we make eucharist, we remember a world permeated by the majesty, love and creative power of the One we call Abba, who sent Jesus as the crossing between time and eternity, space and infinity, past and future, silence and speech, divine and human.
[In ancient Greece
Time & Sacrament—Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once. At dawn I sense holiness, filled with wonder & awe, a moment preg- nant with Presence beyond my ability to create. There is an assault on my senses which carries the force of conviction. When I am silent enough to look, hear, taste, see, I sense a completeness in the Now, even while I know that I am on a never-ending path. My mind can trick my ego into thinking the pictures are more important than what I see now, or it can wander into the "not yet" of the future. When I am incarnate, the moment fills with Presence, and I see and hear and taste and touch that Presence.
In sacramental churches, the moment is spread over a yearly cycle. We sanctify time and space as we recall the Holy & Eternal in ordinary time. Be- cause a ritual understanding teaches us that we need times to keep everything from happening at once, we rehearse parts of the Christ story throughout the calendar year, [while knowing] that the whole mystery is contained in the Risen Christ. The chief pointer for this becoming one is called by various names in- cluding “the eucharist.”
Among Protestants, Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox the supper is celebrated at regular intervals to commemorate the work of Jesus as messiah of God. The ritual enables a concentrated & sustained focus on the Presence of the risen Christ in the congregation, where Christ is embodied in the members. Over time understandings of suffering and hope grow in my heart and my mind.
My words attempt to explain the sacramental life, but my words can never express the vision, the image, the reality which is disclosed to the eye of faith. This is the vision of many Christians in history. It is the vision that fuels the contemporary community of faith. Humanity's oneness, which the table of the Lord proclaims & celebrates comes into being as we try to hold to the promise of Christ who stands as host at the table.
Peaceful unity is created by the one who offers us the meal, the one who beckons us with open hands and breaks the bread of hospitality in our midst. Christ serves as mediator for persons above and beyond blood rela- tion, & these people would not enter this particular communion apart from Christ’s hosting of this family meal where there was none before. Through his words & actions we are healed, made whole, made holy, brought into whole- ness & health.
What makes this sacrament for me? There is always something more than what appears to be; I think the meaning can't be exhausted. Some peo- ple seem to have natural understanding of God. I consider them blessed, be- cause so many believe in God but have little experience of the reality beyond the word; we live in an age which seeks to prohibit that vision. We retain the sacraments [as a] means that proclaim truth and mystery, and perhaps even miracle. Time is fulfilled and everything does happen all at once in a Quaker meeting for worship; [the “church” year is collapsed into a moment, and it is Easter or Pentecost Now].
Early Christians celebrated the resurrection weekly; everything did happen all at once. With the passage of time & influenced by the Jerusalem
Quakers seek in silence, the immediacy of that primal and ultimate ex- perience of being at one with God, which the sacramental churches proclaim by means of bread & wine and word. At Quaker meeting my years of im- mersion and participation in the sacraments shape my expectation of the silent waiting. We become community in Christ as we are remembered into one another.
Community as Body—Fox believed that the New Testament church came into being as Christ was present among his people in all his offices. The visible community only became a true Christian community as the people who gathered manifested these offices among themselves. People are thus the sacrament of Christ’s presence. As Lewis Benson puts it, “the central, opera- tive principle of gospel order is Christ's presence in the midst of his church, manifesting himself in his many offices.”
The process of becoming a Quaker member and the welcoming which is subsequent to the process might be called a sacrament, [or sacramentum, if we understand it as] an oath to live in obedience to a way of life and stan- dard of behavior under a certain commander. Early Quakers strove for such an understanding of baptism as a sign of living, a “pure and spiritual thing,” on the edge between culture and Christian faith.
The real point [of baptism] is to proclaim the news that Christ reconciles us to God, and in so doing has offered us a new place to stand wherein we are on holy ground. The sacrament calls me to live its truth in the daily struggles I am given. In each moment of existence I am offered not only the Presence of God but the Presence's challenge to live ethically in accordance with Jesus’ nonviolent revolution of love. To stress the meaning of sacrament as vow or pledge of allegiance would benefit us all.
The fellowship comes together around a renewal of vision and heart and mind which we might call a sacrament. This fellowship becomes the place to discover sacramental reality as the meeting place between sacred & secular, eternal & temporal, spirit & matter. For Quakers, each person is potentially a sacrament of the presence of God, not by immersion in the outer waters of baptism but by being filled with the Spirit who leads us into all the truth.
Christ as Body—Sacraments keep Christ from happening all at once, and Christ keeps God from happening all at once, which we could not stand since we aren't given to handling too much reality at once. It is wrong to begin with a biased definition of sacrament and then to name actions of the church which are to be considered sacraments [“authorized” by the church hierarchy]. I know but one sacrament, the Word who is Christ; this Word addresses my condition of alienation & calls me forth to wholeness. A sacrament is a dyna- mic event through which we discover grace at work in personal, common, and corporate ways.
In my silent awareness of the gift of standing once more in the Presence, I am aware of [unworthiness and alienation from God, and then] forgiveness & reconciliation with God. As meeting goes on, there is a moment of tangible coherence, of communion. On one hand I have been touched by sacramental worship where bread and wine and words and gestures are present, on the other hand I have been touched by the silence of the meeting for worship with quiet choreography of the human spirit in accordance with the Holy Spirit. I bring my experience & understanding of one environment into another.
[John Woolman] had a conviction of the sacramental character of out- ward things, the mysterious unity of all of life in God. Sacramental Christians and Friends each seek a unity and consistency which is worthy of Woolman in our respective forms of faith. The search is still one at heart. The goal of both styles of worship is strangely the same. Both are drawn to see the world so that the Presence of God is unmistakably clear at every turn and in each nook and cranny; one is drawn by words and rituals, the other by silence & waiting; one experiences the story all at once; one receives it drawn out across the span of a year.
As a Christian immersed in the outward symbols, I appreciate most about the Quaker tradition the attempt to show forth & proclaim the Presence of the Holy in the everyday. Often, sacraments of the church have been ritu- alized & made into religious acts so that they are removed from the everyday, and detached from social community & consciousness.
Questions to Begin with—[Have Friends lost their roots in deep faith, so that our ethics have become short-lived & trendy? Have sacramental Christians lost sight of the vision of God as the goal of our liturgy? Have we split off spirituality from secular life and compart- mentalize our selves into neaategories? Have we given up the struggle to find a Christian way in tension with the cultures in which we live]?
A peaceful and godly life comes among us when we are truly brought into the healing Presence of God. [We can find this Presence] in both the mo- dels for renewal and community we call sacraments and in the silence of mee- tings for worship and business. How shall we live when we know in our hearts that the place where we stand is holy ground because God meets us here? How shall we live when we know in our hearts that the time in which we live is eternal because God meets us in it? How shall we live when we know in our hearts that Christ meets us in the faces and hands of our community?
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