Pendle Hill Pamphlet Impressions
by Daniel M. Jensen
122. The Civil War diary of Cyrus Pringle (Foreword
by Henry J. Cadbury; 1962)
Foreword—Cyrus Pringle is known to specialists as a pioneer
plant breeder and botanical collector.
He is also one of the Quakers who battled with their consciences during
the Civil War. Cyrus Guernsey Pringle
(1838-1911) was born in East Charlotte Vermont University of Vermont Mexico
[This diary] deals with an inward and timeless problem
of a sensitive conscience. The diary
begins with the events of the day following his call to service, and tells all
that happened to him after his refusal to serve, [including] what happened in
his mind and heart. It was printed after
his death, and 50 years after the events in the Atlantic Monthly (February 1913).
Pringle’s two companions were Lindley M. Macomber and Peter Dakin. Particular interest attaches to Lincoln
Outwardly Quaker conscripts met both kindness and
cruelty. Inwardly they had the natural
conflict between the evil of making any surrender to military might and the
desire to escape punishment and be obedient to reasonable expectations. The issue is too complicated to be solved by
a personal religious faith; it is still in the main a moral problem. Human moral progress often depends on the
spontaneous response of one or two sensitive persons to quite unexpected
situations, when that response became convincing and contagious.—Henry J.
Cadbury.
[7th
month-8th month, 1863]—At Burlington Vermont
We were urged by our acquaintances to pay our
commutation money [or hire a substitute, because it] was our duty. We confess a higher duty and deny any
obligation to support so unlawful a system, as we hold war to be, even in
opposition to evil and in defense of liberty.
[We could not hire a substitute and thereby bring others to evil]. Here I must record Rolla Gleason’s (the
marshal) kindness; he treated us with respect and kindness. [In the train cars on the way to Brattleboro , VT Brattleboro
We love our country and acknowledge with gratitude to
our Heavenly Father the many blessing we been favored with under the
government, and can feel no sympathy with any who seek its overthrow. But . . . we cannot violate our religious
convictions either by complying with military requisitions, furnishing a
substitute, or paying commutation money. [We suffer] insult and contempt, and
penalties of insubordination, though liberty of conscience is granted us by the
Vermont
The men with us give us their sympathy. Although we
are relieved from duty and drill, we have heard no complaints. LMM and I
appeared before the Captain; he listened to us respectfully and promised to
refer us to General Devens. Though fair be the earth, it has come to be tainted
and marred by him who was meant to be its crowning glory. Old Father of
Mercies, forgive the hard heartlessness, blindness and scarlet sin of my
brothers.
In Guard House.
31st day—LMM and I separately came to the judgment that we must
not conform to the requirement to clean about camp and bring water. [First argument and then threats were offered
in response to our refusal]. The
subjects of all misdemeanors are confined [in the island’s hotel]. In most,
as in the camps, there are traces yet of manhood and of the Divine Spark, but
some are abandoned, dissolute. [The
blacks are jeered by substitutes from the New York
9th
month: 1st day, 9th month—Oh, the
horrors of the past night—I never before experienced such sensations and fears; never did I feel so clearly that I had
nothing but the hand of our Father to shield me from evil. The others [left us alone, but there was
bedlam and a chained-up, delirious drunk in the next room]. We learned the next day that the drunk was
from a religious family, but was drawn into bad company.
3rd day—A Massachusetts major complimented
our choice of religious books and tried to persuade us to serve. He told us of another Quaker Edward W. Holway
of Sandwich ; we received permission to write to him, but the
Major never gave him the letter. Oh the
trials from these officers [coming to persuade us to serve]! One after another comes in to relieve himself
upon us. [When persuasion does not work]
they usually fly into a passion and end by bullying us. How can
we reason with such men? They have
stopped their ears to the voice of the Spirit, and hardened their hearts to his
influences. A little service was
required of LMM, but he would not comply, [even in the face of loaded guns]. This is a trial of strength of patience.
6th & 7th day—Major J. B.
Gould, 13th Mass. Came in with the determination of persuading us to
consent to be transferred to the hospital here.
In more than an hour, he lost no part of his self-control or good
humor. [We were taken to the hospital,
where the major] demonstrated his kindness by his resolution that we should
occupy and en-joy the pleasanter quarters of the hospital tent whether we
served there or not. He passed by LMM
and Peter Dakin [PD] outside the tent and declared they were the strangest
prisoners of war he ever saw.
13th & 14th day—Henry
Dickinson (HD) wrote, stating that the President, though sympathizing with
those in our situation, felt bound by the Conscription Act. [The choice was between hospital service and
overseeing blacks on confiscated rebel estates]. What
would become of our testimony and determination to preserve ourselves clear of
the guilt of this war? We received
the unwelcome advice from HD to go into hospital service, [which left us
feeling unsupported,] desolate and dreary in our position.
16th & 17th day—[More local
Friends visit and write advising us] that we might enter the hospital without
compromising our principles; [we find ourselves in discomfort and disagreement
with that advice]. Their regard for our
personal welfare and safety too much absorbs the zeal they should possess for
the maintenance of the principle of peaceableness of our Master’s
kingdom. [Our home meeting friends sent]
kind and cheering words of Truth. Major Gould bade us Farewell and expressed a
hope that we should not have so hard a time as we feared. [He probably also saw to it that we had the
liberty of the vessel named Forest City
Camp near Culpeper.
25th day—Though we felt free to keep with those among whom we
had been placed, we could not consent to carry a gun even though we did not
intend to use it. We succeeded in giving
the young officers a slight idea of what we were and why we did not pay our
commutation. A council was soon held to
decide what to do with us. The guns were
thrust over our heads and hung upon our shoulders.
[As we marched, seeing for the first time, a country
made dreary by the war-blight, one realizes as he can no other way something of
the ruin that lies in a war’s trail. When
one contrasts the face of this country with New England , he sees stamped on it the great irrefutable arguments against slavery
and war, these twin relics of barbarism so awful in their consequences that
they change the face of the country. We
marched 4 miles, the guns interfering with our walking. We declined to be
present at inspection of arms, and were ordered by the colonel to be tied. We were threatened great severities and even
death. We seem perfectly at the mercy of
the military power.
26th day—Yesterday my mind was much
agitated; doubts and fears and forebodings seized me. This morning I enjoy peace; I feel as though
I could face anything. Oh, praise be to the Lord for the peace, love, and
resignation that has filled my soul today!
There is a holy life that is above fear; it is a close communion with
Christ.
I have seen LMM in the thoroughness and patience of his trial to perform service in hospital, and seen him fail and declare to us, “I cannot stay here.” I have received new proof from the experimental knowledge of an honest man, that no Friend desiring to keep himself clear of complicity with this system of war and to bear a perfect testimony against it, can lawfully perform service in the hospitals of the Army in lieu of bearing arms.
[10th
month] 3rd & 6th
day at Washington
[When asked by the lieutenant if I would clean my gun,
and after replying] “I cannot do it,” I was tied to stakes on the ground for 2
hours. I wept from sorrow that such things
should be in our own country. It seemed
as if the gospel of Christ had never been preached upon earth, and the
beautiful example of his life had been utterly lost. I wondered if it could be that they could
force me to obedience by torture, and examined myself closely to see if they
had advanced as yet one step toward accomplishing their purposes. I found myself, through divine strength, as
firm in my resolution to maintain my allegiance to my Master.
[The next morning I reported to the lieutenant who
said, “You are ordered to report to Washington Vermont
At the War Office we were soon admitted to an audience
with the Adjutant General [and then] Surgeon General Hammond Douglas Hospital
8th-13th day—We all went out to
see the city on a pass. IN came to see
us, stating that he had called upon the President that afternoon to request him
to release us and let us go home to our friends. A woman sought help to prevent her 15
year-old son from being shot for desertion.
IN approached the President, who halted the execution.
On 11th day we attended meeting, held in
Asa Arnold’s house; there were but 4 persons besides ourselves. On 13th day LMM faced the officer
of the day where he served. The officer
demanded obedience and a salute; LMM gave him neither, and was put in the
guardhouse. The surgeon in charge had
him released. We are all getting uneasy
about remaining here. If our releases do
not come soon, we feel we must intercede with the authorities, even if the
alternative be imprisonment.
20th-26th day—I shall not say
but we submit too much in not declining at once, but it has seemed most prudent
at least to make suit with Government rather than provoke the hostility of
their subalterns. Is patience justified under the circumstances? [I got sick and] after a week I find that
I am reduced very low in strength and flesh by the sickness and pain I am
experiencing.
11th
month. 5th day—I spend most of my time on
my bed, much of it alone. And very precious to me is the nearness I am favored
to attain unto the Master. The fruits of
this are sweet, and a recompense for affliction. Edward W. Holway saw IN on my behalf; IN met
with the President, who read a letter from a New York Friend, and instructed
Secretary Stanton that “all those young men be sent home at once.” The order was given and we were
released. Upon my arrival in New York
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125. Children and Solitude (by Elise Boulding; 1962)
A
Prayer for Parents [Excerpt]—Father
[Parent] of us all, we are caught in a fear that there will be no future for
our children. We are beset with
temptations to act in many directions at once [to “save the world”]. Shall
we save the world and lose the soul of one untended child? Spare us the
blasphemy of taking the world’s weight on our shoulders. Help us to lead our little ones to the true
source of all being, as we have been led. Grant that we may together experience the
outpouring of thy love, that our children may know the one source of true joy.
Children
and Solitude—When William Penn found
himself in a period of enforced retirement, he “kissed the Gentle Hand which
led him into it,” for he found his solitude a great treasure. I have come to feel solitude is the most
natural thing in the world; that children, like adults should need and cherish
times of solitude. The importance of
[and emphasis on] the socialization process in the development of the individual
seems to have obliterated awareness of the kind of growth that takes place when
the individual is not reacting with others.
In sociological literature, “privacy” is something defensively
[desperately] longed for, rarely achieved.
We have a real compulsion to groupism, rather than to develop our
private selves.
In examining the positive function of
aloneness in the individual’s development, we are moving against the mainstream
of thought of our time. [The knowledge
that] physiological psychologists and neurologists have [gained about how the
brain works] is remarkable. Add to this
[sociological knowledge that has been gained], and we have an impressive body
of knowledge about what makes a person what they are. But humankind will come to a spiritual dead end if they do not allow time apart
and in solitude for things to happen inside [the self].
Our latest information about the nervous
system’s operation, combined with our creativity knowledge, must lead [to
awareness of] the importance of solitary meditation in the human mind’s
development. The vividness and variety
of inward images and sounds vary from person to person, but the basic
phenomenon is universal, like breathing, yet unique to each individual in the
light-pattern they use. It needs to be
counterbalanced by experiencing the outside world. The danger faced by most
children is what we might call imagery deprivation. [They need time to go off quietly and mull
things over; groupism resists this “mulling time”]. The duality of [being] dust of the earth and
image of God is a duality which the fact of our creation challenges us to
encompass.
We know it was the tremendous creativity in the
Renaissance and the Enlightenment Age which produced explosive and exciting
developments in 20th century society. 1st, creativity is a fundamental
characteristic of the human mind; there is no sharp dividing line between the
creative thinker and artist and “ordinary” human being. 2nd, the essence of creativity is
fragments of knowledge and experience being recombined to create a new synthesis. 3rd, there has to be large chunks
of uninterrupted time available for creative activity, for the brain to work
with the impressions from the outside world.
The workings of the unconscious mind are of little use if [time is not
taken to organize them with the conscious mind.
Solitude—H. G. Wells said, “I need freedom of mind. I want peace for work. [He wanted a Great Good Place
Before a child can consciously make use of time alone,
comes that important moment in one’s life which represents the dawning of the
self-consciousness. Except for this
sense of me, [life] is perhaps a purely animal or sensual experience, occupying
the merest point of time.
[Importance
of Self-Awareness Moment]—Why is such a moment so important? This may be the first conscious integration which the
young mind undertakes of the world outside with the interior world of one’s
mind. Because awareness of spiritual
reality depends on experiencing the invisible as real and present, it is likely
to flower most in the children who have times alone. A study of religious experiences of children
between 9 and 14 [shows that] the most meaningful experiences were at times
when they were alone in house, forest, or field.
There are many kinds of aloneness, and they are not by
any means all desirable. [It is
important] to provide the child’s mind with materials with which to work. Unfortunately our generation of parents has
developed a negative attitude toward steeping the mind of a child in Scripture
and the language of religious experience.
Many children [once] labored under a heavy burden of doleful religious
imagery and admonition. In the close
warm communities of early Friends Meetings children knew life, love and fun as
well as the somber truth of the Time of reckoning; they worked out their own
solutions to the inward and outward pulls they felt.
Their resolutions did not come in ready-made
scriptural formulas, or through application of external admonitions. Ruth Fellows (18th century) said,
“I left [Mother’s] counsel behind me, trod her testimony under my feet and took
a large swing into vanity. . . [The Lord] stopped me in the midst of my career
and took off my chariot wheels.” Benjamin Bangs (17th century) had a
similar response: “I had such a
visitation, as I had been ignorant of before, in which a sweet calmness spread
over my mind, that if I could but keep
to this, what might I grow up to in time? Sarah Stephenson, [17th
century daughter of a rich merchant, enjoyed vanity and loved the Lord. She heard] the seemingly trivial words of
Elizabeth Ashbridge, “What a pity that child should have a ribbon on her head.”
[It was] enough to set her permanently on the Lord’s path, ribbonless. These
Quaker journals are an enduring demonstration that seeds planted unnoticed
bring forth unanticipated flowers. For
the early Quakers the prescription for religious nurture was simple: provide a living human example of the
God-directed life, provide time for religious experience in worship [and the
reading of the Bible] within the family circle and the Meeting.
[Crisis of
Identity]—We must look well [into the
crisis of identity in] the nurture of the 20th Century child. Who is
taking “time out” to probe for the new dimensions in a now-unimagined
life? Who is dreaming dreams? Who is
seeing vision? Where are the solitary
ones? They are all about, but they
are too few, and we make it very hard for them.
Have we not each of us stumbled
upon a child’s solitary joy? Each of
us has our own recollection of solitary childhood joy, hidden away deep in our
minds for safekeeping.
These are solitude’s fruits for children: A sense of
who and what they are, whence they came, their place in God’s world. [Instead
of math formulas or art, their “recombining knowledge and experience to create
a new synthesis”] may produce a beautifully ordered life, one of the highest
forms of integration anyone may achieve.
[Creative
Solitude]—How do we adults help to make creative solitude available to our
children? 1st, by finding meaning in it for
ourselves. Helen Thomas Flexner
said: “[The] moments of intense
listening for God’s voice in the room with my grandfather are among the most
vivid memories of my early childhood.”
In homes where silence is lived, the child finds it easy and comfortable
to turn to it. [Even rare] times of
family worship become hours to be remembered and valued for their scarcity [and
for bringing more] love and awareness.
The silence of the Quaker Meeting for Worship opens a
unique door into solitude for the child who is fortunate enough to experience
corporate listening. Rufus Jones
said: “Sometimes a real spiritual wave
would sweep over the Meeting in these silent hushes . . . and carry me into
something which was deeper than my own thoughts. Little William Harvey has been squirming
through the first long hour [of a 2-hour Meeting. He listened [without understanding to] a
message delivered with deep conviction by an older Friend. William said, “I feel that he was a good man,
that what he said was not lightly spoken. . .
I am conscious of feeling awe.”
[Grandmamma offers a prayer in her Quaker dress and bonnet, her face
shining with an inner radiance].
hether they are awe-struck or mischievous, we know in
our hearts that our children must have solitude in order to do the kind of
inward growing which we cannot plan for them.
One educator said that the greatest danger of our time is “unoccupied”
minds; he recommended school year-round.
May it not rather be that unoccupied
time is the only thing that can lead
to the creatively occupied mind? Walter
De la Mare says: “There is a natural
instinct to preen the wings and choose the food and water . . . converting into
song and beauty and energy the seed of a thistle.”
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126. Readiness for Religion (by Harold Loukes; 1963)
Rufus Jones
(born January 25, 1863)—Rufus Jones devoted himself to understanding and
clarifying his living tradition’s meaning, to seeing its implication for the
present and future, and to putting his knowledge and insight at the service of
his fellow. His uncovering of the story
of firsthand, primary religious experience is of permanent value, as is his
insistence that each new generation of Christian should face its own situation
afresh.
We are the unlucky generation, [caught] between
parents who believed children should do what they’re told, and children who believe
that parents should do what they’re told.
Our parents [softened the strict and brutal methods of their parents,
but still expected] to be believed and obeyed.
The parents of this generation [softened their methods even further,] and have sought
to let their children come to the realities of the world for themselves. Rousseau said: “Let the child live; let the child reach out
under the spell of the child’s own nature, and grasp reality [as a child].” [Parents seek to strike a balance between
Rousseau’s advice and the need to provide some guidance]. Childhood has its own meaning and its own
demands, and they cannot be denied without grave loss.
The freedom we planned was freedom in a familiar
world; the freedom they have is freedom in chaos [and rapid change]. To our children motor cars, radio,
television, and space travel are part of their mental furniture. They take it for granted, as well as their
right to go ahead from where we stop. We
do not know what to teach our children that will help them when they grow
up. In trying to draw the line between
our authority and their freedom, between their now and their future, between
proper control and improper tyranny, we are still full of doubt.
The Problem
of Religious Education—There is a
peculiar difficulty for those who seek to bring up their children to “be
themselves,” and to recognize their calling to be [children of God]. [How
do we as parents balance the old Quaker advices of “example,” “self-control,”
and “obedience to law” with the current philosophy of “freedom of
self-expression?” Where do we find
support to do this in the absence of close-knit Christian communities of the
past, where a “guarded education” was possible?] The guarded education is
no longer available. Our children move out into what we now call the
peer-group; they forge a culture for them-selves. There is no great hostility toward us, but
there is a simple need for a fresh start, a need to be different.
A
Questioning Generation—On the way to
this difference, they begin to ask us questions like the following: Why is
the Christian idea not very widely accepted now? Why should I be a Christian if I can be good
without? How far is it right for
Christians to impose beliefs on others?
How do you prove God’s presence? What is man’s purpose on earth? We both know that for many of these
questions there is no simple answer. [How then are we to answer Christianity’s difficult
questions?] What can our children
understand? Are there stages of
development which we may learn to wait for, and to take advantage of?
Religious
Readiness—There are some things we
can say about the growth of the child towards religious awareness. We can say that the small child (4 or 5) does
not possess the mental equipment for dealing in any true sense with the concept
of God. A child’s moral judgment
proceeds from a high personalized, specific and rule- bound phase (7-8), to
general concepts (9-10), to true moral insight [11-12), to a sense of responsibility to others
(13-14). [Children’s heroes evolve from
being most often parents to historical, literary, or Biblical characters at 12
years]. Some [14 year-olds seem to be]
struggling to emerge from the “old man with long hair and a beard, wearing
white robes” [image]. They interpret our
[God language] not in terms of our experience but of their own [e.g. Fatherhood
of God= our experience of our father; wrath of God= our father’s wrath; justice
of God=no tangible experience].
Interpreting concepts in childish terms distorts for the child our central
affirmations and the biblical narratives we present as part of the child’s
preparation for insight.
The first danger in the attempt to teach religious
ideas before our children have the mental equipment to cope with them is that
they may acquire religious vocabulary with no conceptual substance. The other danger is that they may be led to
believe and trust in a false god. What then are we to do [to present God to
our children]? Rufus Jones says that
he was surrounded in his home by a wordless witness to God’s reality, in the
“hush of thanksgiving” before meals, and in the “weighty silences” after Bible
readings. [It was left for him to
naturally grow into it]. There is trust
here, the waiting spirit of childhood, and the readiness to accept second hand
what will one day become first hand.
Experience
of Fatherhood—Though we cannot convey
religious concepts to our children,
this doesn’t mean we cannot offer the beginnings of religious experience. The
offering of the experience of being loved is the beginning of Christian
education. The Incarnation is an assertion [of God’s love], and that though man
is corrupt, his humanity still has divine potential. [Further], the love of God
is unshakable; it is to that love that man is called. The mark of the Christian
home is the quality of its love, which is other-willing, an unwavering resolve
that spirits shall find room to grow, and minds shall be lit and nurtured by the
light and nourishment we have to bestow.
Things and
Words—If they are to love their
children like this, parents must have the same love for one another. [Any tension between parents will be felt by
the children]. Love shown in the home
leads to the love of God. [It is best to] lay aside our anxiety about rushing
our children into the presence of God, and for recognizing that they are in the
presence of God. We can tell them about
people in the Bible, in the church, and in the Quaker community, even if the
stories are a little above our children’s heads. We can let them share in worship, [but the
“saying prayers” at bedtime is questionable, a habit that may teach the wrong
lessons about what God is and what prayer is].
If our children share in our humbling silences, they have the
possibility of discovering the true meaning of prayer. We cannot “teach” our children to pray; we
can only let them learn it from us.
Conflict in
Adolescence—[So far we have described
how children up to 10 or 11 learn] from the way in which their parents and
friends, present them a selection of reality. We must now turn to the age of conflict, when
our selection of reality is tested by the unselected reality of the [“outside”]
world. Those with true, ordered, and loving homes are not shaken very deeply.
[Other homes may see adolescents turn to aggression, withdrawal, or conformity].
Adolescence offers a new opportunity, not for a complete change of personal
structure, but for choosing a new direction.
We should look to a slow maturing of the personality, a gradual
enlightenment as the person sees God’s hand upon the complexities of the
person’s life. The adolescent is a role-player. [Eventually] the adolescent
settles for the most efficient [role or] life-style, the image of self that can
be [most bearably] lived with.
Aspects of
Maturing—[The adolescent is faced
with developmental tasks of dealing with a new image, relationships independent
of parents, future work, economic independence, and developing a sex-role. Among these developmental tasks is that of
attaining a set of moral values and a view of the meaning of life that will
make sense of the rest of experience.
[It is tempting to treat this task] in isolation, but Friends [have a
concern for] “true godliness” that enables one to live in the world [i.e. the
other tasks that will act out that godliness].
The adolescent wants to ask, “Why do we have to live,” and then wants to hear us talk about
it. [If there are questions about
self-worth and work, we offer verbal and non-verbal affirmation of worth, and
experience, ideas, and enthusiasm about the possibilities and challenges facing
our child in finding the best place to make a contribution. The issue of
independence from us and forming independent relationships, is naturally the
most difficult one for us to help with. For a time they may lose touch with us
in the depths. We can help in a more general sense with] the rapid intellectual
advance of adolescence, by speaking of what we believe to be the meaning of
life. What have we to offer them from the faith that we live by, but whose
formulation is now so far in the past?
The Need for
Honesty; Maturity—When children put
smart questions to us about God, they are asking: What does God mean in your personal decision and action? What do you
mean by obeying God? Do you really make sense of the world by your
belief in God? [If God, Christ, and
God’s vision of humankind is really meaningful to us, then we shall have truth
to convey, however badly we put it over.
It may not reach our listener at the moment of asking, [and there may]
come a time of doubt and testing.
Someone may even reject the outward signs of commitment to the strong
Quaker atmosphere they were brought up in.
We must not order them to go to Meeting.
[If they leave], many of them will soon be back, when they [can] go as
persons, and not as conscripts.
In the future they may say, “I had to have religion,
but it had to be different from my father’s.”
[If they “change” or reject religion, most] often they are making a
personal self-affirmation. All stages of
growing up are, in a sense, painful both to parents and children; but with a
pain that is in the nature of things, and that is transcended by the will to
life.
Maturity in the divine will to life is the intention
behind Christian education. Quakers have
always tried to view their task [as seeking] a creative and personal expression
of vision. For this task they rejected
others’ creeds, others’ moral codes, and they affirmed that each must encounter
the divine love in the heart of one’s own situation. The way to maturity is [first] through
immaturity. If we try to run beyond
nature in the persuasion to religious insight, we lose our efforts [to guide
our children towards spiritual maturity] as surely as if we try to make a child
read before they are ready.
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127. Thou dost open up my life: selections from the Rufus Jones Collection (Ed. Mary H. Jones; 1963)
Foreword—This pamphlet commemorates the 100th year
since Rufus Jones’ birth, and comes from cartons of note cards written by Rufus
Jones for his sermons and talks of the ‘30s and ‘40s. The earlier selections
were written on [the backs of] cards that originally [served another purpose]. Later ones were on new, blank note
cards. Rufus Jones never appeared to use
notes. They served to fix a central idea
in his mind and were only a spring-board from which he took off. Rufus Jones had a simple, direct manner of
speaking, and knew that the Kingdom of Heaven
Thou
Dost Open up my Life (after 1933)—When
I was 8, I read the Psalms entirely through.
Much of it was over my head and I missed the meaning, but the exalted
nature poetry thrilled me. I could feel
the difference between the [legalistic] scribe, and the [poetic] prophet. Psalm
119:32 says: I will obey thee eagerly as
thou dost open up my life.” [Self-expression
is popular today], but it is useless to talk about self-expression until we
have a self to express. Which one of our
1,000 possible selves shall we express? How [do you] get a rightly fashioned life
that is truly worth expressing? How [do
you] open out the possibilities of life?
Religion opens up life.
The
Way of Growth (after 1933)—Psalm 1 is
the first one I ever learned; it compares a man to a tree. They both grow. How much does the Bible have to say about growth? Lilies toil not; they let the forces of
life operate, and then find themselves beautiful. Growth is silent, gentle,
quiet, unnoticed. It isn’t effort, it
isn’t struggle that makes persons grow; it is contact with life forces. Spiritual life begins with life from God and
grows through light and truth and love which have their source in God. We are the soil, God’s farm; God is the rain
and dew.
Breadth
and Length and Depth and Height (early ‘40s)—[“That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints the
breadth, length, depth, and height.”—Ephesians 3:18] I want especially to call attention to the
dimensions of life for which Paul prayed.
I am thinking especially this morning about the horizontal and
perpendicular [and] the Book of James.
[In this book] the writer has taken great pains with its creation; it is
a sermon, not an epistle. He disagrees
with Paul about faith, for action is the life of all. This book is all horizontal; it is thin in
depth and height [i.e. there is a lot of connection with humankind, but little
connecting with Christ and God. [In
Ephesians] you have the mystical note—the depth and height that makes a great
horizontal life possible.
Not
a Book Religion (1934?)—Jesus came to
Nazareth
To Whom
Shall we Go (1940s)?—What is the alternative? What is the substitute for
Christ? To Whom would you turn in personal crisis, when everything seems to
crash in on you? What is your major
support? The crowds took him for a miracle worker, and
wanted him for a political king.
Everything was done that could spoil a prophet, a spiritual guide of
life. John has Jesus saying that I have
come to re-orient your life, to make it significant, to bring inspiration, to
kindle life with aim, purpose, and direction, to be inward food of the soul.
Science cannot be an alternative to Christ. All its paths lead to boundaries where
research ends and the things we most want lie beyond those boundaries. [It does not] ennoble the soul and give it over-brimming joy in life. George Fox said, “I heard a voice which
said, ‘There is one, Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition.’ ” He was
and is the cure of souls. He knew human nature, through and through, and yet he expects so much of us.
Every Day
Living (1945-48)—On one occasion
Moses took the Elders up on the mountain, and they too saw God; the great
Reality broke in on their lives, and then “they did eat and drink.” Elders
throughout biblical and church history had divine meetings with God and then
they came back to the business of life on a new level of life and significance.
We need the lift of vision and the inspiration of contact with God. It ought to
gird and equip us for everyday life. We want leaders unique and peculiar in
their leadership, but we no less need to have the level of the rank and file
raised to a new level of life and power.
In Colossians, Paul instructs them on how they should conduct themselves
in daily life [in all their relationships and duties which] are transformed by
this discovery of the Divine Presence. The
sacred and the secular are 2 indivisible aspects of one life, [lived] to the
glory of God.
The Father’s Business (late ‘30s, early
40s)—[At 12, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem
In this early period of Jesus’ life, his main business
was preparation for his mission. Later Jesus saw in children what he had
felt as a child—that it is perfectly natural to be open-souled to God, and to
be preparing for the main business of life—being an organ of the Spirit. Unnamed saints, Brother Lawrence, country
doctors, street sweepers, lighthouse keepers, mothers, toilers in any field may
make life a ministry [for] the Father’s business.
The
Constructive & Prophetic Service of Religion (late 30s)—The world needs this service today. When vital &
creative, it dignifies & ennobles one. [What it calls for is a person with
a serene, adventurous spirit].
Contact But
Not Communion (after 1934)—I love to
see a sower striding across a well-prepared field and flinging out his seed
broadcast with an prodigal [overflowing] hand, and thinking of the harvest. [Jesus may have seen this as a boy and used it
in a parable, with himself as the sower]. He flings out great truths and sees some of
them going to waste [on dry, hard minds]. The
miracle of transmitting life lies within the seed but it will not germinate
without cooperation from the soil [the soul]. Truth is laid alongside a soul; [there is
contact but no communion]. [Jesus offers seed and door]: “I am the door. By me if any enter in, they shall be saved.” They shall have contact and communion.
Caring
Matters Most—It often takes a whole
lifetime to learn the meaning of the greatest words we use. I wish we might lift love up and see it in
the light of its divine possibilities. Baron von Hügel said, “. . . Caring
matters most. Christianity has taught
us to care.” Love is caring beyond all known limits for what
concerns another.
What Men
Live By (early 1930s)—I went once to
Cana of Galilee and visited the house where the famous wedding took place and
the water was changed to wine. Cana
is repeated in this Meeting House. [A marriage of spirits takes place, and
ordinary water is changed to the sparkling wine of life]. “May God bless us and keep us and may we live
together in such a spirit of love that God can enjoy our life together. Love is
what men live by.
The
Christmas Texts (mid 1940s)—The NT
has many ways of heralding the great event of Christmas. [Shepherds and magi, expert star-watchers,
were invited to the event]. It seems
very fitting that the first scientists who came to Christ should have been
star-led. St. John’s
Behold!
(late 1920s)—We of modern times live
more in the attitude of questioning than of exclamation. We lose the sense of wonder
and vision. “Behold!” has the force of an imperative, as though they say “See what
I see. Open your eyes to the meaning of what is before you.” I John 3:1 says: “Behold
what love the Father bestowed on us that we can be sons of God.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson writes: “Not of sunlight,/ Not of moonlight,/ Not of star-light,/
O young mariner,/ Down to the haven, Call your companions,/ Launch your
vessel,/ Crowd your canvas,/ Ere it vanishes/ Over the margin./ After it, follow it./ Follow the gleam. (from Merlin and the Gleam).
Underneath
are Everlasting Arms [Deut. 33:27] (Late ‘30s, early ‘40s)—The more I see of loss and sorrow and death and
separation, the less easy I find it to talk of such things in words. Once more we have had to discover the fact we
are so prone to forget—how fragile is the container of all our most precious
treasures. [But] Death cannot be an
enemy—it must be the way of fulfillment, the way into richer life and greater
love.
Faith in
Immortality (early 1940s)—One of the
most noticeable features of our time is the weakening faith in immortality. The
“heaven in the sky” is gone, & the body’s resurrection seems crude &
materialistic. It seems strange that Paul’s great spiritual conception has
never quite got into man’s consciousness; it is a marvelous in-sight. Paul
holds that we are weaving a permanent soul-structure while we live & think &
act here in the body. The apostle shows how life moves on in stages &
always has a form which fits the realm it inhabits. The spirit is sown a
natural body at birth but slowly under divine influence it grows & is
transformed into an inner spiritual substance which is at home with God as soon
as it is freed from its old encasement. The new-formed nature is the same kind
of reality as God. Alfred, Lord Tennyson writes of a baby’s growth: But as he
grows he gathers much,/ & learns the use of “I” & “me”,/& finds “I
am not what I see,/& other than the things I touch”(from In Memoriam)
Take no
Thought for the Morrow (1939-45)—Few
things would make life more impossible that to take the Sermon on the Mount
literally. The interesting thing is that
Jesus himself did not follow it literally.
[He used oriental exaggeration frequently
in it.
It is first of all a new spirit, a new joy, a new radiance, a new thrill of living—not the burden
of a new legal system. Christ’s major
point throughout the Sermon on the Mount is to get rid of fears and anxieties. He is not against ownership as such, only
against excessive worry over things. The
real issue which Jesus is discussing is:
In what does your life really exist? He is making a powerful plea for
inspiration in our lives, and insight of real values. Buoyancy and radiance [need to replace] worry
and anxious care.
Mary and
Martha (late 1920s)—[For] centuries
Mary and Martha have stood for 2 life-alternatives. These are not alternatives
to choose between. Either way of life is poor and thin without the other. The 2
must be fused into one [person] before a complete life is obtained. It is fuss
and worry, bustle and distraction that Jesus criticizes in Martha—not her
action. The whole point of the story bears on one’s central choice or focus of
life. Mary has chosen the one simple
thing that makes life inherently good and that lasts through all mutations and vicissitudes.
You can choose a whirl of secondary aims or you can concentrate on intrinsic
riches. Every time the soul catches a glimpse of eternal truth or beauty it
quickens its powers to catch more; love and service become easier.
Blessed are
the Meek (late 1920s)—[In the
Beatitudes] the quality of spirit is good because blessedness is essentially
conjoined with that trait of character, with that kind of person. The trait that perhaps most puzzles this
strenuous & militant world is meekness.
[But] the most elemental qualities of true scientific or historical research
are traits of meekness: absence of
bluster and assertiveness, restraint that [sticks to] the facts; patience [and
commitment to report] things as they are. Christ’s meek man is, in the same
way, a person who has calm and absolute confidence in the eternal nature of
things, and in the goodness of the divine Heart; a man like Abraham Lincoln.
The
Plumb-Line (early 1940s)—“I saw God,
the Eternal, holding a plumb-line in his hand.”
[Amos 7:7]. Amos was a product of
the desert, stern, unafraid but with a strange power to feel the eternal behind
the temporal. He told them [in Bethel
A Living
Hope (1942 or later)—The 27th
Psalm is one of the most striking instances of a sudden shift from the highest
faith [“The Lord is my light and my salvation” (v. 1)] to a dark night of the
soul [“. . . put not thy servant away in anger . . . leave me not, neither
forsake me.” (v.9)]. [It began on a high
note (v.1),] then come doubt and agony and he faces the mystery of evil, the
divine silence, the loss of assurance and exultation (v.9). His phrase “I had believed to see the
goodness of God in the land of the living” is significant. The hope of personal
life after death comes [much later than the Psalms] in the OT. The old psalmist
has his finger on the central nerve. Is the universe fundamentally
significant? Has it produced and will it
answer the deepest longings and strivings of human hearts? We can trust [God’s divine bestowal on
us] as the mariner trusts his compass.
The
Challenge of the Closed Door (mid 1940s)—Christ did not say, did not promise, that the door to the things we
most desire is an open door. One of the
first laws of life is: you must seek; you must want and then you must eagerly
and patiently knock. It seems strange
that the things we want most are not furnished ready-made. Apocalypses all take the easy line of
expectation. Everything is to be done
for us with any effort on our part. It
looks to me as though Christ put His blessing on the slow, hard way. The trouble with the Scribes and Pharisees
was that they didn’t have wants; they
had arrived. They were at their easy
goal [and reward]. There is no open door
to our new world order. We must face
that challenge of the closed door.
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129. Nonviolent action: How it works (by George Lakey; 1963)
I--[Jews before Pilate; Quakers facing Puritans in Boston; the French responding to Bismarck’s demands; and civil rights sit-ins are all successful cases of non-violent action. Evidently, non-violent action has some kind of power, even when the action is not very spectacular. This pamphlets task is to discover the how of non-violent action.
I--[Jews before Pilate; Quakers facing Puritans in Boston; the French responding to Bismarck’s demands; and civil rights sit-ins are all successful cases of non-violent action. Evidently, non-violent action has some kind of power, even when the action is not very spectacular. This pamphlets task is to discover the how of non-violent action.
II &
III—[In looking at the opponents in a
campaign, we find that] the opponents react in various ways. Sometimes they change their minds completely;
[sometimes they still disagree and yet bow to the campaigners’ demands. In the 5th century B.C. Rome
In Brazil
IV—[Sometimes the campaigners achieve their aims, even
though their opponents still disagree and could
continue to oppose, but choose not
to]. During the Salt Satyagraha of
1930-31, some Englishmen felt that the Empire was not worth treating the
Gandhians the way the police were forced to treat them. [In the American suffrage movement, public
sentiment went from impartial or slight antagonistic, to offense at the lack of
patriotism, to sympathy for the harsh prison sentences and conditions that the
women endured]. Finally the issue of
suffering became stronger than that of suffrage. The women were using the mechanism called persuasion.
V &VI—It now appears that there are coercion, conversion,
and persuasion mechanisms. [But, why has
the opponent] changed his mind? All
men, no matter how debased they seem, treat their own group members well. In history we see that violent persons do not
regard their opponents as fully human.
E. Franklin Frazier notes that:
“where human relationships
were established between masters and slaves, both slaves and masters were less
likely to engage in barbaric cruelty. It
is easy to be violent against those who are seen as inhuman or non-human.
VII &
VIII—The Puritans believed that the
Quakers [were irreverent and that they were] plotting to burn Boston Boston Boston Boston Boston
IX & X—How
can your theory [of identification by suffering] account for [the extermination
of 6 million Jews]? In non-violent action the figure—[the outstanding
quality] is suffering; the ground—[context]
is the actions of the campaigners
which precede and accompany the suffering. The campaigners show bravery, openness, and
goodwill. The suffering of the Jews was
not voluntary; it built up gradually, and the ground composed of their action (and inaction) caused their
suffering to be seen as non-human.
Suffering so perceived does not have the power to “melt the heart of the
evil-doers.”
Identification
by suffering in a context of goodwill, openness, and bravery, is the process
which persuades and converts. [A change in attitude is necessary to go beyond
persuasion to conversion]. People change attitudes most often when criticism of
their attitude does not imply criticism of them. In the Gandhi-led South
African Satyagraha, Gandhi called off the campaign until a railroad strike was
settled; campaigners must show patience.
XI & XII—[Here are 8 policy implications which derive from the
theory]:
1. Nonviolent action works on such a fundamental level
that cultural differences count for little.
2. What it takes to get through to people will vary,
depending on the campaigner’s ability to be recognized as a human being.
3. [When local people are not with us, we must establish
new bonds of identification with the persons we are trying to reach, perhaps by
self-suffering].
4. A decision should be made before the campaign begins
regarding the mechanisms used. [In some situations coercion is not possible,
because there is no dependency between opponent and campaigner. This leaves persuasion and conversion; some
opponents are persuaded, some are converted].
5. Sitting down on the pavement, paying your fine, and
going home is not usually considered suffering.
6. If image is important then quality of participants is
more important than quantity.
7. Just appearing to be non-violent isn’t enough; drawing
on inner strength to be non-violent
is needed.
8. Does the
campaign have the staying power to get through the antagonism [necessary for relevance] to the sympathy which lies on the other side?
The problem of “how to combat evil without acting like
a devil” will be with us until we better understand how to mobilize the forces
of God, within ourselves and within those who differ with us.
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130.
Poetry among Friends (by Dorothy Gilbert Thorne; 1963)
Friends have rarely been poets in the past. The only name that arises naturally is that
of Whittier
In both Quakerism and poetry the worshiper and the
reader, touched by the power and beauty which gives life, may perceive the likeness
without putting it into words. Dorothy
Mumford Williams writes: “Both the poem
and the wordless prayer derive their shape out of a yearning to experience
perfection.” Quakerism as George Fox and
Thomas Kelly prove is Poetic. The Quaker
poet often finds a poem in the Quaker meeting.
Barbara Hinchcliffe believes that the message of a poem or a meeting
happens in a way neither foreseen nor directed.
Modern poets are also writing about the great Quaker
figures of the past, and although these men are well known through journals and
biographies, the poet can still add that touch of interpretation which makes
the reader realize that the vitality of Fox and Woolman and Nayler is not
spent. Although Sam Bradley’s poem. “The Standing Forth of George Fox,” has some
superficial resemblances to his appearance before the Court of the Star Chamber
in 1660, the poem is built from symbols rather than from the specific
historical occasion.
The reading of the words of James Nayler spoken about
2 hours before his death in 1660 became for Kenneth Boulding an illuminating
spiritual experience; he wrote 26 sonnets inspired by the phrases of James
Nayler. A number of modern Quaker poets are entirely at home within the
sonnet’s narrow bounds, among them E. Merril Root, Gerhard Friedrich, Sam
Bradley, John McCandless, Euell Gibbons, Bruce Cutler, and William B. Evans.
[In the 1950s and early ‘60s, Dorothy Mumford Williams
wrote] a series of poems, collected under the title of John Woolman: Mapmaker—A Meditation on Landmarks on His Journey. She says: “Writing like tailoring requires an
integrity of craftsmanship which comes only in a spirit of prayer and the word
seen with the inner eye takes the same kind of invisibility as the stitch. When a poet tries to get inside another
person’s mind, he may begin to show the effects of another personality in his
style.
Poetry is communication. Sam Bradley wrote: “There are some who say that a public for
poetry no longer exists. To me this is
like saying the spirit no longer creates and sings. No matter how Herculean the poet’s art, he
fails if he does not find understanding hearers . . . Neither poetry nor
religion is what a man does with his solitary self; it is a happy
heaven-and-earth involvement with others.”
Albert Fowler, an accomplished writer, believes that a poem is no better
than its best reader.
[The following queries by Barbara Hinchcliffe address
the general attitude among Friends towards the arts]: Do
Friends have a concern to seek out and mature the flame of creativity that
burns in all? Do we provide an
atmosphere in our Meetings for Worship, and in our schools which helps us to
discover our creative abilities, discipline them, and exercise them to the
fullest power God has given us? By our
own work is a vision of the Truth advanced among us, and let to shine before
all so they may be led to a clearer knowledge of their Father?
The Quaker poet believes in the disciplines of thought
and form. He knows how to keep technique
under his feet; he is apt to achieve his individuality of expression with the
more conventional verse forms or by skillful adaptation; he values his
sincerity and the integrity of his thought and there is, in his work, a sense
of the eternal goodness of life. For
them the writing of poetry is a way of life and a sounding joy.
In the period when art and literature and music were
avoided, Quakers produced a number of fine naturalists. The art of the poet is just as satisfying as
the skill of the naturalist. Nature
poetry is rarely objective. The poet looks on nature and what he sees revealed
is his own thought. Much of the nature
poetry written by Friends opens with a perception in nature which leads into
the moment of insight, [writing a poem of both nature and religion]. The Quaker poets’ descriptions of person are
also often filled with insight.
At the very center of Quakerism there is a place of
utter quietness where spirit with spirit can meet. Poems which speak from that center are a
benediction on the troubled spirit.
Winifred Rawlins says:
“All things that are speak
with a tender voice./ Life speaks to life, existence speaks to being;/ Only our ears are closed, our
eye too dim/ For this compassionate seeing.
The poet brings her guest bowls of beauty and quiet to
renew the spirit’s life, honors his humanness to give him fortitude, with him
discovers first hidden beauties and forces of the earth and then “the shadow of
joy at midnight and intimation of cosmic bliss which enfolds both men
and the stars.”
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133. The Eclipse of the Historical Jesus: Haverford College Library Lectures, April, 1963 (by Henry J. Cadbury; ‘64)
Foreword—[This is from 2 Haverford College Library Lectures in
April of 1963]. It was intended to
provide an untechnical audience with an untechnical account of recent currents
and counter-currents in the studies [centering around the “theological” and
“historical” Jesus]. 50 years ago on
this campus a group of students approached me and said: “We believe something of importance happened
in Palestine
Albert
Schweitzer’s Quest and After—[Over] 50
years ago [1906], a young Alsatian theological student [named Albert
Schweitzer] wrote The Quest for the
Historical Jesus. He later became a
medical missionary for 50 years at Lambarene in Equatorial Africa. The term “historical Jesus” is not a new or
unique one. What any man was actually
like may be obscured in several ways. 1st,
there is sheer lack of data. There is
almost no record of Jesus outside our 4 gospels; 3 overlap to such an extent as
to reduce their contents by half.
2nd, A historical person may become obscured
by the growth of unhistorical data about him. 3rd, an almost unique
disturbing fact has been at work. He has
been believed to have become alive again and to be alive. [In the case of the fusion of a human being
with a supernatural figure, the historian wishes to separate out at least
temporarily the 2 elements fused in Jesus in the interest of doing justice to
each. A suitable terminology is hard to
come by. The single words “Jesus” and “Christ”
are often used [to distinguish the 2 elements].
Schweitzer’s Quest
was a laborious, brilliant review of efforts [from 1778-1902, spanning
historical, aesthetic, literary, scientific, and philosophical approaches] to
write the life or interpret Jesus’ career and recover even his
self-consciousness. Schweitzer says: “The world had never seen before, and will
never see again, a struggle for truth so full of . . . renunciation as that of
which Jesus’ lives of the last 100 years contain the cryptic record.”
4 generalizations will be useful as we follow on from
Schweitzer’s time to our own day. 1st,
the quest has been marked by a progression from one phase to another,
[following] one another by an unconscious logic. 2nd, habits of thought in other
fields both religious and secular affected the approach. 3rd, each scholar who attempts a
solution brings to the subject his own presuppositions or those of his
background or environment.
It should not be supposed that Schweitzer escaped this
danger entirely. [After admitting that Jesus was mistaken about his
expectation about the Kingdom of God’s imminent advent, Schweitzer departs from
his own logic and] summons the reader to an orthodox type of Christian loyalty
in his conclusion. 4th, men have started out with the [desire to
recover a Jesus that would have greater meaning in today’s world]. This adds a
motive other than pure historical inquiry. This kind of interest has
intensified rather than relieved the eclipse we are talking about.
[Schweitzer’s life after the Quest includes 50 years as medical missionary in Africa ,
and concerns for ethics, civilization, and even for the world problem of a
suicidal cold war]. His views on the
historical Jesus are said to have changed, but there has been little published by
him on them. [Like an audit that
reveals] bankruptcy his book merely reports a condition of affairs for which he
was not responsible. [Theological viewpoints like “realized eschatology” were
used to explain away Jesus’ “mistake.” [American scholars began another phase
known as “the social gospel,” which pictured Jesus as] a humanitarian and
reformer, prophet of an ideal social order.
In Germany
More important & durable & more widely
accepted even until today was the development of “Form Criticism.” [By
isolating] the uses to which the community put [the material] in its oral
stage, it hopes to recover Jesus’ original acts & sayings. Form criticism
concluded that the separate units even within a single gospel had had
independent transmission & use. Hence there are what I have called “Mixed
Motives in the Gospels,” which makes identifying & isolating early
Christian alteration of primitive memory extremely difficult. Form criticism
hoped to recover the historical Jesus by identifying the early church’s interests.
[Instead of finding the historical layer we are looking for, we created another
one. By allowing for it, we hope to arrive at what we are looking for.
Influences
of Recent Theology—[Form criticism
transferred interest from the Jesus of history to the Jesus in early Christian
thought]. What the early Church thought of Jesus is a matter of evaluation and
interpretation; its concern was increasingly less historical. Even if the central figure in theology and
history is the same, they become in a sense rivals for intellectual
attention. As long as the Jesus of
history was the goal, the pursuit was only unconsciously affected by the
considerations used in theology. [Whether rejecting Jesus’ existence or
constructing a social gospel, scholars welcomed what seemed to be an objective
discovery as beneficial for the modern world.
Theology, however, thinks the historical determination
of Jesus’ own existence or character is relatively unimportant. The Jesus of theology begins at the point in
time where the Jesus of history leaves off.
The theological approach has an independent appeal, and it tends to
overshadow the other interests. The
purely literary study of the gospels emphasized the interpretive role of the
early Church in attempting to distinguish primitive Christianity from Jesus
himself. Form criticism rightly
recognized that the units of material had had each a separate history so that
they were detached from any possible reconstruction of chronological
order. In all 4 gospels there is a large
proportion of interpretation as compared with sheer history.
The primitive message [or kerygma] about Jesus was thus understood to have eclipsed Jesus’
life & teaching. [Isolating] the early Church’s message [only helps us if
taking it out] leaves us with a purer residue in which to find Jesus himself.
The interest in kerygma was
contemporary with a significant early stage of the ecumenical movement. The kerygma could provide a common basis for
the modern sects in Christendom. What
was Jesus thinking? What Jesus did & said are indeed reported; for what
he thought one can only read between the lines.
There has also been an increasing interest in recent
years in what is called biblical theology.
In biblical theology, the Bible is not treated as having theologies; it is not treated as
development in the human sense, but as sharing a single viewpoint [in OT and
NT], that of “salvation history.” It
excludes any books not considered canonical. Bending primitive theology to meet
our present needs or adjusting ourselves [to what the Early Church Early Church
Theology is a dramatic representation intended to
describe religious experience, a narrative play. The subject matter may be the supposed
predicament of the human beings and the imagined intervention of the
supernatural beings. Humankind’s
predicament is one of being in danger of disaster; they are offenders in the
sight of God. Much of the ideological
background is inherited from the OT thought, to which Judaism added angels late
in its development, while demons were a very real feature of contemporary
Gentile mythology or psychology. What did the inclusion of a historical
character mean for the drama? What did it mean for the historical understanding
of Jesus? God intervened in events
in history, but Jesus was a more significant embodiment of that
intervention. Tying the drama to a
historical figure prevented it from becoming complete mythology.
Already in the earliest Christianity theology showed a
tendency to use [a kind of historical fiction].
It wanted to have whatever advantage history could give its drama but
did not [worry much about] actual historical details. Modern biblical theology shows a continuation
of the desire to enjoy the assets of historical anchorage without too much
concern for [finding the actual Jesus]. [Even
for Paul] Jesus is a partly a superhistorical figure.
So in the whole early Christian kerygma, the dramatic rather overshadows the historical. Christianity has often felt it necessary to
reassert the historicity of Jesus, his human actuality. The features of creeds and the human element
in the Synoptic Gospels appear to be a reaction against extreme
mythologizing. The Christological
discussions of subsequent centuries were not based on historical evidence but
on philosophical deductions for the mere premise of the incarnation.
Theology tends to deflect attention from the quest of
the historical Jesus; theologians regard their own approach as more important. They claim that the Jesus of history has
never been central in Christianity. [It
is more important that Jesus Christ confronts us in the kerygma than that we go back to the historical Jesus]. Yet the historians are not prepared to
surrender their position; it remains for them a respectable interest. A Christ who is merely a figure of history is
not more useless than is a figure in the imaginative drama of theology unless
that can be updated. For Quakers the
Christ was not a phenomenon of Jesus’ lifetime only. The Light of Christ had been at work in Jews
and even pagans before ever Jesus was born.
Biblical theology itself admits that without
interpretation it is unsuited to present needs. Why, if we understand what are our problems today, should we bother to
connect them with so arbitrary and fanciful a structure as traditional
theology? One suspects [that
adherence to biblical theology is] a carryover from typical Protestant emphasis
on the authority of the Bible and even from the dogmatic formulation of the
creeds. For modern use theology needs to
be purged of myth. Some persons fear
that theology will demythologize and dehistoricize the whole structure of
orthodox theology. [Both] the actual
denial of Jesus’ historic existence and extreme revamping of redemption history
obscures the Jesus of history.
The present debate is being shared
internationally. And there is change
taking place. [The theologians Barth,
Heidegger, and Bultmann have shifted their theological positions from what they
once were]. The biblical theologians
are reluctant to associate the kerygma of the church with the historical Jesus,
except as result and cause. The earliest
appraisal by Christians may have differed from what Jesus seemed like to
himself, or from what we would have found significant. The historian should strive to be more
objective in spite of the difficulty of being so. There is tension between two camps, but the
tension may not be unprofitable. I am
not unprepared to live with this tension, nor hopeless about the future course
of inquiry and analysis.
I find the
quest of the historical Jesus a challenge to curiosity and also to integrity as
a historian. I give it as my judgment
that Jesus was a historical character.
The probability of his existence does not make probable all the gospels
record, nor does the improbability of some features throw doubt on his
existence. [The views presented in the
Bible on the end of this age] probably goes back to him. His ethical interest with his somewhat
radical insistence on it is I think another historical feature in the oldest
gospels. The area of most obscurity is
the self-awareness of Jesus. His
apparent sense of authority may not have been a prominent element in an
otherwise extrovert personality. But
after all I must admit how much we cannot know.
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134. From convincement to conversion (by Martin Cobin; 1964)
1—I grew up in a Jewish home. I tell you this so you may understand a
little better how I approach Christianity and Jesus quite differently from
most of you. I do not urge you to accept
it—merely to try to understand it. I had
a Moslem friend who told me he respected Jesus as a great prophet, but that
Jesus set goals so high they were beyond the reach of frail human beings. For me, the power, the hold, the intensity,
the meaning, the real impact of Jesus’ death on the cross grows out of and is
entirely dependent on my under-standing of Jesus as a man, as a human
being. I urge you to dwell on the
concept that it was “as a man” that Jesus gave himself up to the cross and died
on the cross. The value of the example
is in the awareness it gives you of your capacity, of your strength. The message of the cross is that if we frail
human beings will devote ourselves to God, we will find the desire and the strength
to take upon ourselves the sufferings of others, [and in doing so], find joy
and piece.
2—Why is a
prophet without honor in his own country?
We like to glamorize our
prophets; we like to make them [statues on pedestals]. That’s difficult to achieve when you see your
prophet up close. My human frailties are
all too obvious. [But] the way has been
opened for me to have rich and moving experiences and certain insights. There is a measure of God’s work in what I
bring you, so there will be something worth taking.
We speak of birthright Friends and convinced Friends,
but I don’t like the word “convinced”—it’s too intellectual. I would submit that some of our Monthly
Meetings throughout the country suffer from being too full of Friends who are
merely convinced, which is good, but not enough by itself. After Rufus Jones remarked in meeting: “I’ve been thinking this morning . . ., he
was admonished: “Rufus, during meeting
for worship thou shouldst not have been thinking.”
What do I
want beyond birthright and convincement?
I also want conversion. I was converted by my wife—and not by
anything she ever said, particularly, [but by the relationship itself]. This is conversion—when you come in touch
with God, not as a freak accident, but as an experience you can keep
repeating. We recognize that the
interaction between people provides one of the most fruitful areas for coming
into contact with God. When we get
converted, we don’t all become saints; most of us simply have to make do as
best we can.
3—In situations of tension converts take the pattern of
our spiritually centered living into the situation. There people who become entwined with us necessarily
become entwined with that-of-God in us; they discover that-of-God within
themselves. It is best to go into such
situations with a conviction armed with conversion.
[It can be cultivated by joining in meeting for
worship; being surrounded by like-minded people helps] you get in the mood,
center down. When you’ve learned how to worship, then go to your own personal
silence. Meeting for worship will
become a place to practice, perhaps later a source of irritation, &
eventually a joyous experience where it’s easier to feel at one with the
universe because there’s a greater sense of the universe’s immediacy.
4—Next you’ll go to meeting for business. Here we learn how to bring to the conduct of
business, & the resolution of conflicts, the habit of living in the
conscious presence of God. Friends of all ages need the training provided by a
good meeting for business, [so as to learn to apply spiritual values to
everyday life]. [The good habits you learn in business meeting will serve you well
as you apply them to situations of tensions where people are not aware of]
trying to do God’s work. Put aside your importance, your decision, your
action. When we can bring awareness of a larger totality into daily living, it
becomes difficult for us to be disturbed. You use the life of the Meeting to
help you to this awareness, [and eventually] applying it to everyday situations
wherever you are.
5—Meditate in the morning on the totality of the
universe and then go to work. You’ll do what you can, what you’re led to—what
you can move into without leaving God behind. You can move properly in
situations of great tension and conflict if you are led to it and you have
grown into it. I came to an awareness of the personal value of the vigil. I
realized that I had grown in my ability to live in consciousness of the
presence of God. If a peace vigil helped
me achieve that growth, it was good for me; if it taught me bitterness or
self-esteem, that would be bad.
6—The application of the Quaker way of life to
situations of tension lies in the ability of Friends to move into such
situations without altering their lives, without losing the capacity for love
and calm and [confidence in] the power of God.
When our talents are those best suited to meeting the needs of men at a
particular point in their development, then we will offer leadership; at other
times we will not be greatly influential.
Let us move as quickly as we can, as slowly as we must. I see no calamity in those who find the
Meeting no longer provides the necessary nourishment and who come to turn
elsewhere for it. What will happen if the entire Society of Friends embrace [a rushed
response (which is out of character)] to the imminent danger of nuclear
destruction, and we meet with large-scale nuclear destruction [anyway]? [Whether or not it comes] the world will
have need of us; [if nothing else, we can leave our influence behind].
7—Why did
Judas betray Jesus? I think he [expected] that Jesus, backed far enough
into the corner, would rise in anger.
[He judged Jesus by his own personal standards], and felt that no man
could sacrifice himself for other men.
Many people today cannot believe deep down within themselves that the real Jesus is anything more than a
legend. These people need faith in their
own potential as human being. They will
come to it only by finding in their midst people who demonstrate man’s capacity
for Godliness. While all good comes from
God, men help each other to partake of that gift. For such help we must be grateful to one
another. O Friends, I thank you for the
silent prayer, that places us in one another’s care.
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137. Revelation and Experience (by Carol R. Murphy;
1964)
[Mysticism]—George Fox sought for one who could “speak to his
condition.” For many of us today old
symbols have lost their vitality, [and we have need of] religion relevant to this condition. The older theology, which began so
confidently in heaven rather than on earth, no longer carries conviction. If one turns to experience for a religious
answer, he may ask: What experience should I choose?
How should I interpret it? And
since religious assertions cannot be tested in the laboratory, do they have any meaning at all? Another way of relating religion to
experience is a commitment to what is seen as revelatory of the meaning of all
experience.
The glowing account of mystical experience seems to
point a way to another and better condition.
Religious mystics seem united through the accounts of a beautiful
Reality, but mystical consciousness is not attainable by everybody, and there
are spiritual dangers to the seeking of experience for its own sake; it is
better to take experience as it comes.
The poet and artist who deal in words and concrete images, must find
another path than the purely mystical. [God
seems most often to be absent, so] one must live as though seeing that which is invisible. It is the very ambiguity of the human
condition that demands the answer of faith.
Religion and theology must begin with this ambiguity and give it
meaning.
[Scientific
Empiricism]—There are many
philosophers today who assert that [many beliefs] must retreat into the
untestable. Modern empirical philosophy
pronounces anathema upon every theory that pretends to wriggle out of adverse
facts [e.g. Phlogistonists revising their theory so that Phlogiston had negative weight in the face of
experiments disproving its existence].
By the same token, scientists outlaw religion, saying: “Positing the existence of God doesn’t make
any practical difference to you or me.”
t must be asked whether science is so rigorously empirical
as is claimed. The great postulates of
science are themselves non-empirical foundations, [that are not provable]. The
body of scientific theory acts as a filter to further experience [by excluding
anything thought to be impossible]. The
body of science is built on a series of commitments made by scientists, who
create, & not merely discover, the web of scientific explanation. Something
like a conversion [to a newly rebuilt structure] is required of the orthodox
scientist before the new can be accepted.
The
Religious Commitment—Science then
works through a perceptual framework which is brought to experience, not merely
found there. In the case of religion,
the sense of the holy can be found in any experience; but no one kind of
experience is necessarily religious, even the mystical. It is
important that religious significance not confined so narrowly to one type of
experience that it cannot comprehend other types. The religious system must be able to
comprehend all facts, no matter how awkward and doubt-inspiring.
[The difference between the allegorist and the imagist
is that] the allegorist thinks first of the general principle, then finds a
concrete illustration of it, while the imagist begins with the concrete symbol
in which he discovers the larger meaning.
The Biblical assertion that man is made in the image of God is the
poetical statement of an imagist vision.
The religious vision must be disciplined by the tension between the
Affirmative [seeing God in images] and the Negative [seeing God as greater than
finite things]. It might be said that
piety reminds us that everything is sacred, and humor reminds us that nothing
is sacred. Christian theology, truly seen,
is the highest poetry, full of illuminating images and brilliant paradoxes.
The Language
of Analogy—All thinking is based on
the use of analogy, which is the use of likeness or partial identity to
explore reality. Creative metaphor is a
way of making the familiar seem strange, jolting the mind out of its customary
ruts into new ways of grasping the given problem. From the Negative point of
view, our analogies are based on finite qualities which have no counterpart in
God, [leaving God distant from us]. The Affirmative way can correct this by
conceiving the analogies to run in the other direction—from God to man, [bring
God closer]. The Bible is a record of humankind’s experience of the holy that
boldly begins with God. Revelation is the experience of receiving and
recognizing a symbolic event, [like the Jewish people did in the Bible]. It is only when read as great poetry and not
as a literal recital of facts, that the Biblical vision comes through to grasp
us.
The Analogy
of Personality—At one point the
vision of man as the image of God is turned into an allegory applied to man’s
Maker. The religious thinker who
pictures the Ultimate as responsive, active and aware as persons are, can
believe that his model will continue to have a use in new ranges of his
experience. This concept is so subtle
and advanced that we have hardly devised a language adequate for its
expression.
An impersonal religion tends to become an aesthetic
plaything; a personal religion demands the dedication of the whole self to a
personal, responsible relationship.
Persons are developed in response to each other, that the self becomes
an “I” only when addressed as “Thou” in dialogue. In a true, religious community, there is the
experience of the oneness and of the many, each enriching the other. Once another person enters the room, the
ethical question arises: How shall I treat them? Are they as important to me as I am to
myself?
To regard anything honestly as a thou means to value it intensely for its own sake, & to accept
an interchange of roles with it. Making
the other real involves besides a recognition of otherness, a kind of presence
in the other. Where love is present, duty is swallowed up in joy; where love is
imperfect, a sense of justice supplies a will to extend to the other the same
respect one feels is due to one’s self. The prevailing Oriental ethic is one of
tradition pertaining to caste or family systems; Taoism or Zen Buddhism is
needed as non-ethical supplements.
[While this ethic is used in small doses] as a stimulant to Western
seekers, it is not wise to use a full dosage of their medicine. The world of individuality is the world of time and history; [the mystic sees the eternal now, the individual sees
past, present and future responsibility].
Personality extends along the historical dimension, and is imperceptible
on the dimension of the eternal now.
Trust—The first and major problem that revelation must
overcome is the problem of trust. Nothing a person does necessarily proves him
trustworthy. Everything seems sinister
to one who resolves to mistrust.
Religions have been built on our fear of the Ultimate and hope of
propitiating it. Even some Christian
churches institutionalize fear, not remove it, where they teach a “Christian
religion and not the Christian faith.
Revelation must also surmount the problem of
evil. It is precisely the fact that we
are ambivalent towards reality that makes the ambiguity of reality a
problem. We must be reconciled to God by
God; God is not angry, we are. God becoming
one with Job is the most profound and only adequate answer to the problem of
evil. It is hard to know who has done
more damage to the Christian faith—the skeptic who queries how God can suffer,
or the apologist who tries to answer this query in the terms in which it was
raised.
How does God
act in this ambiguous world? It is in terms of a personal relationship—that of
healer to the sick. As the healing power
of nature works in the body, so the Holy Spirit is at work in man, and the
beloved community is at work in the world.
The Healer sheds the glory of God upon every healing encounter between 2
persons. [As one psychotherapy patient
said], “I then began to see, though not very clearly, that your love did not
control me and I could not control it [i.e. he trusted].
Finally, and most acutely, life’s ambiguity challenges
our trust at death’s gates. The anxiety aroused by this threat to our meaning
persists behind the purely instinctual panic in the face of death which we
share with animals. Resurrection does justice to our growing awareness of the
unity of the mind-body organism, and it combines respect for the worth and
reality of incarnate existence and acknowledges a transcendent, spiritual
nature. Lastly, resurrection implies a
dynamic continuity as contrasted to static preservation. There is always spring
& re-birth. We are asked to recognize eternal goodness in a new
transformation, & to trust that we will partake therein.
Revelation
Incarnate—We are ambivalent men in an
ambiguous world which does not interpret itself automatically. We need an initiative from the creator of our
world to tell us what the creator means by it.
In a time when Zen Buddhism and philosophies of the “absurd” are
popular, adventurous minds can again be challenged by Christianity. Many who have grown up in Christianity have
felt a need to emancipate themselves from the tradition. Today, the Christian revelation may regain
its fresh, even subversive power over our spirits, just as it did for George
Fox. Dare we now trust this revelatory image?
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138. An Apology for Perfection (by Cecil E. Hinshaw; 1964)
A religious movement, doubly viewed
through lenses of a past age and the present scene, offers a truer insight into
a religious faith’s meaning than can be obtained without such perspectives.
Every religious movement is a response to [& an attempt to withstand] the
problems & questions that men struggle with at a certain time in history. Conflicts
of thought that marked the differences of Quakerism, Calvinism, &
materialism are repeated today.
Seed Bed of Quakerism—Our world is so different in many ways from England
Then as now, there was a religious
vacuum, with numerous sects trying to fill that vacuum; there was and is
restlessness and disquiet, hope and longing.
[The New Calvinism wants us to understand, as the Old Calvinism did],
that any attempt [or any belief in the ability] to avoid sin involves us in the
worse sin of pride. The way to salvation
appears to be the same. This salvation,
as for the Calvinists of the 1600s, is a relationship that means acceptance of
us by God in spite of our sin.
In contrast, an Episcopal Bishop said,
“This is the catechism of the ignorant and the profane.” A similar view of hopelessness about human
nature and about our world [existed in both periods]. Enjoyment of what is at hand for the time
available is a normal and natural attitude when hopelessness about the future
and the world dominates our thoughts. It
is reasonable to conclude that the basic religious problems now are the same as
they were then.
Mysticism, Quakerism, Ethical Purity,
and Spiritual Power—For George
Fox, only the term “perfection” was adequate to describe the life [of ethical
purity] he sought and believed he achieved. The ethical purity concept may seem
to conflict with the mystical religion concept. There is a mysticism in which
union with God is the final goal of religious endeavor. This type of mysticism
sees the ethical struggle as a means to union with God rather than as an end in
itself; [St. Theresa, Fenelon, and Guyon, fit into this mysticism]. Another
type of mysticism re-verses the emphasis. Holy obedience and ethical perfection
are seen as the goal; [mysticism provides the means]. St. Francis used this emphasis. The same
person in different periods of one’s development may represent both em-phases. Quaker
mysticism has been closer to Protestant pietistic groups (Mennonites, Brethren,
and Moravians).
The functional type of mysticism,
centered on the struggle for ethical purity, is evident in the spiritual pilgrimage
of George Fox. [A specific event on “the 9th day of the 12th
month, 1643,” highlighted the lack of moral integrity in his friends, and was a
watershed in his spiritual development. He was admonished] to accept and live
with human frailties, to give up the search for perfection. This Fox could not
do, and the result was despair and hopelessness for a period of some months. He
came to understand that temptation was normal, for Jesus had been tempted. At
the climax of his conversion experience, Fox heard the words “There is one,
even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.” Mysticism was, for Fox, a
practical, utilitarian, divine power that supplemented his own will in the
struggle against sin. He wrote: “They who are in Christ, the 2nd
Adam, are in perfection, and in that which . . . makes free from sin . . . thou
that deny perfection, has denied the ministers of Christ’s work.
The Content of “Truth”; The Work of the
Light Within —A question
once used in some Monthly Meetings was: Is the Truth prospering among Friends? The content of Fox’s truth was
perfection, and a holy and sinless life.
He was imprisoned for a year for claiming that “Christ, my Savior, has
taken away my sin; and in him there is no sin.”
Such a claim of purity can easily be misunderstood as a pretension of
divinity, which was punishable as blasphemy.
George said: “If your faith be
true, it will give you victory over sin and the devil, purify your hearts and
consciences, and bring you to please God and give you access to God again. .
. There is a time for people to see that
they have sinned, and a time for them to confess their sin, and to forsake it,
and to know the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin . . . Of all the sects in Christendom, I found none
that could bear to be told, that any should come to Adam’s perfection before he
fell; to be clear and pure without sin as he was.”
The 1st function of the
“light within” on the soul of one who is receptive is to show the nature of
evil [and bring awareness of sin]. The 2nd function is the
illumination of the content of the perfect life, to know how one ought to live.
The 3rd function of “light within” is to provide the power to live
according the divine standard. A 4th function was to bring all true
seekers together into unity on their understanding of the content of the
perfect life.
Quaker Testimonies—Standards of Purity—A consideration of Quaker testimonies shows more
evidence that Quakerism historically has been essentially an ethical
struggle. [While not obeying the command
to kill men] is a valid reason for our position, that is a modern emphasis and
is not found to any significant degree in early Quaker thought. It was the violence, the hate, the
selfishness in fighting that bothered them.
Fox was perhaps more concerned with what violence did to the one who
used it, [the spiritual loss involved, than he was about the victims]. The origin of the testimony was in the
ethical struggle for lives without conscious sins. [The reason for not honoring men with titles
and removing hats] was their conviction that the desire to honor men arose from
the selfish motive to flatter others for personal gain and to be flattered in
return.
Pitfalls for Quakers—The essential differences between Ranters and Quakers
were: Ranters carried mysticism to a
pantheistic conclusion; Ranters did not practice the Quakers’ stern discipline.
William Penn writes: “For they
interpreted Christ’s fulfilling of the law for us, to be a discharging of us
from any obligation and duty the law required, instead of condemnation of the
law for sins past. . . that now it was no sin to do [what was sin before].
One of the reasons for the continued
vitality of Quakerism has been its ability to transcend its beginnings. The larger truths implicit in their early
stand gradually became evident to them as the years passed. One of the more important limitations of
early Quakerism is to be found in its view of human nature. There were important gaps in their knowledge,
especially where the struggle for ethical perfection involved them in strains
and stresses beyond the capacity of the human mind and spirit. [We should not] say that expression of emotions
is necessarily desirable, but purity is not to be attained by denying what
exists in us, [or by taking on] more stress than we can deal with
constructively. Barclay (“perfection
proportional and answerable to man’s measure”) and Pennington (“. . . a state
of perfection does not exclude degrees.”) both emphasize that the growth in
perfection was necessary and possible as a person lived up to that measure of
light he had received.
[With this lofty goal came the danger of
pride when Quakers thought they had achieved perfection]. In fields like economics and politics,
[Quaker perfectionism] led them into mistakes.
A country is often better off with an impure but experienced and wise
leader than with a foolish saint.
Helping other countries necessarily involves extraordinarily complex
problems, often not understood by well-intentioned people who are concentrating
on the purity of their desire to help needy people with a loving spirit.
[Quaker Ideals in Human Society]—No perfection of deed is possible in human society
where actions & decisions involve millions of people. The greater danger
is in refusing to recognize the real nature of man & the society in which
he lives. But the fact remains, as it does in any similar survey of early
Christianity, that Quakerism in its early years accomplished moral miracles.
While other more sophisticated & worldly-wise people stood on the
sidelines, the rash daring & unquestioning idealism of the Friends built a
tradition of service to humankind still honored today. Their successes far
outweighed their failures & went beyond their theories & theology.
An important & basic contribution
that Quakerism makes today is a witness to experiencing immediate knowledge of
God. The divine life operating in humankind is the reason for our hope that the
world, pregnant with meaning & value, can be viewed without despair. Those
who have never had such knowledge, even those who question their existence, can
still know God in human experiences. The certainty of God’s presence among Quakers
has been a quiet one without emotional assurance or visions. The more sensitive
we become, the more life becomes a testimony to God’s presence sustaining the
world of God’s creation. In our despairing & materialistic world, there are
oases of hope & succor to those who can understand & know that God
lives & works with them.
A 2nd contribution is a
restatement of Quaker faith that human nature has potential for goodness far
beyond the evidence our world produces today. [But the very real tragedies,
poverty, racism, and religious pride that we choose to see and treat honestly]
must condition and affect whatever we think about human nature. Without
denying the evil that is in man, we remember the evidence of man’s ability to
share. We know by faith and experience that we are God’s children and our
destiny is the beloved community. We have our choice of having this faith,
believing and living as though it were true, or of living on the assumption
that human nature is basically evil.
A Religion of Integrity—A 3rd function of Quakerism is in the
search for integrity. Not merely honesty
in our relations with other people, but honesty with ourselves and honesty with
God in all of life. Failure of reform
has as much to do with the low standards of morality among business and
government that deal with corruption as the corruption itself. [Dishonesty is now often cloaked in
respectability and acceptance]. The
roots of deceit are deep in our society, imbedded in our methods of business
and advertising. [The increasing]
“preaching up of sin,” as early Quakers would call it, is the natural
accompaniment of the growing acceptance of immorality.
The time will come when society will be
ready for the prophetic word & exemplary deed pointing to a higher standard
of integrity, when more & more people “hunger and thirst after
righteousness.” [The high esteem in which Quakerism is held] may be evidence of
this hunger & need. We may lack vision of the future & confidence in
our destiny, but nothing can take away the integrity with which we face even
apparent meaninglessness. The fact that the people who will be drawn to us by
this testimony of integrity will be a widely varied & curiously assorted
group should neither surprise nor dismay us, for it is inevitable that any
vital new movement will evidence such [diversity] in its adherents. Words &
profession are of little importance & sometimes more of a liability than an
asset. The reality of a life that refuses to accept & sanctify known evil
is the important & essential issue.
The Needs [and Call] of Modern
Quakerism—Any significant human
endeavor requires the acceptance and practice of a discipline. It is in the practice of “holy obedience,” as
contrasted with theories, where we are inevitably tested. Contrary to the usual assumption of the
modern person, every act and every decision has some relation to morality. And those who attempt to attain the heights
of moral achievement need to climb with other pilgrims rather than try to scale
the peaks alone. We gain enormously in
help and encouragement from a close association with those who are sharing with
us in the most difficult search one ever attempts.
For reasons perhaps beyond our
knowledge, the divine power is most often and fully revealed to the waiting,
prepared, and expectant group. Coming
together once a week for worship is hardly a sufficient basis upon which to
build this life together and with God.
[We need to be creative in finding] ways to study together as well as
worship together. Without believing that
ultimate goals will be realized in human society, we can believe that God’s
power works, in cooperation with the efforts of all, to the proximate
realization of specific goals [e.g. the end of segregation and international
warfare]. This confidence must be
related to a conviction that God calls us to specific tasks meaningful in our
time. We must believe that God works now
with us to the realization of [what is best for society]. Our times require the accomplishment of goals
beyond our human strength. God’s
cooperation with us can make them possible.
We dare to believe we are called now to divine-human cooperation in
realizing the dreams which poets and prophets have pictured.
142. Dear Gift of Life (by Bradford Smith (born 1909, died 1964); 1965)
Foreword [by
Mark Van Doren]—No thoughtful reader
of this pamphlet will ever again look at the world in quite the same way,
ignore it, or take things for granted. Bradford
Smith prepared himself to live the final months of his life so that no joyful
secret of existence should be missed. Eternity
did not mean for him endless death; it meant endless life. In his Journal, in articles to be printed, and
in poems he sent to his friends he gave testimony of which the following
excerpts are representative, testimonies to the “dear gift of life.” He seems to have told himself daily that he
was seeing the world for the last time—and by some miracle, the first; it
always overwhelmed him by its freshness. Time brought the sun up, but eternity left it
hanging. God and the world was thought
of by Bradford as his discovery, which he wanted with all his heart
to share with us.
This Then—The discovery that you have cancer is also the
discovery that you are going to die. Not
necessarily from this cancer; [you may die in other ways]. The message now
comes home. You are led to meditation, even if you have not been much given to
it before. In the state of half-departed anesthesia [you gain insights] and
know more clearly what you want to do with the rest of your life. . . No one
has reached maturity until he has learned to face one’s own death and shaped
one’s way of living accordingly. Once we accept that we will disappear, we
discover the larger self which relates to [the human race in ever-widening
circles starting with family].
I found that human contacts grow warm, they glow, when
you are in trouble. I also found myself full of an overflowing sense of oneness
with all of life, whose givenness is that it must struggle to be born, to live,
and then surely die. [When Marian Andersen sang “He’s got the whole world in
his hands,” the words, so nobly simple expressed the whole drama of what I had
been feeling; [this relatedness surely binds us to the present and
future]. Once we have faced the
inescapable fact of our own death, we need never fear it, but turn and live
life to the hilt.
The Fun of
Living—Why don’t we speak more of the fun of living? Most of the
things I do are fun. Once you have faced the fact that you are mortal, eternity
is bent within the arc of personal experience. Each morning is new now. The
growing light is an omen, and a good one. Mornings are too precious to take for
granted. I must taste them, and everything, both for the first time and the
last. And so should we do always. Life is a gift so precious that we would
accept it on any terms rather than never to have had it. We get life [knowing]
that it conforms to universal laws. We
cannot know in advance how the law will work out for us; we know we are under
its wing.
A
Roll of Film
Snip, snap, 20 exposures on a roll, Take pictures of my love, of growing old,
At 80₵ a bargain, and color too. of all the tender care of you I had in
Sky and sea and leaf and loam, mind, of spring and all the seasons
Blue and blue and green and brown, we walked through together and
Colors that have no names would walk again, of places far and
And names that have no color: near, of youth both far yet near as
Mine, Smith. Unless gold. forever, of books, house, bed,
And names that have no color: near, of youth both far yet near as
Mine, Smith. Unless gold. forever, of books, house, bed,
night, dawn.
Snip, snap, film unrolls, unrolls like life, Take all, take all. To keep. For you
Snip, snap, film unrolls, unrolls like life, Take all, take all. To keep. For you
like days going by, must keep them now. I shall go
Pictures for memory, for grandchildren, searching them in what new place
their warm love too young to last, and way I do not know, yet always
Pictures for memory, for grandchildren, searching them in what new place
their warm love too young to last, and way I do not know, yet always
even in pictures. here with you, with pictures or
Snip, snap: another gold begins to glow without, while you live our 2 lives
in skin long used to white. joined in some deeper,
But nothing gold can stay; different way.
tomorrow is another day Live for me—live all I lack the time for:
Snip, snap: will it be 15, 16 before the Live double and live deep, my love.
thread snaps? And finish the roll in joy, nor be afraid:
thread snaps? And finish the roll in joy, nor be afraid:
Not
Fear—Acceptance—When I knew that I
had cancer, I made up my mind that I wanted people to know the facts, to know
that I knew, and that I could accept it.
This led to an outpouring of friendliness, even from strangers. I wanted my behavior to be accepted as the
proper norm for one who knows his number is up.
If we cannot speak freely of death, we cannot really speak freely of
life.
We usually refuse to face it for ourselves until
something forces us to. Then, strangely,
the response is not fear any longer, but acceptance, even contentment. One can stop forcing one’s self to
achieve. Thus death opens the door to
life, to life renewed and re-experienced as a child experiences it, with the dew
still on it. Suddenly one senses that
his life is not just his own little individual existence, but that he is bound
in fact to all of life. Once given the
vision of one’s true place in the life stream, death is no longer complete or
final, but an incident. Since life carries death with it like a
seed, and since this is normal, what is there to fear? Death is a promise rather than a
threat. We are not imprisoned by death,
but freed . . . I will not deny that
darker fantasies of despair tried to encroach upon my meditation. But the light is too bright for them. If my life turns out to have been shortened
by this disease, I know that it has also been deepened. The veil is lifted and I am not afraid of
what I see.
Branched and
Leafed—[Before] the valley of death
comes the valley of life. Have I walked it with my eyes open, my lung
full of its bracing air? There is no
valley without hills. I have climbed
them and will climb again. All valleys
are shadowed with death. And the shadow,
as in painting, is what gives roundness and ripeness to shapes and things. This is my [shadowed] valley of life and I
will live at peace in it.
The wisdom of God is manifest in this, that he has let
us taste the bitters as well as the sweets of life. The willingness to accept pain and death as
part of life came as a discovery and a strengthening. Before the operation, I felt tangibly that I
was being upborne, lifted, supported.
You are surer of yourself and your supporters. How
can you help being more deeply rooted, branched and leafed in all of life?
One—Somehow I feel myself in the rustling of leaves, the
fall of clear water over stones, the afternoon shadow on grass. When we raked up the dead poplar branches, we
found them alive and green at the tip, the next year’s buds already swelling.
Faith is part of the plant’s essence. Whoever heard of a doubting poplar? Anyone can see the divine every day in leaf
and flower, face and form, love and kindness, music and in verse. Lord of life and lord of death, instinct in
every bough!
The feeling seems one of a basic assimilation of the
universe—of the all in the one—that comes of knowing the individual one cannot
last forever. I know myself a part, both
of the geometry 10 or 12 generations have imposed upon the landscape, and of
the landscape which so easily eludes any human transformation. From the window where I stand, the snow
extends me outward until it no longer falls white but hovers gray before the
hills and above them. So I too fall with
the snow, time’s visible, fragmented, yet unified motion. Fall it must, and drift and lie, and melt at
last, [to rise again in the sap].
Pantheism has always been a dirty, implying something
pagan. All matter is in a very essential
way alive and moving and related to every other bit of matter, through
belonging within a unified design of magnitude and beauty. In a wider sense we are in God. For if God is not everywhere, God is nowhere.
The teaching of a physical heaven in the skies is one
of the worst stumbling blocks of religion.
It is stubbornly maintain by established churches, and is unacceptable
to any thinking man. Heaven is a state
of mind to which any one may come, or at least aspire.
4,000 years ago, Ikhnaton 1st had the idea
that God must be one. With rare insight, he saw that the sun which made life
possible was the source. We do not know
today any more than Ikhnaton did exactly what the nature of God may be. Where do we come in? Are not humans the
only link between the life force and the world of ideas which leads to truth,
love and beauty which are the attributes by which we recognize the divine?
A
Demonstrable Immortality—Easter is
the festival which relates the living to the dead; once its meaning is grasped,
life takes on a new dimension. Except it
die, how can it be quickened? The
connection between life and death is in the end a mystery, but it is real. Last
year’s leaves make compost for this year’s garden. The mystery of the living
seed ties us to an inheritance beyond recorded history. In what sense is Jesus alive today?
Is it not clear that his life is in our lives? One person, yet
divided among millions and more strengthened the more he is divided. Through
visiting hours held after my father’s death, I discovered then that my father
lived on in many lives. The old house we
live in , the pieces of silver or china we use—all remind us of people who live
in us.
In the total view, immortality is a social thing. If
immortality is universal instead of particular, does this not elevate us to a
life that is far grander than we deserve, [far better than a pinched and narrow
personal immortality]? Is it not clear
that destruction is merciful, and that that which takes away is as necessary
and as divine as that which gives?
We need not blame God for viruses and cancer and car
accidents. God is spirit, the embodiment
of all that a good man knows how to conceive and more. God is the spirit who informs it, not the cop
who swoops down to punish offenders.
Living is tough—that is one of its conditions. We have to be tough to face the blows, but
thankful for the dear gift itself.
Last
Entries—Strange that with so few days
remaining to me, they are the most leisured and calm I have ever had. I have time for setting myself in the midst
of nature and half entering it, as I shall soon return to it fully. [Time] to watch the storm go up our beautiful
valley, first putting a haze between each pair of ranges, then passing so that
all is clear and freshly washed. What else is there to do but endure to the
end, and to be possessed of a quiet mind?
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143. Unless one is Born Anew—William Penn Lecture, Sunday, March 28, 1965 (by Dorothy Hewitt Hutchinson; 1965)
Introduction—I thought if I did not go
to Selma Montgomery Selma
Our Symptoms—I have inquired of some trusted friends what our
symptoms might be; I shall mention 3. The
1st symptom is that we sit in our Meeting worship [and are very well
off]. We are reputable and extravagantly praised for victories bequeathed to us
by our disreputable ancestors. We
compare ourselves to other perhaps less vital religious groups. [If we
ask: “What are they doing in response to God’s will?, Christ will respond as he
did to Peter’s similar question]: “What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” The 2nd symptom is
that while we have not abandoned our social testimonies, and cherish them as
precious antiques, we do not agree as to their current application. In Meeting
during the war, I protested the use of the term “Unconditional Surrender,” and [was
told that such radical pacifism should wait until after the war].
The 3rd symptom is that we
are less individually involved in the
concerns of Friends. When a Committee of the Meeting lays itself down, feeling
it is no longer speaking on behalf of
the Meeting but instead of the
Meeting, the Meeting tends to feel indignant & unjustifiably humiliated. If
our hearts & hands & spirits droop, some other group will take up the
torch we are letting fall. There are signs of this outside the Society of
Friends (SOF), [some refer to it as a Pentecostal stirring of the Holy Spirit].
Is there comparable ferment within the SOF?
How Can a Man Be Born Anew?—The SOF can’t enter again the womb of its 17th
century origin & be born. It must be born [here & now. We should not
seek persecution]. Unless persecution is the unsought result of acting upon
conviction, martyrdom is exhibitionism. Nor should more conferences be called
to re-vitalize the SOF. The crux of the cure we seek is [in the word “one.” The SOF] must be revitalized by
the birth of Friends one by one.
We are going to have a hard time in the
20th century recapturing this emphasis. 1st, science was thought to be our
deliverer for 150 years. We are only now
coming to the realization that the Spirit is the only reliable guide in human
affairs. We are also living in a period
when there a strong de-emphasis on the individual and one’s importance. Yet Dag Hammerskjöld asked: You fancy you are responsible to God; can you carry the responsibility for God?
Neither the world’s work nor that of the SOF is done by spiritual
geniuses [alone]. Jesus’ 11 companions
understood enough of what He said and
remembered enough of what He was so
that they kept his message alive and lived it.
Don’t underestimate [your value as a] companion of the prophet.
Thou Shalt Love—Each of us has to get back to “Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart & soul & strength, & thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.” Love does
no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore,
love is the fulfilling of the law. [With these 2 commandments Jesus] was saying
to us, “Explore every nook & cranny of life, with love as your only guide.”
It is necessary to identify with the repulsive sinner, with the
threatening enemy, & even the smug, good people who have [only]
condemnation for those who seek new, untried ways to do the right. [It is this condemnation that holds back the
vast majority of people from doing what they know is right].
What holds us back from following love
is fear, yet only love can cast out fear; Jesus understood this dilem-ma. The first commandment, the love for God is what casts out
fear. The antidote for fear is complete
con-fidence in God’s universal good will.
Jesus was saying that there is a difference between ordinary prudence
and the fear that paralyzes and alienates one from humankind.
Cast out the Sin of Fear—Fear then, is the evil offspring of lack of faith in
God and the evil parent of lack of love for men. How can
I acquire a [sufficient] faith in God? The
only way I can have such faith is by experiment, [to find out] if God exists and
if God’s nature is as pictured by Jesus. God’s nature is the source of: all that is
valuable to me; my sense of adequacy and wholeness; my sense of security and
the power to make a difference. I test
the hypothesis of the 1st commandment by long and patient
experiment; each person has to do it for themselves, and live as if Jesus was right about God, and
watch for the evidence that this is true through the Spiritual Response you
get. This is the Truth that makes one
Free.
Everyone
who is afraid is a slave to fear. We
live in an age so dominated by fear that we have come to think of fear as
normal. Half of humankind is in daily
fear of misery unto death; the other, wealthy half lives in fear of mutual
annihilation. What is it that prevents us from giving ourselves unreservedly and
unconditionally even to our family and friends? Isn’t it fear of: destruction; change; a
lower standard of living; a hurt ego? Fear
of failure is our last refuge [from having to act]. But God
promises only the power to do God’s will insofar as we understand it
without counting the cost or demanding to see results. [Those who bring about social progress include
a few prophets and many], many anonymous, indispensable companions of the
prophets.
The Friend Born Anew—When love
for God finally casts fear out of the individual, what happens then? The inward signs are energy, radiant serenity in the
midst of activity, a secure, developing wholeness so that “all nature has a new
smell.” One who is fearlessly awake and
alert begins to recognize and to grasp new opportunities for living. We find ourselves becoming more fearless and
loving in all human relationships. When
we have done all we can do for our children, we then trust God; [worry or]
manipulation is not the way of love.
We become more fearless and loving in
our relations with the world outside our little circle. As John Wool-man said,
“The first motion was love.” The results [are] left in God’s hands. We begin to
know what doesn’t matter, which is just as important to know [as what does.
For early Quakers, physical safety didn’t matter; material possessions didn’t
matter. Today, property values dropping because Negroes are moving in, doesn’t
matter]. Jesus before Pilate did not defend Himself. He made a few succinct
remarks about Truth, as if that was all that mattered.
A fearless Friend who is “born anew”
becomes a radical non-conformist. You
find that you must be non-conformist to everything that is the opposite of
love. There are two very different
results of slavery to fear; one is apathy, the other is panicky activity. On the other hand, the fearless intellect is
set free to seek constructive solutions.
It says: “I can do something and,
God helping me, I will.” Jesus spoke of
all responsibility in the singular. Dag
Hammerskjöld said: “To be free, to be
able to stand up and leave everything behind—without looking back. To say “Yes!”
There is no other way to revitalize the SOF but this.
The Society of Friends is Born Anew—When enough individuals are born anew, as Barclay
wrote about Meetings for Worship: “As
iron sharpeneth iron, the seeing the faces one of another whom both are
inwardly gathered unto the life, giveth occasion for the life secretly to rise
and pass from vessel to vessel.” We’ll
sit with so much more expectation than now.
We can receive new insights into the application of love, and exciting
things will begin to happen. [When we
take action] “... suddenly and mysteriously past generations of peaceable
trouble- makers seem to rise silently behind you, a breeze from beyond the
horizon of the Ocean of Light and Love.”
When we become fearlessly open to the
Light [and Love], we will find a surprising and increasing sense of unity on
our Testimonies, both old and new. [Why do we find more agreement one issue
than on another, similar issue?] Is
it not that our fears are more engaged at one point than another, and that
these so-called controversial subjects are simply the subjects on which our
fears run deepest? We are facing the
greatest problems ever to face humankind.
It would greatly increase our usefulness if our mind should converge as our
spirits become clearer. When we speak
clearly and with a more united voice, SOF may really start to grow and the new
members who come to us will be of the highest quality. [Join with me in the prayer Rufus Jones once
prayed]:
“Eternal Lover of Thy children, bring us into Thy
life. Make us sharers of Thy love and
transmitters of it. Help us to become
serene and patient in the midst of our frustrations, but at the same time make
us heroic adventurers, brave, gentle, tender, but without fear, and with
radiant faces.”
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144. Bethlehem Revisited (Christmas Sermon
in Germantown Unitarian Church 12/20/64 ; by Douglas V. Steere; 1965)
Pamphlet
Quotes:
Carmelite Christmas Prayer: “May the
fierce love of Jesus drive out of us all vapid and shallow peace. With wild joy and a plea for prayers, Yours,
Father William.”
Jan Ruysbroeck: “All that [Jesus] was and
all that he had he gave; and all that we are and all that we have, he takes.”
Frozen Christian (by Angelius Silesius)—“Bloom,
frozen Christian, bloom.
May
stands before thy door.”
About
the Author: Douglas Steere was Professor of Philosophy at Haverford,
author of Prayer and Worship, On
Beginning from Within, On Listening to one Another, Dimensions of Prayer. His concern for the inner life is fused
with a concern for action; with his wife, Dorothy, he has gone on numerous
missions to Africa , Europe , and Asia for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). He attended the Vatican Council shortly
before giving this sermon.
Christmas
is a Time when we are invited to
revisit Bethlehem Bethlehem Jerusalem
The spot where Jesus was born was
probably a grotto or cave; today, this is overlaid by a vast church & a
cluster of religious houses. It is shared by the Greek Orthodox, Armenian
Christian, & Roman Catholic Churches. [For] the original scene we must see
[the cave], the oxen & donkeys, tethered in their stalls. A young woman has
given birth to her first child [there on the straw]; he now lays in a manger.
Francis of Assisi reenacted this scene in an Italian barn on Christmas Eve. The
saints who have lived with wild animals which terrify most folk have
fearlessness from baptism into the peaceable kingdom. Francis preached his
Christmas sermon from a barn floor.
Selma
Lagerlof wrote Christ Legends, [and in particular] “The Wise Man’s Well.” Three Wise Men are drawn by their common
vision of a rapturously beautiful star that bids them seek a newborn King. But
[when] they follow the star to a grotto [they look in and] see only a young
peasant woman and her husband with a new-born child. They turn away in disappointment, [which
turns into dismay] when they lose the star and their memories, [and then] guilt
when they know they have let their earthly judgment to lead them astray. One of them, wishing to quench his thirst [at
an old well], finds in its depths the reflected image of the lost star, and
[rediscovers it in the sky]. They are
led back and give homage to the hidden king.
The well in which that wise man found
the star was surely the inner Bethlehem
There
is a Zoroastrian legend, that
pre-extent souls of men were given the [chance] to go down to earth “to do battle with the Lie.” In none of Jesus’ life is there a contempt
for matter, [as there is in other religions].
Rather we see a man who draws matter together as he turns God-ward at
each moment of decision. The actual Lie
with which battle is to be done is two-fold: the repudiation of matter, [and
rejecting it from the spirit] to purify the spirit; and the attempt to make
matter and its patterning all that there is.
The struggle that Hinduism and Buddhism are having with the technological
revolution comes from their denial of any genuine reality to matter and trying
to purify themselves from any trace of it.
The Lie the West has to deal with is that matter is all there is.
Jesus
not only worked within the natural process but he respected it. He hallowed [matter and natural law] by
showing how one’s faith affects the way one’s body responds to surgical and
chemical treatment. Every scientific
step forward, the universe reveals itself as being governed by the same laws
that govern human thinking. This fits
Jesus’ world, where matter and its laws have a legitimate and significant
status. Sir Arthur Eddington suggests
that important as causal law may be, it does not exhaust the situation; all
causality might have been an aspect of a deeper purpose. We may all participate in the process of
luring the cosmos toward love.
As
we sit on the Wise Man’s Well, the
Son of Man discloses to us a further insight into the human species: Love and salvation to which Jesus draws all
men is not solitary but is in community [and is universal]. As Charles Peguy said: “We must be saved together, we must come to
God together.” Jesus’ command to share
the good news of the God of love with all the world is a universalism of caring
that breaks every last bond.
In Pope John XXIII’s vision, this
inclusive spirit is no longer the exception but is a sustained attempt to reach
beyond all boundaries. [John XXIII puts this spirit into practices, including
visiting and embracing murderers in prison]. He also longed to witness to those
in no religious group whatever. John
wanted the Catholic Church to realize is that Jesus brought the news that Love
was the ground of the universe to all.
The Swiss Ambassador to India Arizona
146. The Wit and Wisdom of William Bacon Evans [1875-1964]
(by Anna Cox Brinton; 1966)
Foreword—Edwin B. Bronner wrote: “We feel there was much in his
life which was unique; that it would be a service to Friends to have access to
material about him.” In offering anecdotes and memorabilia one is keenly aware
that some of the charm and luster is dependent on the speaker’s smile,
twinkling eye, and satisfaction.
William Bacon Evans left an impression
on the Haverford Library as compiler of the “Biographical Dictionary of Friends, as the member of a large and
widely known family, as student and teacher at Westtown School, as valuable
assistant at Daniel Oliver’s orphanage in Syria, as concerned visitor to
conscripts at the Civilian Public Service camps, as tireless worker for love
and unity in the divided Philadelphia Society of Friends (SOF). He did not
produce a Quaker Journal. He wrote instead bird songs and sonnets, printed in
10 slender books.
In My Father’s House—An English visitor wrote: As we lined up to board [the Greyhound Bus to the 5 Years Meeting
in Richmond, Indiana] next to me appeared
an 18th century Quaker—plain dress, grey habit, John Woolman hat...
He thee’d & thou’d everybody gaily & called them ‘Friend.’ He was in
his 90th year & better known in Philadelphia Philadelphia
William Bacon Evans was born in Philadelphia Moorestown , New Jersey
[As a slight & painfully shy boy], social
situations were harder for him to deal with. In a bird-loving family he showed [early
signs of] the keen observation & retentive memory of a field naturalist. At
Westtown boarding school, he had [ample room & opportunity to explore
nature, which resulted in a carefully made list of local plants. His stated
desires were for more letters from home, & more time to eat his meals. He
was very thoughtful towards his 2 sisters, who attended the same school. There
was an old Indian settlement about 3½ miles from school that he & John
Carter explored, finding 12 arrowheads between them. He excelled at geometry
and mechanical drawing.
[In 1893, he graduated, and went to work
in his father’s glass and paint store.
He suffered from cut-up hands and a smashed thumb in early days of his
work]. He visited Friends meetings and
read Quaker books. He promoted a free public reading room and [worked in] the
Friends Freedman’s Association for the training of colored youth. He served as secretary of the Delaware Valley
Ornithological Club. Ten years after graduation, he served on the Westtown
School Committee, practiced colloquial French in southern France Puffin Island
Master Bacon—After his father’s business closed, he took a teaching
position at Westtown. After 2 years of teaching, he received a B.S. & a
teacher’s certificate from Columbia University
He had not yet adopted the antique
pattern of Quaker dress for which he was later so well known; he was on his way
to it. He was beginning to reaffirm the
old testimonies which in his mind were part of religious faithfulness. He was 38 when he was chosen captain of the Columbia
In 1931 Bacon Evans attended Yearly
Meeting at Ramallah, and stayed a week visiting Bethlehem Jericho Damascus Palestine
Bird Song—That Bird songs should have been the inspiration for
many of his early poems is no surprise.
Bird song was the only music and Poetry was the only art form allowed by
19th century Quakers. The
laughing loon, the trilling thrush, the bubbling wren—he knew and caught them
all. Seven
Score Bird Songs in 1943 was a compendium of bird songs, sonnets,
translations from La Fontaine, and other tidbits.
A lifelong love of poetry was one of
Bacon Evans’ most endearing qualities.
He collected Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Keats, Wordsworth, a dozen
others and his own in Sonnets for Lovers
and for Lovers of Sonnets. To
balance the grave and the gay was more than a lifelong endeavor; it was part of
the fabric of his being. Neither the
woman he sought during his second period of teaching nor he himself ever
married.
Of Many Branches—Bacon Evans was a great grandson of Jonathan Evans,
one of the builders of Philadelphia Philadelphia
Bacon Evans carried the weight of this
division most of his life. On Ninth
Month 27, 1928, Bacon Evans brought his own family together at Springfield
Meeting House in Delaware County
Costume and Concern—Religious development was for Bacon Evans a slow and
steady growth, unmarked by a sudden conversion.
Integrity permeated the outward processes of Bacon Evans’ life. It developed after his stay in the Middle East . He had grown up among Friends
who wore the plain, collarless coat; those he venerated wore also the Quaker
hat. Because [such Quakers] were
peculiar in dress and speech they could more easily become a pioneer in
peculiar, unpopular causes. They often
possessed a sly humor and gentle roguishness apparently out of keeping with the
solemnity of their bearing.
The same integrity prompted him to
uphold the old Quaker testimony of “plain language” [i.e. the use of “thou” and
“thee,”] avoiding the use of the plural “you.”
An English Friend writes: “I then
knew nothing of William Bacon Evans except that his concern was for grammatical
accuracy.” [Bacon Evans gently admonished the Englishman, and advocated the
maintenance of “plain language.”]
Negative reaction to his practicing plain language was rare [due to his
unfailing courtesy]. (e.g. “Thank Thee,
for thanking me”; “I am honored to wear the hat the once covered thy worthy
head. I thank thee;” “Thank thee for
talking with me.”) There was none of the
ascetic in him, nor the recluse. He
rejoiced in his family and in domestic life.
Civilian Public Service—Bacon Evans welcomed the plainest of work, and concern
for peace permeated his actions. During
Pendle Hill’s summer session in 1941 Bacon Evans was a staff associate, known
as “our resident saint.” His more formal
function was to assist certain students with their term papers. The daily morning meetings for worship that
season sometimes attained an unusually high level, due in part to his
presence. His ministry was not oracular,
not “the word of the Lord unto you,” like the ministry of many old-time
Friends. It seems to have sprung
straight out of what had impressed him immediately before he arose to
speak. When Yearly Meeting was faced
with a difficult, dissatisfied Friend, Bacon Evans got up during a silence,
walked over to the Friend, bowed, shook his hand, and sat down next to him,
without saying a word.
The Civilian Public Service was formed to supply a place for pacifists whose consciences would not allow them to accept military services. Bacon Evans, not willing that the young should bear alone the brunt of the Quaker peace testimony, felt it laid upon him to do what he could for the men in the camps. He would join the men “on project.” “Frequently he would teach us, gracefully and without hurting feelings, how we could better handle the tools that we city slickers were not accustomed to using.” On another occasion, he was discussing the causes of the Separation while chopping down small trees. The Friend with him suggested Jonathan Evans, to which Bacon Evans replied: “Yes, I think great-grandfather had something to do with it.” This form of visitation was but one type of traveling in the ministry, of which he did so much.
The Civilian Public Service was formed to supply a place for pacifists whose consciences would not allow them to accept military services. Bacon Evans, not willing that the young should bear alone the brunt of the Quaker peace testimony, felt it laid upon him to do what he could for the men in the camps. He would join the men “on project.” “Frequently he would teach us, gracefully and without hurting feelings, how we could better handle the tools that we city slickers were not accustomed to using.” On another occasion, he was discussing the causes of the Separation while chopping down small trees. The Friend with him suggested Jonathan Evans, to which Bacon Evans replied: “Yes, I think great-grandfather had something to do with it.” This form of visitation was but one type of traveling in the ministry, of which he did so much.
For Historians, Genealogists, and
Seekers after Truth—The Dictionary of Quaker Biography (DQB), a
biographical dictionary was William Bacon Evans’ work; it occupied a large part
of his time during the last 15-20 years of his life. [The handwritten slips
were] stowed in an array of old fashioned filing boxes in the balcony of the
Quaker Collection at Haverford College Library. [These were consolidated with an
English production].
For his basic list he drew upon his wide
acquaintance with contemporary Friends and his still wider reading of the works
of past worthies. In his work he slipped
in and out of the centuries readily, less bound by time and custom than most
of us. Each morning he would go to the
portrait in Rufus Jones’ office, “to greet my friend Rufus.” Elizabeth Vining and he worked near one
another on their own projects, exchanging greetings and information before
spending the rest of their time in silent work.
On 5th Day mornings Bacon
Evans attended Haverford Meeting, along with resentful students, often in
revolt against having to attend the Meeting. During one such tense Meeting,
William Bacon Evans rose from the facing bench and solemnly said, “No man
descends so low in the scale of social values as to admit he comes from New Jersey
In front of a supermarket in Haverford,
and wearing an arrow on his head, he sold homemade puzzles and gadgets, the proceeds
of which, running into some hundreds of dollars, were turned over to “Friendly
and other causes”; occasionally he would also sell bird paintings. He would take his puzzles with him on his
numerous trips to other Meetings. He
passed them out at the United Nations. A
woman of the Washington Square Meeting said, “If we could just set him loose in
this place, we would have world peace within a year.”
William Bacon Evans was a children’s man
with a bit of that mysterious charm of the Pied Piper. Some regarded him as someone slightly
unbalanced; St. Francis was so-regarded in his time. The Haverford students never looked on him as
a traditional conformist. Free of
conventional bonds, our Friend could pass through barriers that most of us
could not, and he could take others with him.
He gently and patiently helped a member of the junior conference give
his report to a crowd of hundreds for the first time.
Fare Thee Well—In spite of a sonnet to the contrary, no dullness of
ear and eye was ever perceptible to the age mates of Bacon Evans. In the course of time he gave up bird walking
and the early rising connected with it, taking up bird painting instead. He spent his last decade in the Friends Center Arch Street
147. Walls (by Robert E. Reuman; 1966)
Introduction—One of the most curious features of contemporary times
is to be found in the walls that exist. We are familiar with Germany China South Korea China Taiwan South Vietnam
[It may seem like there is one wall with
local variations between Communists and non-Communists]. There are religious and racial walls between Pakistan India
What
Makes the Wall Mentality—I find 5 elements present in a typical case of
“wall mentality”;
- The division into two
antagonistic sides is both rather recent in origin and arbitrary in nature.
- The existence of a
sharply defined and limited self-identification.
- The presence of
intense emotional factors, based on the basic identity distinction.
- The collapse in
communication between the inside and the outside [i.e. the “other side.”]
- Our behavior becomes
“institutionalized” [i.e. formal, rigid, corresponding to and limited by
the wall]
1. The wall by
itself strikes us as unnatural. The
divisions of Viet
Nam Germany Korea Palestine Korea Vietnam
2. The wall-minded
person decisively draws a line around, one’s interests, one’s concerns, one’s
needs and wants, and views the satisfaction of these interests and needs as
good. My group being called, or chosen
[to receive satisfaction of needs and wants], presumes another group is
rejected. The history of Christendom
provides unfortunately many examples of the exclusive mentality.
Viewing myself as a member of one class automatically
entails my rejecting another class viewed as antagonistic. At its simplest this characteristic is found
in the person who defines his identity with one’s physical body or
possessions. More frequent is the
limited identification with a group larger than the individual but smaller than
all humankind. It has the advantages of
locating an external visible enemy where all the mistakes are seen to have been
made and upon whom all hate can be focused in an unavoidable and irreconcilable
antagonism. [If the assertions are
believed vigorously enough by either side, it becomes true, even where it was
not true before.
3. Within the
approved group all the satisfaction of positive emotions can be lavished.
Against the enemy one can pour all the negative emotions, and receive the
sanction of one’s group for doing so. Destructiveness, latent in all of us,
thrives under these circumstances. We sympathize and empathize with each other
within the group. We resent the enemy when a group member is hurt or when the
enemy feels joy, and rejoice when the enemy is hurt.
4. The Collapse in Communication—In the wall situation, certain kinds of mistakes and
ignorance are not only permitted but are demanded. We are no longer permitted
to hear, even if we want to, the message from the other side that might correct
our ignorance. We build a stereotype which has only partial truth. Few of the
American books about Communist China gave a balanced picture, for what they
left out, or explained away, was just as important as what they chose to
include. Western “censorship,” though it
is more diffused, more voluntary, and less obvious than Communist censorship,
has an impact only slightly less effective on the masses of people.
The communications breakdown offers 2 very interesting
psychological phenomena: projection of
blame and responsibility; perceptual selectivity. If we are disturbed and uncomfortable, we do
not see the responsibility or the cause as lying within us; we project them
outside of us. In perceptual selectivity,
our seeing is determined by what we expect or want. We learn to not perceive things that are
unexpected or distasteful.
Different words used to describe the same situation
can have emotional content ranging
from extreme disapproval to extreme approval. Certain words are frequently used in almost
exclusively emotional ways, with little or no descriptive content:
“democratic,” “liberal,” “peaceful,” “good,” “beautiful,” “God,” “Christian.” Another important element is that of our
thought systems, our ideologies, and utopias.
It is easy to become a prisoner of an ideology, so that one cannot see
what the ideology fails to point out.
Over-simplification can easily become the imprisoning walls of dead or
rigid thinking.
5. Institutionalization—Having accepted the presence of a certain wall, we
organize our lives this side of the wall, ignoring as much as possible what
happens on the other side; gradually behavior becomes formal, and rigid.
[Institutions] are supposed to help us solve our problems, but they always have
inertia of their own which limits flexibility. To overcome the wall mentality,
old habits must be weakened, and new ones must be developed and brought into
durable operation by institutions. Overcoming the walls of discrimination between
Whites and Negroes will not be complete until radical changes in attitudes,
habits, and institutions are accomplished.
Significant changes in any wall are only possible when attitudes,
ideologies, and institutions are modified.
The Use of
Walls—Every last one of us has, and
to some degree must have walls within us and around us. We need them for convenience, psychological
and physical defense, for currency control, for economic organization. [Because
of my imperfections] I throw up a “Persona,” behind which I can tolerate them.
A Mahatma (Great Soul) can expose their failures so as to purify themselves of
traits of which they should be ashamed, and absorb the consequences. This
demands great insight, enormous sympathy, self discipline, and great personal
courage.
In the present, we do not know how to produce,
exchange, educate, communicate, and share so that all creatures are equally
within whatever walls and fences we might build. What is true for individuals
is even truer for racial, social, political and economic groups and
countries. Every country can list past
injuries and has elaborate techniques for keeping the memories of these
injuries alive. The more unfriendly pressure
that is put on a wall, the higher and deeper that wall will be built. We must admit that some walls are necessary
[and attempt to build only those walls] for psychological protection,
convenience, for economic and psychological organization.
An Outworn
Means—We cannot be content with
building walls and counter walls, or with retaliation raids. It may satisfy primitive instincts for
defense or revenge, but it neither defends nor revenges adequately; it often threatens
annihilation instead. Traditional wall and defense mentality locates the
problem in the wrong place. It sees the other’s mistakes and its own [but
rarely]. It sees a troublemaker, but not what bothers the troublemaker; it
attacks the symptom, not the dis-ease, and aggravates [not alleviates] the
underlying ailment.
The root problem is the underdeveloped maturity of people
and systems in a world of insufficiency. A more inclusive sense of equity is needed
because people and systems are endowed differently, inherit different re-sources,
and face different problems, and yet are increasingly interdependent with each
other. It is the immaturity of all who have not learned to critically respect me and mine on this side of the wall, you and
yours on that side, and all creatures everywhere.
The Double
Obligation—Albert Schweitzer suggests
that we should feel reverence for all life, and be able to respect one’s own
life, another’s life, and societies that are less inclusive than the whole. I cannot fulfill both of these obligations
perfectly, but I am required to try. All
living things must be viewed as members of the kingdom of ends. Every being is a center of worth, one who
should respect all other centers of worth, and should seek continuously [if
imperfectly] to generate that community of lives where ever more can live in
harmony. I can express sympathy only for some
creatures, therefore I should
exercise my critical faculties in the
effort to reduce the avoidable disharmonies that exist between us. The first commandment is universal love, the
second is parochial love, and the third is critical reconstruction.
The Tension
within Love and Truth—There are two
attitudes [sought in seeking to live more closely in the universal
community]: love and truth. [Any actions I take] require an attitude
toward truth, based on the most accurate and inclusive knowledge I can achieve. Although I must love and know in a limited
way, I must also be aware of unlimited loving and knowing, and know that they
too lay claims upon me.
The young child gradually develops an awareness of
himself [and then of others]. One develops a limited social self as well as a
personal self. Usually one’s sympathies
expand from family and a few friends to include a teacher, classmate, a club,
one’s city, one’s country, one’s race. When
conflicts of loyalties arise one either reduces one’s loyalties or tries to
maintain those loyalties, while reconciling the conflicts.
Usually the process of ego-expansion stops at some
point; one’s sympathies become limited and bordered. One stops growing, stops looking for more
inclusive loyalties. For functional purposes these limits may be unavoidable
and desirable; for purposes of defining the highest human loyalties and
sympathies they are inadequate. We can never serve the whole in its entirety,
until we are able to find social, political and economic organizations where we
can serve any part and the whole as well. The obligation to [serve all of
humanity] remains a test for the adequacy of any less inclusive loyalties or
set of sympathies, or the organizing of human efforts.
Guidelines
for the Future—I have developed the
concept of an attitude, because attitudes are more within our individual
control; programs are equally important with the attitude. Each economic, political, social,
educational, or religious institution is suspended between the ideal of
universal loyalty, and the local conditions of its origin and history. The adequacy of such institutions must be
measured against the needs and interest of the whole of that population, and not some privileged few. [Elites in an institution must be answerable
to the people outside of that institution].
The capacity for leadership must be developed as widely as
possible.
Institutions should not be against the interests of
members of other institutions. We have
an obligation to be critical of the institutions under which we live, [even]
when the consequences of this are unpleasant.
[There needs to be] thoughtful analysis of the origins of totalitarian
systems, the sources of their strength, and the methods by which they may be
constructively restrained. [How can] supranational structures control
and limit totalitarianism without in turn becoming a new and more terrifying
totalitarian structure?
Wall
Mentality is the Enemy—The causes
which led to [the wall between East and West Germany Germany West Germany East Germany
The use of military force by either side is
unthinkable under present political and technological conditions. Even if the East German government were less
popular with it citizens than other governments, there is a real power
structure there that cannot be wished away, and probably will not be blasted
away. The “enemy” is an exclusive way of
thinking and feeling, [focused only on the satisfaction of a small group].
The goal then is the gaining of an attitude of [a
wider] community. I am convinced that German won’t be able to reunite with
German until they are able to reunite with non-Germans. [There must be a
sympathetic, critical element involved in developing a wider community], with
which we must criticize the groups on both sides of the wall. I would suggest to Marxists that there is a
sense of dialectic, [of dialogue] that provides a frame work for genuine
co-existence, and which offers friendly challenge even while it offers mutual
respect and toleration.
Aims into
Action—We should seek ways of being
loyal to our side without requiring disloyalty to the other side. We should save our negative attitudes for
criticizing the thinking and actions that are antithetical to the larger
community. We should shun words that
avoid thinking, and think constructively about problems to which we as well as
others can make contributions. Quaker
and German churches can develop dialogue opportunities and encourage
problem-solving discussion of existing conflicts. Professors and artists have been able to open
significant lines of communication [in their chosen fields]. West Germany
Develop positive connections with East Europe in the form of trade, cultural exchanges, and even political
relations. The healing of the German
division and the European division must proceed conjointly. Objective presentation of both good and bad
aspects of the situation in East Germany West Germany
Like a High Mountain India Germany
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149. Experiments in Community: Ephrata; Amish; Doukhobors; Shakers; Bruderhof; Monterverde (by Norman J. Whitney; 1966)
Introduction (by Howard
H. Brinton)—A community is called
“intentional” when it adopts a way of life, a type of culture, different from
that of the surrounding society. It
creates a “utopia” based on a specific philosophy. The community maintains itself by commercial
and other relations with the world, while insisting on its own way of life; it
is in the world but not of it. The Amana
community in Iowa Oneidas New York
Though
greatly separated from the world, Quakers were individually so successful in
business and politics that the world gradually pushed through the walls and
hedges created by Quaker schools. Not
content with being isolated from the public, they were busily engaged in
efforts to prevent wars, abolish slavery, reform prisons and other pioneering
social efforts. [Under these conditions,
maintaining different customs was increasingly difficult].
On this continent there have been about
200 attempts to create the “beloved society” in intentional communities. They ranged from complete Christian communism
to a slightly modified, competitive communism.
There were 10 definable [attributes] of successful cooperation:
1.
Loyalty to an able, selfless leader or
leaders
2.
Religious exercises carried out by whole group
3.
Moderately strict cooperative discipline.
4.
Adequate, diverse economic resources,
simplicity
5.
New member, child education on group
practices.
6.
Loyalty to a social theory without obsession.
7.
Group loyalty over family loyalty.
8.
Balance of intimacy and separateness.
9.
Separateness from the world to allow for
working out unique ideals, & a vital concern for the world.
10.
Optimum size 50
to 100 people;
11.
Participation of
children.
12.
Face to face
relationships creating single living organism.
Highly successful tribal communities probably had
these same attributes; they preserved the primitive life-style, perhaps too
well. With little or no community life,
men cannot adjust to changes fast enough.
19th century agricultural communities had far less mechanical
help, and far more spiritual help; they were not fragmented as they are
now. Education is concerned with the
tool-using, rational part of the mind, and not the feeling and action-oriented
part of the mind. The 19th
century Quaker boarding schools aimed to resemble an enlarged Quaker family
with emphasis on religious worship, the cultivation of the intellect, and the
practice of physical work. Pendle Hill is
a modern attempt along the same line, applied to adult education.
The 6 community experiments in the following sections
are all religiously-oriented communities: [Ephrata; Amish; Doukhobors; Shakers;
Bruderhof; Monteverde]. The first 5 were
transplanted from Europe ; the last is a contemporary American Quaker
settlement in Costa Rica
Ephrata—The record of Ephrathites of 18th century Pennsylvania Germany Germantown
Beissel and his followers established in 1732 what was
probably the first and only Protestant monastery, called The Spiritual Order of
the Solitary, better known as the Ephrata Cloister; it was dissolved in
1934. It consisted of a brotherhood and
sisterhood to begin with and later included “householders” or married couples. Within the buildings, the doorways were low,
to teach humility, and most beds were narrow boards with wooden blocks for
pillows. The diet was simple and nearly
meat-free with mostly water “and good bread always.”
Everything was ordered to inculcate Christian virtues
of humility, chastity, temperance, fortitude, charity. The Sisters tended the
kitchen gardens, and the Brotherhood did the heavier farm work. They started a tannery, grist, saw, fulling
[cloth-making], flaxseed, and paper mills.
Here was produced the first German book in the Colonies. They revived the medieval art of text
illumination, which they called Frakurschriften. They had a unique method of singing, the
secret of which is now lost. They ran
schools for their own and for the surrounding community.
The [community’s] aim was personal union of the soul
with God; all else was subsidiary to His purpose. There were stated hours for meditation, song
and prayer throughout the day, including a midnight meeting. Cloister missionaries
ventured by foot as far as Rhode Island
Amish—The Amish arose out of the same spiritual ferment that
produced Anabaptist, Quakers, and Mennonites.
They take their name from Jacob Amman, a Swiss Mennonite, under whose
conservative leadership they became a group in the late 17th
century. They renounced infant baptism,
denied that the church was the mediator of divine grace, declared that religion
was an individual matter; they were severely persecuted.
William Penn offered them shelter in the New World
where they continued to “despise the world, fear God and keep his
commandments”; they first came to America
All Amish speak Pennsylvania
“House-Amish” meet in the homes of members;
“church-Amish” have meeting houses. Generally they have a bishop, 2 or 3
assisting preachers, and a deacon; leaders are chosen by lot for life. Major
decisions must have the “voice” of the members; meetings last 4 hours.
Preparing for “preaching” involves many hours and the whole family, and
preparing the meal for afterwards involves a dozen women from the community.
The Amish are not anarchist but law-abiding taxpayers up to the point at which
the State would interfere with their religious faith and practice; they refuse
oaths, flag salutes, military service, and federal aid. The Amishman Papa Yoder said, “We know who we
are, Mister, Don’t interfere. . . Poor
people you have plenty, and worried people and afraid. Here we are not afraid. . . We know what is right. We do not destroy, we
build only . . . And wars we don’t arrange.”
Doukhobors—I have long been interested in groups that search for
solutions to the problem [of balancing] liberty and authority in terms of a
community. My visit to the Doukhobors,
or Spirit Wrestlers of Western Canada began with lunch in a Doukhobor home. The meal was vegetarian with home-baked bread
and straw tea.
Part of the Declaration of faith is: “The Spiritual
Community of Christ, having submitted themselves to the Law and Authority of
God, thereby become liberated from the guardianship and power established by
men. . . Under the banner of Toil and
Peaceful life, everything demanded of us which is not contradictory to the Law
of God, we will accept and execute through conscientious guidance. That evening we attended a sobranya. The men and women sat separately and facing
each other. There was no liturgy; mainly
choral singing in Russian. Their own
“psalms” often recounted the traditions and sufferings of Doukhobor history.
Joseph James Neave, felt an inward call to assist a
minority group in Russia Canada Victoria Vancouver
A young Doukhobor said: We and Quakers must get
together for the good of the world.
Quakers has been saved [from similar anarchy] by acceptance of the
authority of the “sense of the meeting.”
The Doukhobors, with a long memory of martyrdom, serfdom, and Tsarist
tyranny, have tried to transplant an age-old peasant culture into a modern
industrialized society. A deep sense of
mission, long frustrated, coupled with a strong sense of in-jury, long endured,
is the perfect formula for desperate deeds.
The Sons of Freedom become the image of all of us and their very name a
tragic symbol of our collective despair.
Shakers—Their spiritual descent can be quickly traced. It
stems from the Camisards, a persecuted Protestant group in France England Manchester
2 Years before the American Revolution, Mother Ann and
8 of her followers set sail from Liverpool . After defying
a hostile captain, and a miraculous survival of a storm, Mother Ann’s party
landed in New York August 6, 1774 . There were
several years of struggle with poverty and the hardships of frontier life near Albany ,
New York
Her “Gospel Order” was based on: Virgin Purity,
Christian Communism, Confession of Sins, and Separation from the World. Additions to the Society were from
conversions, and later adoption. Widowed
parents “gave” their children to a Shaker “family.” Christian Communism took care of selfish
material ambition and assured Separation from the World. At their peak in the mid-19th
century, there were 58 “families” in 18 Societies, scattered from Maine Kentucky
The list of Shaker inventions is long. Besides their
furniture, they invented clothespins, brimstone matches, & a washing
machine. Their business with the world was carried on by trustees under strict
discipline. The quality of goods & their integrity made the Shaker name synonymous
with excellence & fair dealing. Other experimenters acknowledged their
indebtedness, notably Humphrey Noyes of Oneida & Bronson Alcott of
Fruitlands. Shakers & Quakers shared
the testimonies of non-violence, opposition to slavery & plain dress to
separate them from the world. Charles Dickens disparaged them. Others found in
their practices a sincere & dignified act of worship.
Bruderhof—The first Bruderhof was founded in Germany England US Paraguay Hudson Valley
What is the
attractive power that draws devout and thoughtful men and women together into
this way of life? This is an age in which disintegration has overtaken
integration. In such a time sensitive souls will feel a heavy weight of
responsibility for a creative contribution to the life of Man.
What is it
that holds these communities together? At the center of communal life there is acceptance of
what appears to be a hard core of Christian doctrine. Economically the
organization is pure communism. [Socially],
complete candor in all relationships is the rule. As all share in a common
faith & a common ownership, so all share in work, frequently heavy, of the
total “family”. The Bruderhof has its own school for the first 8 grades. After that children are able to choose their
own level of education & whether or not to join the Society. The Woodcrest Brothers say: “When the world
faces a [horrible] future . . . we all must make greater efforts to spread the
witness of a life where love & brotherhood . . . become the center of our
lives: the basis for a way of life.” I should like to think of the [“one body”]
as a Fellowship of the Friends & Followers of Truth. Each of us may find
their right service & make a reasonable sacrifice for the coming of that Peaceable Kingdom
Monteverde—It was not by accident that Monteverde, the ideal
community, was planted in Costa Rica
At length, in the distance, green fields appeared on
the mountainside. [When we arrived I asked my new friends]: What
has thee found here that justifies the effort of that incredible journey? Monteverde is 3,000 acres of rain forest
overlooking Nicoya Bay
My guide and host answered my question with: “Freedom. Freedom from the pressures of an
urbanized society; from defense taxes; from the whole military industrial
complex. New challenges and the
adventure of the untried.” These people
advance no social theory; ask no revolution; they are a revolution. During graduation, there was a special
Meeting for Dedication held at sunrise on First Day. In the Meeting I waited in the confident
expectation that silent worship invites.
A little later someone behind me spoke words of prayer in a voice
vibrant with feeling. [Surrounded by
people of all ages], I found my self relaxed in the “womb of sensations which
in themselves can mysteriously nourish.”
I had found the secret of Monteverde: a community whose center is a
meeting for Worship; a Meeting whose life is a community at work.
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151. On Being Present Where you are (by Douglas V. Steere; 1967)
About the author—Long ago Douglas Steere found his identity in a
balance between philosophical and active life.
This rhythm has pulsed through 36 years of teaching philosophy at Haverford College Europe , 6 to Africa , and 3 to Asia . 1 out of 4 semesters he goes on some journey
for American Friends Service Committee.
He has become deeply involved in the Institute on Contemporary
Spirituality (10 Catholic and 10 non-Catholics), exchanging their respective
treasures of spiritual practices.
Preface—This informal lecture was prepared as the James
Backhouse Lecture for delivery at Australia Yearly Meeting on January 8, 1967 . I was drawn
to the subject of presence by a little book on Presence by Bishop Brent.
Knowing Albert Schweitzer, with his gift of being present where he was,
also sharpened this dimension for me. In
the stories of Jesus I found what a man is like who was always present where he
was. Nothing reveals more conclusively
God’s universal man than this gift of presence so powerfully disclosed. There is, I hope, a little of both the “way”
and the “how” in this lecture. I hope,
in sharing this rough-woven word, that others may take it up and add to its
dimensions.
Introduction—Is
presence possible when there is almost no physical representative on the
scene? What does it mean to be present
and what does genuine presence imply? When I answered roll call as a child, all the teacher
was recording was my physical presence.
But she assumed that not only my body was present but that my mind was
also available. My answer of “present”
on many schools days did not live up to the teacher’s assumption. Do you remember [the first time] some person
of the opposite sex became intensely present to you? [Most adults] were not even remotely present
to you. There were a few adults whom you
did think about and they mattered
terribly to you. My 7 year-old sister
caught scarlet fever from me and died.
For many months after-wards my sister Helen lived closer to me than ever
in life. Later it helped me to
understand Jesus’ saying that it might be better for him to go away and to come
to them from within as an inward comforter.
I read a life of Abraham Lincoln as a child, and Lincoln
One Who is Present; 4 Types of Love; Being “All There”—Henri Bergson speaks of “a body as present wherever
its attractive influence is felt. Eberhard Grisebach’s word Gegenwart literally means “that which
waits over against me” [i.e. that in the other which resists me]. Immanuel
Kant’s 2nd formulation of the categorical imperative says, “Treat
humanity, whether in yourself or in others, always as an end and never as a
means.” Grisebach and Kant would therefore
accent the integrity of a fellow subject, the waiting resistance that also
operates from a mysterious and important axis of its own. If we go beyond locatability in speaking of
presence, we should speak of a readiness to respect and stand in wonder and
openness before the life and influence of the other, of a willingness to
penetrate and be penetrated and even be changed by experiencing [the other].
Ortega y Gasset first describes the physical love in
which one or both of the partners uses the other for physical gratification;
any presence is only as an object. His 2nd
kind of love is one that seeks psychological conquest of the other partner;
success in submission and domination leads to waning interest in the
presence. A 3rd type of love
may involve the two partners projecting an image on each other. In many instances, the struggle for integrity
fails and the projected image prevails; neither can be present to the other
except in this disguise. Ortega only hints
at the 4th type of love, which is something like Rilke’s “two
solitudes’ that “protect and touch and greet each other.” There can be little doubt that the
post-crisis presence is often superior to the pre-crisis one for it has been
tested and has been vindicated. The 4th
level searches each of us to the quick not only in our friendships and marriage
but also in our contacts with other religions, races and nations.
In the last of Tolstoy’s 23 Tales, a king seeks the answer to three questions from a hermit
deep in the woods: How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time? Whose advice can I trust? And what things are most important and
require my first attention? Through
digging the hermit’s garden and binding the wounds of a bearded man the king
received his answers. “Remember then,”
added the hermit, “there is only one time that is important. Now. The most necessary man is he whom you are . .
. and the most important thing is to do him good.” But to make anything of this bone-bare answer
of the hermit’s, of our being present where there is immediate need, you have
to be all there. [Being all there may make all the difference
in a person’s life or death].
The Cost of Being Present; A Real Friend…—The Franciscan Third Order of lay Christians were to
seek ways in which they could mix their bodies and personal service, with their
alms. The members were to be personally
present where they helped, and to find fresh ways to show that they cared. To be personally present in what you do gives
some earnest that you mean it. In the
Old Testament, Elisha can revive the Shunamite woman’s son only when he lays
his own body over the body of the boy and breathes his own breath into the
boy’s nostrils.
When it comes to a friendship, how seldom are we
really present. [A Friend suffering from acute diabetes requested visits only
from those who could commit to coming continuously]. One of the vital Ad Hoc
churches in the Christian world today, where men and women are really present
to each other is in Alcoholics Anonymous, [and particularly their sponsorship
program, where the sponsor] is ready to come at any time. Letters can be written
in such a way that the receiver knows instinctively that the receiver’s
situation is present to the writer throughout. A real friend is present, and knows
how to confirm in us the deepest thing that is already there, “answering to
that of God” in his needy friend. No other person can chart a course for you
but a “present” friend can firm up what you in your deepest heart of hearts
have already felt drawing you. Visiting Friends sought to be truly open and
present to family members as they visited with each one about that one’s
spiritual condition at that time.
I am Ready, Are you Ready? The Unbidden Presence—Presence may come in an act of prayer, by which we
become aware of the presence and of what the presence does to search,
transform, and renew us. When God says, “I am ready. Are you Ready? [we may respond], “O Lord make me more ready to be
made ready.” In prayer where intercession is involved, my own caring [while
frail in comparison with the whole communion of the saints] may be the decisive
impulse that touches my friend’s decision and opens that friend to these ever
present forces that could change one’s whole perspective. In intercessory
prayer my friend may be more truly present to me than as if I were literally
never out of their sight. It is not only my friend who is opened to
transformation but this holds for my own life as well; 2 persons can never be
truly present to each other and remain the same.
God’s presence comes in prayer, but it also can come
unbidden and overwhelm us when we least expect it. Wordsworth wrote: “And I
have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts.” [All
the little joys, the “minor ecstasies” from a book, a play, a child, the sea],
are all pointing to the presence. [To “I am ready, Are you ready? we may] now
and then answer: “I am present, Lord, where I am, and you are present with me.”
[Being Absent] Amidst the World Religions; No Religion is an Island; Dialogue—In 1966 I was sent to India and Japan to see if it
was feasible for Quakers to serve as hosts for [a seminar, a meeting of the
minds] with Zen Buddhism and Hindu religious thought. The truth of the matter
is that in Japan India India
In the US Israel
Paul Tillich said of the Jewish-Christian dialogue:
“They have not converted them but they have created a community of conversation
which has changed both sides of the dialogue.” If the Holy Spirit is always at
work and if it has something to say to Christians through Buddhism and Hinduism
and through Christians to those religions, [how can the Holy Spirit] say this unless each is willing to be present,
to the other? We must learn to create an inter-religious space; in such a
space, God’s spirit can blow as it wills.” The Holy Spirit has some-thing to
say through Hinduism’s belief in: God
expectancy; simplicity of life; inward meditation; sanctity; and thankfulness.
[Perhaps in gathering we] may experience what our Catholic friends call the
Real Presence.
An Ecumenical Aspect…Vatican Council II—In this small project there is also some hope of contributing something to the ecumenical movement. There is guarded enthusiasm from both Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions at having some of their leading thinkers [take part]. I met with an influential Zen master at his temple. The master suggested having only Zen Buddhists and Quakers meet. I felt inwardly convinced that we dare not any longer come to our Buddhist brothers as separate denominations; the master agreed. InIndia
An Ecumenical Aspect…Vatican Council II—In this small project there is also some hope of contributing something to the ecumenical movement. There is guarded enthusiasm from both Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions at having some of their leading thinkers [take part]. I met with an influential Zen master at his temple. The master suggested having only Zen Buddhists and Quakers meet. I felt inwardly convinced that we dare not any longer come to our Buddhist brothers as separate denominations; the master agreed. In
Educators of Christian colleges invited Roman Catholic
educators to their conference. To see
these Catholic and Protestant educators now taking part freely in the
discussions of their common educational problems means they are being present
to each other. Ten Roman Catholic and
ten non-Catholic scholars met at Pendle Hill to write a joint paper on prayer
in the contemporary scene. A vast
enrichment is coming to both sides as we encourage each other in that which is
most precious to us both.
Revolution
in Higher Education; Racial Barriers—We
in the US
In no area of our time is this issue of presence to be
seen more clearly in the US
International Relations; Interior Emigration; Quaker
Task—[Those who have come into Switzerland Great Britain Viet Nam
In the German Democratic Republic, Pastor Hamel holds
that nearly all of the “heroic” Protestant brothers are guilty of interior
emigration [i.e.] they live on in the DDR but in nearly every other sense they
have already defected to the West. They
can never be truly present to their Communist brothers, never influence or
witness to them until they inwardly return to the DDR, and are willing to trust
the power of God to sustain them there. [People
in general live in the future and remain numb and glazed from the living
moment].
[The most important challenge and issue for Quakers is
to] learn to be present where they are in their personal relationships and
making their infinitesimal witness and effort to rouse all to dare to be
present to each other. There is One who,
on the road to Emmaus, taught his companions to be present. That same presence walks by our side, kindles
our meetings for worship, and reveals our failure to be truly present with our
families, friends, and brothers in the world.
Not only is there “no time like the present,” but there is no task God
has called us to that is more exciting and challenging than being made ready to
be present where we are.
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153. The Mayer/Boulding dialogue on peace research (by Kenneth Boulding; 1967)
About the Authors: Kenneth Boulding—He was Professor of Economics at the University of
Michigan; a founder and sustainer of the Center for Research on Conflict
Resolution; major contributor to peace research.
Milton Mayer—Consultant to Great Books Foundation; writes and lectures independently
and controversially. He is Jewish and a member of the Society of Friends. This
is a transcript of their dialogue in April of 1966.
Foreword (by Cynthia Kerman and Carol R. Murphy)—These 2 men are well known for their sparkling wit,
deep devotion to pacifism and the Society of Friends. “Peace Research” is the
study of the causes of social and international conflict, and the conditions
for its peaceful, non-violent resolution. The 2 disputants addressed them-selves
to the question: Is peace research a way to peace?
On what shall we rely as the aribiter of Truth: relentless intellectual
honesty and science, or the distilled wisdom of the ages informed by the Light
Within? As Matthew 10:16 says: “Be as
wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
The Place of Peace Research—MILTON MAYER:
Of my own knowledge I only
know that man is corrupt unto death, [born corrupt and corrupted by life]. I know of no evidence that man can think himself out of his big, [endless]
troubles. [Is reason such that] it will
move men to their salvation? [Does] the “executive power of the will lie in the
passions, regulated by moral and spiritual virtues? I submit that the peace
researcher’s role in relation to the peacemaker, is more modest than that of
the general contractor to one building a house.
I want a peaceable world. The building blocks of a peaceable world are
peaceable men. Since I know in general
how to build peace, the researcher [is more of a] subcontractor. The peace researcher may think that his role
is more consequential because the world is changing. The special complexities of our age are so
demanding, that they are leaving less and less time for the cultivation of
general [understanding].
Learning is an Evolutionary Process—KENNETH
BOULDING: There is a certain
amount of truth in this talk about corruption and original sin, but the plain
fact is, we do learn things. There is an
evolutionary process which goes on in social systems. Evolution is a learning process, and learning
is an evolutionary process. I would
guess that in the Paleolithic, knowledge doubled every 50,000 years. Today knowledge doubles about every 15
years. When you have a rate of change of
human knowledge as rapid as we have now, this alters your values too. It introduces profound changes into the
learning process by which we learn our values.
What we think of as human nature develops out of the experience of the
individual.
The social sciences represent a fundamental change in
the image of man and his society. They
mean the development of social
self-consciousness. This is a
universe in profound disequilibrium, in constant change, and at the present
moment this part of the universe is in explosive change.
Different Kinds of Knowledge—KENNETH BOULDING: There is a distinction between
methods of acquiring knowledge which involves the system’s complexity. The
more experience you have the better off you are; but this is not adequate for
complex systems. In social systems, we are often trying to do “social astronautics”
with a flat-earth image. Some at the State Department are seeking ancient,
classical solutions to modern-day war.
One of the great problems of the international system
is that it is operated by folk knowledge, and by very haphazard images of the
world. I think people ought to discover
what their own business is and mind it. The
progress is not all due to economics, but some of it is. Some of it is just a
plain increase in knowledge. We know how to get a reasonable rate of economic
development. But in the international system, this knowledge is not there. There
is no system of careful collection and processing and world-wide coding. I am optimistic enough to think this can
happen in the international system. I
don’t really think the problem of war and peace is any more intrinsically
difficult than the problem of unemployment.
I am sure there are a lot of things like this in which knowledge, or the
use of it is the crucial factor.
Knowledge and Moral Understanding—MILTON MAYER: What are the kinds of knowledge I need in
order to contribute to the making of peace?
I don’t see any point at which more knowledge would have enabled me
better to confront crises. What Kenneth
is telling us is that there isn’t very much that we can learn about man from the past. If I accept this view, it seems to me that I
eliminate the only body of knowledge that might conceivably be of any use to me
in the moral and emotional crises. What are the raw materials I need for peace
research, that I could turn over to peace research or social science, [and
expect a concrete, useful answer].
What is it
that I could teach or that I could learn that would be of some use to me in my
world peace-making efforts? I need peace research to tell me how to influence
politics. This is the knowledge I need;
this is the knowledge that I haven’t found or that I haven’t even heard about.
Systems and Society—KENNETH BOULDING:
Never underestimate the power of a saint and of a sacred history. These are things which create the great
symbolic movements, and which affect politics.
Sacred histories, which really write the history of the world, are very
hard to detect in the early stages. I am
in favor of [“useless”] knowledge; the pursuit of it has been very important in
human history, and the scientific revolution arises out of it. Most of what we know about the human organism
comes from reflection, poetry, insight, empathy, and imagination. Because of the failure to understand [some of
society’s principles], very often goodness produces very different effects from
what it thinks it is going to. This
could be true likewise in the peace movement.
If we want to operate in a social system we have to understand it,
because a social system represents the interaction of people at an abstract
level.
Decisions which people are going to make depend on
their image of the social system and the way it operates. [People are dealing with the present-day
world using lessons learned in the early decades of their lives]. Unless you can develop more subtle and
realistic images of the world, we’ll just go on doing this. The willingness to do things today that we
weren’t willing to do 30 years ago, is a result of a perverse learning process;
the only answer to a perverse learning process is a better learning process.
MILTON MAYER: So far you’ve been assuming that the
moral element [we] needed was already there.
Isn’t [it rather] that no matter
how much morality [and knowledge there] is around, there is a kind of gap
between them that we don’t understand and are not likely to fill merely by more
knowledge?
KENNETH BOULDING:
I am saying that on the whole people tend to want very much the same sort
of right things. They’re just ignorant,
they don’t know how to get what they want [or agree on how to get it]. Government
is going to be sensitive in the long run to strong and well-founded
intellectual criticism.
MILTON MAYER:
“Governments rather depend on men than men upon governments [William
Penn].” What do the findings of such peace research as we now have in hand
indicate that we should do?
KENNETH BOULDING:
The most important thing we did at the Conflict Resolution Center
The diagram of the phases of ice and water has
striking parallels to that for peace and war.
There is a pressure aspect to it [i.e. arms race], and the temperature
corresponds to the warmth of the international system. If you’re close to the boundary of ice and
water [war and peace], and there is evidence we are, How do you get over the boundary between war and peace? [You can] reduce the pressure
(disarmament) or increase the temperature (cultural exchange). We need studies of how we got personal
disarmament in various societies.
I think the most important thing a man can do is to
believe that peace is possible; and the second is to say to other people that
this is so. It is a social problem of
the same order of magnitude as unemployment.
Under certain circumstances, relatively small changes in what we call
the parameters of a system produce enormous changes in the system itself. There is a social watershed between systems
of stable peace and systems of unstable peace.
We may be much closer to the watershed on this than we think. What I advocate on Viet Nam
Do we Know Enough? Is it enough to Know?—BOULDING: What is it that we know that is enough?
MAYER:
1. If you keep moving, they can’t hit you.
2. It is better to be a live lion than a dead rabbit.
3. Of the 3 goods in life, the most dispensable is
reputation, and the least dispensable is money [the other is health].
4. It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied.
5. There being no social organism, but only morally
responsible persons [means] there are no social science and the social
revolution will be a moral revolution or it will not be at all.
6. The kingdom of Satan
7. It is not a moral, but a scientific assertion, to say
that evil should not be done that good may come of it; evil is certain; good is
contingent.
8. The unexamined life is not worth living.
9. He who would follow Christ must also do the things
that Christ does, if he can.
BOULDING:
10. Nothing fails like success
11. Nothing succeeds like failure.
12. God is love.
KENNETH BOULDING:
To make use of these truths we need a new language. How do
we persuade people to take the trouble to learn a language? In applying our intelligence to anything,
do we apply enough intelligence and in
what direction? Insight is the
origin of knowledge; insights are mutations, without which you don’t get
knowledge. Why did Quakerism fail? They
got inward peace, but inward peace isn’t the same as knowledge and outward
peace. Truth is both the opposite of
lies, and the opposite of error. There’s an enormous need for the marriage of
these 2 concepts of truth. Love is not enough. Love without knowledge will destroy us.
MILTON MAYER: I
too think love is not enough; it is only the greatest of these. Inward peace is not the same as world peace,
but it is better than no peace at all. The ends of man are moral, determined by
will. The means are moral, because of their power to pervert the end, or divert
it altogether. If a peace research project proves Kenneth to be right about
defeat being the best thing that could happen to a country, what is to be done with the findings of
this project?
One of the things peace research might do is to measure the effectiveness of action. Which project shall we do if the effectiveness of a morally right project is smaller than that of a morally wrong one? [We shall choose the morally right project regardless of effectiveness]. Whether we are at the beginning or the end of human history is God’s determination to make and not ours. We are always at the beginning and always at the end. Under these circumstances I say that I know what to do, and what I need is to do it.
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One of the things peace research might do is to measure the effectiveness of action. Which project shall we do if the effectiveness of a morally right project is smaller than that of a morally wrong one? [We shall choose the morally right project regardless of effectiveness]. Whether we are at the beginning or the end of human history is God’s determination to make and not ours. We are always at the beginning and always at the end. Under these circumstances I say that I know what to do, and what I need is to do it.
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154. The reality of God: thoughts on the "death of God" controversy (by Alexander C. Purdy; 1967)
About the Author—Hoemer Professor of New Testament (NT) and Dean at Hartford Connecticut Earlham School
1.—Much of the present-day discussion [involves] outgrown
images of God that have been abandoned without necessarily affecting the
essential reality of God. [The ancient]
creeds may be likened to trenches dug in to secure ground gained. They help hold the line, but it is hard to
move out of these trenches when new ground needs to be gained. The phrase
“death of God” covers a wide range of meaning. [Saying] that there is no God is
by no means new. [In] a vast and complex universe, the temptation to deny all
meaning is inevitable, not surprising.
Agnosticism may mean that one doesn’t
claim to know God’s ultimate reality, or that man cannot know God or anything about him. [When faced with the mystery
of the universe], most of us find ourselves in the [former form] of
agnosticism. [Scientists echo this sentiment.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington writes:
“If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by
the light of constant truth. . . So too in religion we need not turn aside from
the light that comes in our experience showing us a Way through the unseen
world.” [An imperfect understanding of the universe] does not mean that
definite, blessed meanings are excluded from the relationship.
2.—The “death of God” phrase covers some genuine atheists
both inside and outside the churches; the “death of God” covers many other
ideas. It is the importance of
rethinking our conception of God that attracts me. Much of the recent discussion revolves around
Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bultmann was made to rethink his Christian
position as a chaplain in WW I. Most
German soldiers were pretty much untouched by their religion. Bultmann proposed to demythologize the
records. [What is left after that process?]
Myth may express truth on another deeper
level than the more prosaic ways. [Truth
can also be presented in formulas and syllogisms]. A formula is true “if it represents correctly
the way in which certain physical elements act in relation to one another.” A syllogism is true “when the final statement
is derived by rational necessity from the others in a series.” Most will agree that not all of reality can be
expressed in formula or syllogism.
[We say that the sun “rises” and “sets,”
when we know that] the sun itself does not move. But the appearance and
disappearance of the sun are not illusions, even if we misperceive what
happens. When we say that NT re-cords is presented as figures of speech and in
myths, we are not dismissing these records as mere fiction. The forms in which the NT writers set forth
their convictions were those appropriate to their time and readers.
Paul Tillich holds that to relegate
religion to the realm outside or above nature is doomed to failure. [Religion fills the gaps left in scientific
knowledge; more and more of those gaps are closing. What’s left is mysticism and the narrow,
ritualistic performance in the churches passing for worship.] Tillich undertook to interpret the Christian
religion as inside the realm of being.
The prevalent religious vocabulary must be radically revised.
Does
not the accumulative effect of traditional phrases tend to make God remote and
unessential to life as we know it? God is neither “up there” or “out there.” A power not our own exists and man can and
ought to respond personally with all his mind and heart to this Depth and
Ground of reality. [“Ground of reality”
says that] God is intimately related to the system of reality accepted by the
sciences. This “God” includes the
personal area of existence [but is not a “Person.”]
3.—Dietrich Bonhoeffer paid for his allegiance to his
faith with his life. “Religion” is used
in 2 main ways. When “religion” stands
for the inescapable urge to find a meaningful relationship with the universe
and with other human beings it has a positive and creative meaning. Bonhoeffer’s rejection of “religion” is a
protest against the organized, systematized, institutionalized ways of the
churches as a substitute for genuine worship.
[In] this protest against the formality and externality of much worship,
[Bonhoeffer stands in the tradition of many Old Testament (OT) prophets (e.g.
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah)].
Jeremiah asked: Will you steal, murder, commit adultery,
swear falsely... and then come and stand before me in this house, which is
called by my name, and say, ‘we are delivered’ ... Has this house . . . become
a den of robbers in your eyes? Micah
asked: What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
The sting of Jesus’ word is in his
repudiation of these worship exercises as outward, formal patterns of worship
“to be seen of men.” [Jesus rejects the
Pharisee’s meticulous observances, respectability and self-righteousness, and
embraces] the brokenhearted cry of the Tax Collector, “God, be merciful to me a
sinner.” [It is] deeds of mercy and kindness [that will
be judged worthy in the end]. The
highest moment of formal worship must wait upon and be informed by an act of
reconciliation before it is meaningful.
[It is easy to imagine that] the real
life [events] of a Galilean village furnishes the setting for the Sermon on
Mount. No kind of “religion” which is
abstracted from the rough and tumble of actuality finds any justification in
Jesus’ teaching. Martin Buber said: “What the Bible says is not religious but
holy. The holy means simply to let
everything in social, economic, political life, all life, be subjected to the
kingly rule of God.”
4.—Can
the forms and institutions of religion be scrapped? Should ours be the role of
iconoclasts? Each fresh reformation has produced new forms when it
cooled. Even George Fox concerned himself in the last years of his life with
organizing the new society. People cannot worship together without some kind of
order. The apostle Paul said: “God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” (I
Corinthians 14:33). Speaking immediately at the meeting’s beginning or after a
very short wait after the last speaker is not according to the order of
Friends.
Bishop Robinson said: The presence of Christ with his people is
tied to a right receiving of the communion, to a right relationship with one’s
neighbor.” The acid test of every form,
every ceremony, is its relevance to the common life we live. It is not likely that any one form is valid
for and will meet the needs of all. I do
not fear that religion will cease to be.
Dag Hammarskjold writes in Markings: “God does not die on the day when we cease to
believe in a personal deity. . . We die when our lives cease to be illumined by
the source of [radiance and wonder] which is beyond all reason.” Howard Brinton says that if a man finds the
Holy of Holies, [and all that is there is] himself, he is not likely to go
there again. A revival of authentic
religion is inevitable.
We need to be hesitant about defining
God. The Bible vividly illustrates its
writers’ changing views. The Hebrew concept developed in the opposite direction
from the Greek, who moved to monotheism by emptying the idea of God of
everything human, [and arriving at an] Absolute Being. The Hebrew mind
progressively theomorphized man by using loftier and loftier views of human
capacity; the Greeks arrived at philosophy; the Hebrews at ethical monotheism. Will we be able to arrive at a satisfying
conception of God? Is there any other direction for our thinking to take? Can
God be thought of as a Person, as a Person unlimited by the personal, or as
Impersonal? I am completely certain that my response is to be for the right
as I am given to know it.
5.—The most meaningful way to think of the reality of God
is in terms of Spirit. Saying “God is
spirit” stresses that there is that in the God of the universe that makes true
worship a possibility for man. The winds
of heaven are mysterious, being in themselves invisible but in their effect
quite observable, and the breath of man is coexistent with his life. It is not far to go to correlate this breath
with a man’s thoughts and feelings, and to reflect on spirit as the ultimate
reality, the soul stuff of God and man.
For the Hebrews, spirit was the word for the way God acts and the way
man responds rather than as describing the nature of either God or man. The Spirit of God in the OT is the
[extraordinary] agency producing a wide variety of effects, an ad hoc endowment
rather than a permanent possession.
Spirit is used primarily of the inspiration of prophets. The great prophets’ message came to them
directly and immediately without the mediation of the spirit.
6.—In the Synoptic Gospels it is clear that Spirit was
increasingly regarded as characteristic of the coming Messianic age. [On the other hand], the Book of Acts is
filled with evidence of the guidance and motivation of the Spirit. What may be new in Acts is the recovery of
the group experience, “they were all together in one place.” Is the
koinonia also a result of the gift of the Spirit? According to Paul, the Spirit motivates
all the leaders of the church, however lofty or humble their status, including
mere “helpers.” The supreme gift of the
Spirit is not a classifiable function but the way in which all functions must be exercised. In the Gospel of John Jesus is reported as
saying, “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in
truth.”
The Spirit moves men to do and be what
they could not otherwise achieve. A
power not their own moves but does not obliterate their personalities. Amos Wilder sees false spirituality as “the
kind of dualism which locates Christian experience in the soul rather than in
the whole man.” In the Bible the “heart”
designates the intimate center and the totality of the human personality where
intelligence, feeling and will reside.”
Spirit is the energizing power, purging our whole creaturely and
practical being, involving all our natural and moral relationship. We ought to say the God’s Spirit comes through rather than comes down. [Being] gathered into the worshipping company
brings a new sense of human situations and human relationships.
Frederick Buechner says: “The Christian
faith flatly contradicts [the notion that life does not care what we make of
it]. Whether you call it the Spirit of
God or the life force, its most basic characteristic is that it wishes us well
and is at work toward that end. Deep
within [wherever] the hidden spring that life wells up from there comes a power
to heal, to breathe new life into us. I
believe that for our sakes this Spirit beneath our spirit will make Christs of
us before we are done, or for our sakes will destroy us.”
7.—We are under obligation as thinking, reasoning beings
to understand, in as far as we are able, the nature and character of the
Ultimate Reality which makes a Universe.
Can it be that we have been engaged
in the wrong quest, [seeking God as the object of it, rather than seeing God as
the divine mover in our search for something more]? The quest which has a thing as an end,
must leave us dissatisfied; only that quest which can lead us through a doorway
into ever deeper exploration can sustain us.
We can only be satisfied at the end of our quest if we have met a person
not a thing. God is not the ends, but
the moving power which inspires us to continue the quest for abundant life for us
and for all people everywhere.
157. Facing and fulfilling the later years (by Elsie Marion Andrews; 1968)
About the Author—Much
of the wisdom attributed to the wise women of the 16th century informs Elsie’s
concern for enriching the lives of people in general, and older people in
particular. [She started with children]
at Farmham’s Girls’ Grammar School and later at a Senior High School in Indianapolis
Foreword (by
Anna Cox Brinton)—The answer to the
old age question depends on country, culture, diet, and method of
reckoning. “If you would be old, you
must start young.” There are areas in
the world where youth and life are still brief.
For bookish people whose sight and hearing suffice, reading and writing
have always been favorite pastimes. The
composition of the “Quaker Journal” has occupied the later years of uncounted
Friends. Elsie Andrews describes a
multitude of ways in which the later years can be both enjoyed and
fulfilled.
Age in a Changing World—“Advance in medical science is self-defeating if we
improve health . . . without giving them meaningful ways to use their
capacities in their longer life. . .
There needs to be an environment more favorable to making use of
people’s potential in the later years (Report
of the National Council on Aging).”
My concern with the wise and happy use of the later years has arisen
through elderly friends and their families that have come to grips with
unexpected change. Adaptation is not
easy to those grown used to an accepted way of life. [Even those starved for touch and attention],
could show life and hope if only someone cared.
We need each other.
[But] we live at a time when human contact and understanding is
threatened by a mechanized world, where human beings were in danger of
becoming like the automatons they invent. [Culture has changed and brought with
it] the present climate of opinion that puts youth, glamour, vigor, and
production in the spotlight of popularity and worth. The whole structure of society today calls
for fresh thinking on these concerns.
The purpose of this essay is to consider the social and spiritual needs
of the human being growing toward fruition.
Retirement in Prospect—One significant aspect of retirement is whether it
comes by choice or compulsion. Free
choice [is no guarantee of] a favorable attitude. Another significant factor is the degree of
genuine interest [or disinterest] the individual has in his work. [Hobbies take the place of routine jobs in
retirement]. [Skilled craftsmen with no
hobbies in place and] being under the wife’s feet brings out the worst in the relationship
of 2 people living in too close proximity for either one to appreciate the
other. In cases like this some form of
gradual retirement would be helpful.
Ideally there should be no categorical age for retirement, but rather a
tapering off as the need arises. Future
legislation [should] provide for a flexibility of opportunities and
alternatives: to retire and find other occupation, or to continue in a
graduated and possibly protected sphere of employment.
Where to Live—A place in the [3-generation] family of which one has always been a
part must mean more than any other environment—a place where devotion is
shared, where in adversity the deep springs of comfort will continue to flow.
Due to many causes, British adolescents grow up earlier, and adults find
themselves with family-free independence much sooner than they used to; some
parents find it hard to part with their children.
[3-generation] families do not necessarily want to be split, but present-day trends
practically force them apart. If [there
are so few grandchildren around] it results as much from the uprooting of young
families to new areas of employment as from this century’s lower birth
rate. Grandparents are left alone in a
place they may be reluctant to leave or taken to a place where they have no
desire to go.
In England Britain America England
Responsibility for caring for old parents is likely to
fall on the available family member, usually a middle-aged daughter. In close and constant relationships some
relief and variation of program is usually helpful. It requires real effort to come freshly to
those we think we know well and forbear pre-judgment. In Britain America
Communal Residence—The time comes when some form of communal residence
has to be considered. Unhappily, a bleak
picture of institutional care persists in the minds of those over 70, who cling
to the freedom they feel they have in living alone through fear of losing it in
residential homes. It is important that
the success stories in residential care should be publicized in order to break
down certain fears founded on an outmoded conception. Appreciation of individual characteristics
and ideas immediately creates interest in the fabric being woven being woven
together through social intercourse and interdependence.
The Society of Friends in Britain Gwynedd , Pennsylvania
Creativity—For
the majority of healthy retirees, later life offers much that will complement
the former years, [an almost endless scope].
Creativity comes in the simplest of everyday things: letter-writing;
conversation; relationships; home management. Abraham Maslow said, “Not only
is it fun to use our capacities; it is necessary for growth.” [In exploring new
talents] D. H. Lawrence said, “We live too much from the head and [our] evil
will. . .” [When talent is crippled by
rheumatism, arthritis, and poor eyesight] new tools must be found, or some
alternative offered which is meaningful and related to the individual’s
interests.
But creativity need not require physical activity, nor
preclude mental exercise. [A County Arcivist
Helping the Elderly—[In particular] Solitaries and lethargics need the
stimulus that comes from a demonstrated enthusiasm or a helpful prod. Helping the aged requires more than goodwill
and common sense; training is also essential.
No regular training pattern of instruction is yet established for
volunteers and amateurs. Materially
conditions are easy to improve, given the money, but less easy to provide is
the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual understanding between those
involved. [After information sessions
with experts], trainees learned something of self-identification through films,
role playing, and the seminar method and had the chance to observe that every
individual reacts in their own way to handicaps and poor health.
[An excess of] health-consciousness can be a disease
of fear in itself. Where there is fear and bewilderment one must convey hope
and confidence, where there is doubt, one must give strengthening toward
resolution. The past is there and is a clue to present behavior. Strong
characters of great age are sometimes better equipped to cope with problems than
those of a softer generation. In every
one-to-one or one-to-group situation, both sides learn from each other and
interact.
Shaping a New Image—The most urgent need is to be understood—by others and
by themselves, as to who they are, why they are as they are, and what they believe they are. [Not perceiving everything that went into the
forming of this “old person”] is our loss.
We cannot afford to waste the wisdom won with the years. Many older people are better at many things
than their juniors. Unfortunately our
present civilization tends to put a premium on productive work; strength,
beauty, mental agility, sexual power, and attraction are accepted all too
generally as the prime criteria. Modern
communication through film and advertisement have broadcast these values. In the search for a new formula for
satisfying living we must look at life’s wares, its tools and
possibilities. Science may serve as an
unexpected ally to the old in developing their assurance of a valid reason for
living not associated with the importance and status of work. Younger generations will prepare themselves
for age only when they see signs of true growth in those of advanced
years.
Faith and Fullfillment—Jung asserts, “When higher interests arise on the
horizon insoluble problems lose their urgency . . . the greatest problems of
life can never be solved but only outgrown.” Religion has to face the worst
that happens to people and offer them love and understanding. Men and women
looking back have seen that unexpected, stronger growth came from the place of
trial and testing. Those who cope with serious limitations so cheerfully are called
heroes. But their achievement is neither magical nor instantaneous; they have
over the years, built positive attitudes which make courageous effort possible
and frequently unconscious. Even failing powers, by narrowing the scope of
experience, may serve to concentrate interest and deepen the understanding of
that interest. At every level of service
and ability there is something to share, something to give, some door to
enter.
But let us not confuse creativity, or, creative
service, with [constant] activity.
Waiting, listening—these also represent a creative force. When there is openness of mind there is also
expectancy lit with a belief in the allrightness of the unknown. Though for some it is impossible to accept
religious belief, the wonder and mystery of life is something all can ponder;
contemplation is a form of worship. To
face life and aging calls for the courage of faith. Can we
accept the sheer joy of being? To live with life is to live with
death. Ultimately man can only
contemplate the fact of being. He is here now. Let him absorb and give out in
his very breath his feeling of at-one-ment.
When men have lived openly, gathering the fruits of their experience
through the adventures of youth and adulthood into the later adventure of age,
there surely should be no resistance to sleep at last.
T.S. Eliot: “In
my beginning is my end—In my end is my beginning.”
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158. Man the Broken Image (by Carol R. Murphy;
1968)
About the Author—Carol Murphy’s previous 7 pamphlets have ranged from
counseling the mentally ill to abstract concepts of theology. This pamphlet [seeks to answer the
questions]: Is man a naked ape? A Thinking
reed? A Candle of the Lord? The understanding of both religion and
science is brought to bear on the nature of this paradoxical being who inhabits
both the natural and the spiritual dimensions.
[Inner
Dialogue]
[Sinner:] How wonderful it would be to
discover more relics of Shakespeare’s, Plato’s, and Jesus’ life.
[Child of God (COG):] What more to we need to know
than their distilled thoughts? I guess it’s a matter of what you think is the real person—a bodily presence that dies or a
communication of the spirit that endures.
[Sinner:] We are meant to know each other in the flesh.
[COG:] What is
man anyway—a naked ape, a thinking reed, or the candle of the Lord?
[Sinner:] Man is more than naked ape, but he does live in natural environment;
the rain falls & the wind blows.
[COG:] Rain & wind generate ideas or become
symbols. He reacts not to the rain but to what it means to him.
[Sinner:] Without a body he would never know the rain, which is as wet to him as
to any creature.
[COG:] [Without] the mind’s meanings, he could [never]
enter where the rain becomes ‘the quality of mercy.’ He’s not a naked ape, but is
clothed in the texture of his thoughts.
[Sinner:] Can we say that man has a
soul? How does he stand in relation to
God?
[COG :] It seems to me that if man helps weave the design, then he reflects
the nature of God.
[Sinner:] If God is that creative sensitivity we call
love, then man is most man when he loves, but when he is destructive he isn’t Godlike, yet he is still man. Man’s nature includes the ability to fall
away from his nature.
[COG :] Perhaps in some ideal sense we reflect the nature of God, but the
image is a very broken one. There’s something in and around man—a living energy—which is actually at work
healing the sin- sick soul and body. If that stopped working,
then man would not be man, nor would God be God.
[Sinner:] If man’s soul is a candle of the Lord, it is easily quenched. I’ll settle for a qualified statement of the nature of man—that he is a sinner and a child of God.
[COG:] A child that resembles his Father, even as germ cells of the body
mirror the likeness of an earthy father.”
[Sinner:] I can [say], ‘When I know myself I know thee’; but when I look in the
mirror I see only a man who needs a shave.
[COG :] I see more of man’s unlikeness to God in the mental mirror in which I
see my lack of love and response to others.
[Sinner:] I guess we can both agree how hard and necessary it is to ‘fall in
love outward.”
[COG:]
Being fully human is an accomplishment, not a given fact; it is God’s struggle
in us. Good night, Sinner.
[Sinner:] Good night, Child of God.
Brother to Life—Man is at least brother to all life. No living thing is merely
itself—it is always in relation to its surrounding; man loves and hates and
hungers, and turns to [the world outside himself]. [One must be watchful both
inside and outside one’s self]. Not only food, but the need to find and mate
with a partner calls for an investment outside the self. [The primordial sea
is reflected in our blood, and the earth’s turning in our diurnal rhythm].
The structure of things runs through him. Why then should he feel so orphaned and
estranged? With the mastery of fire [from there of energy], humans became
overlords rather than kin to nature. Humans are still dependent on a nature
that his domination may yet destroy. We do animals injustice to call the
[aggressive] uncontrolled aspects of human nature the “beast within us.”
Animal aggression is strictly controlled by instinct. We humans, in contrast,
seem to lack instinctual regulation, and must depend on conscious learning to
supply patterning.
Man as Maker of Culture—Man must control himself by means of symbolism and
culture instead of instinctual response to signs and gestures. Throughout
[animal behavior], passion is clothed in form which both arouses and controls.
But man’s cerebral cortex has overlaid or displaced instinctual patterns with a
plasticity of mind that makes learning important; [the learned meaning of
symbols become somewhat fluid and unique to the individual].
Man begins life in a very unfinished state, as a
bundle of non-specific impulse which must be taught to be human. [Symbolism’s
growth is gradual and progressive]. [In terms of “innate” aggressiveness or
sociability] the most we can say is
that man has the capacity to move toward, move against, or move away from
his environment. This environment must present neither too much solitude nor
too much society. Nothing is more destructive to personality than to be an
“invisible man,” unresponded to by one’s fellows, ignored as if one didn’t
exist.
Perhaps equally destructive is the condition of
extreme overcrowding. It is possible
that humankind is adjusting to crowded urban life by losing some of his
responsiveness; [someone needs to be excluded].
Without responsiveness, how can
there be responsibility?
[Controlling human behavior by] reason alone is like controlling a ship
by rudder without engines to give it steerage.
[Using] taboo based only on unreason does not long frighten the
skeptical modern man. In the art of the
dance, the passion to love or make war is given form and beauty and channeled
into the service of the social order. In
sports, football or baseball binds aggressiveness with arbitrary rules agreed
on by all players. Artists too, need
rules, either found in the stubborn nature of the wood and stone they work
with, or in the forms they adopt (e.g. sonnet, haiku, symphony). Man as artist enters the world of symbolism
and communication, thus transcending the subhuman world of sign and innate
response.
Man as Thinker—Man as communicator enters Teilhard de Chardin’s noösphere, the
universe of mental responsiveness which has grown out of the biosphere. Symbols are signs, not of things, but ideas
of things. Language is a code that
embodies these thought-patterns and filters human experience through them. The idea of time is deeply affected by the
cultural mindset. The subject-predicate
structure of European languages has set the tone of our philosophy from the
time of the Greeks. Chinese language
does not have this structure; the resulting logic of their thought is
profoundly different from ours; language can divide as well as unite.
In information-giving and receiving computers, a basic
unit answers the question: Is the door open or shut? There must be a field of possibilities from
which the content of the message is selected.
Meaning also requires a tuned receiver.
We can attune our minds to various kinds and systems of signals while
filtering others out as being chaotic “noise” relative to our purposes. The one who receives the message responds to
it by a change in behavior or an answering message. In the communication network of the
noösphere, there are no hard and fast boundaries. The body is itself a pattern of
intercommunication. The more we study
energy, the more we see it as intricate patterns of behavior (e.g. the dance of
electrons, DNA, evolution, the dialogue of human relationships. Yeats wrote:
How tell the dancer from the
dance?
Man as Image of God—Man is patterned responsiveness, participant in the
noösphere, and the mirror of the dance of creation. [Pronouncing man as] made in the image of God
sounds so preposterous that theologians tend to back away from it in embarrassment. [The Christian Scientist] Mary Baker Eddy
says: “God is the Principle of man, and man is the idea of God.”
Is man a
thing subject to non-human nature, or is he part of a wider and deeper pattern
or responsiveness that created and continues to re-create him? All
too often we experience only ourselves as subjects, but others appear as
objects. We regard cancer cells or
schizophrenia as if these were separate things unrelated to the whole of the
body whose cells or brain give rise to them.
To heal the personality can well heal the body too.
He who wishes to understand the nature of things must
look beyond surface appearances to find the invisible order which accounts for
their operation and gives meaning to it.
A living organism is a network of metabolism, self-maintenance and
nervous reactions; dead, it is a corpse subject to the chemistry of decay. Physics and chemistry alone do not explain
the working of the logos, but logos makes use of physical and chemical
properties. What happens to man’s logos when he dies? How can
man appear so alienated from God’s Logos?
Man as Mortal—Man
has never been able to decide whether death is natural to man’s estate, or
unnatural, an absurd contradiction.
Philosophers and theologians have as much say as biologists and
psychologists as to man’s norm. We do
well to remain hung up on this question of final reality. The truth is far too rich for anything but a
paradoxical answer. Both aspects of our
existence must have their place in our answer.
There is phrase of John Woolman’s about the dead—that they are “centered
in another state of being.”
Martin Luther worked out a geometry of the soul as
being curvatus in se (life lived
inward for self vs. outward for God); every attempt to go beyond oneself
curves back into self. When [this happens] we cease to respond to the other
but only to our own needs and sensations. Sin is unresponsiveness; sin tears
the fabric of creation. There is talking at
someone, to someone, or with someone. How rare is the third and
highest form of communication—talking with someone as an equal, open to give
and take, with maximum attention to the needs and feeling of the other person.
In lying, the sin is in aiming to manipulate the other, replacing the intent to
inform.
Neither cultures nor nations find it easy to listen to
each other. Many try to flee from broken
and manipulative lines of communication by turning to religion; but there is no
escape in religion. The very worship of God
is corrupted by the incurved self; leading to the attempt to manipulate God. Easily blinded and never secure in our
choices, we are still able to be guided step by step if we learn to listen and
respond to the still small voice of the indwelling Spirit.
Good night,
Sinner.
Good night,
Child of God.
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160. Behind the Gospels (by Henry J. Cadbury; 1968)
About the Author—Emeritus Professor of Divinity of Harvard; one
translator of RSV; Pendle Hill weekly lecturer—“one part Puck and two parts
Quaker with vast amounts or erudition.”
Foreword—Formgeschicte (form criticism) developed in Germany
They were loose, collected bits. Because
they were in booklets, they acquired an arbitrary or editorial se-quence. We
must work backwards from the completed collection to the earlier materials. We
can perhaps recover with guarded optimism less inaccurate pictures of the Jesus
of history and the interests of Jesus followers. The addresses combined in
this pamphlet are from Studia Evangelica
II (vol. 87) and Journal of Biblical
Lit., vol. 83.
Looking
at the Gospels Backwards—The title
addresses both the order in which the gospels present the words and deeds of
Jesus and the order of the probable date of writing which distinguishes
canonical gospels from later uncanonical material. The form critic K. L. Schmidt supposed that
the separate units had been detached from any authentic memory of their
order. Papias, an early Christian writer
(about 140 A.D.), stated that Mark wrote “not in order.” The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke so
often agree in selection that some sort of common written relation can hardly
be denied. They are not two or three
independent witnesses. The outline of
closing events gives us no presumption that elsewhere the writing down of
tradition had more than the slenderest basis of historic sequence to go
by. The intentional cross references in
the gospels suggest writers that are not so much following historic sequence as
editors that are consciously looking back from sequels to antecedents.
Imagined Evidence of Historical Sequence—Many attempts have been made to [find in] the gospel
order hints that the evangelists record sequences or developments in a
[semblance of historical sequence]. There simply is not enough basis to argue
either for or against these imaginative reconstructions. Such hints of the
arrangement of their material as the evangelists themselves give or
unconsciously disclose are much more related to geography. I wish we could recover the original time and
place of Jesus’ words and deeds; using the present sequence is hardly
justifiable, as they have been detached and put together in a new sequence. If
we do take the sections as they stand, we can of course construct a reasonable
sequence. There is much in the ministry which reads as well back-wards as
forwards. Any new order, [even a random
one] might be no more authentic but we would be sobered by discovering that by
the same kind of ingenuity the new order might appear just as intelligible and
reasonable.
The Order of Origin of the Gospels—While voices are still raised to challenge the
consensus of scholars, it remains probable that Mark is older than Matthew and
Luke, and is a source they used, and that John is later than all three. Form criticism has rightly assumed that even
prior to the written record the material experienced similar stages of
selection, emphasis or change. By
studying it in reverse order one can trace backward through them and even
before them the course of their literary or ideological development.
What I want to propose is that late
evidence now available from the non-canonical gospels suggests that a similar
process has taken place in the canonical gospels. [I will focus on] the non-canonical Gospel of
Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Egerton Papyrus. All these were written originally in the 2nd
century, probably well before its end. Peter
was translated and published in 1892, Thomas in 1959, and Egerton in 1935. The copy of Thomas found was in Coptic and
contained over 100 sayings or brief conversations of Jesus.
There in these 3 discoveries some hints
or confirmation of the way in which the canonical gospels were composed. The Diatessaron
of Tatian, also from the 2nd century, was not an independent
gospel and not like a modern harmony, but a mosaic built up by selection and
arrangement from our 4 canonical gospels interwoven, much as we suppose Mark
was used along with what scholars call Q, L, and M(t). Do [the 3 I mentioned earlier] represent
independent and preferable oral or written sources? Or do they rather disclose the freedom with
which the writers retold the words and deeds of Jesus? If we should decide that in the 2nd
century editorial freedom played a substantial role, have we any reason to
assume greater fidelity in the 1st century?
Characteristics and Historic Value—One interesting feature of any writer is his tendency
to transfer a motif from one part of the narrative to another. The inscription on the cross is different in
all five gospels (counting Peter) as is the scourging and mocking of
Jesus. The 7 “words from the cross” are
collected from the 4 separate gospels.
Luke was capable of transferring to Acts motifs from Mark he did not use
in Luke. It is quite clear that the teaching of
Jesus in Thomas is much closer to the synoptics than to John. John and Thomas omit reference to the
exorcism of demons. Neither, except for the passion narrative have much direct
reference to the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Thomas finds the synoptic type of parable
congenial while John does not. Terms
characteristic in one gospel become rare in another, and vice versa. The recurrence of identical rare Greek words
suggests mutual knowledge.
[Many
of the features of the earlier gospels are shared with the later ones, which]
challenge the presupposition that what is familiar has special claim to
authenticity. [In the later ones] the
pious desire for more information about Jesus has conflicted with the prejudice
in favor of the canon—two quite subjective rival factors. If the student could without prejudice test
these later gospels he might proceed backwards with better practiced criteria
for looking at the same questions in the older gospels. Bishop Irenaeus tells us that each of the
four [“orthodox”] gospels appealed to its own constituency of “heretics.”
Alleged Authorship—Each canonical gospels’ value is based on Christians
who “knew” that a certain early Christian was its author; such tradition is of
doubtful worth. Tradition that attaches apostles’ names to books is more suspect
than tradition that attaches names like Mark and Luke. One can encourage
students to examine secondary gospels so that they have better means of
evaluating their predecessors than if they were innocent of the similar
problems between the 2 groups. If uncanonical gospels were secondary to
canonical, canonical were secondary to their sources. Nothing justifies giving gospels special
treatment from historical or literary viewpoints.
So far I have dealt with the easy but
unproved inference that the order of sections in [the synoptic gospels] is
chronological and the easy and natural deference to the 4 canonical gospels,
solely because of their role in the church.
In an effort at intellectual integrity, we must deliberately ignore
their present sequence. The antiquity or
accuracy of the related episodes are not to be assessed by their absence or
presence in gospels included in or excluded from our traditional New
Testament.
Gospel
Study and Our Image of Early Christianity—It has long been evident that one cannot entirely separate the New
Testament writings into the gospels on one hand, and the events and letters of
the early church on the other. Form criticism of the gospels began by trying to
explain these books by assuming that form was determined by this material’s
use within the early Christian movement. The sources we have on early Christian
life do not suggest that the life and teaching of Jesus or memory of his
character and career played much part in the conscious thought of early
Christians. It is a fact that neither Paul’s letters nor those written later
would never have suggested a sizable fraction of what the gospel story conveys
to us, and that the focus was on present and future, not the past. [Our actual problem] is why the Gospel of
Mark and the others ever came to be written at all.
The Gospels as Revealing the Apostolic
Age—What form criticism
attempted to tell us is how the reminiscences were selected and altered if
they were to be used at all. Form
criticism has led us to observe in the separate gospel units a variety of
motives easily attributed to the interests of post resurrection
Christians. Whenever these writings seem
concerned with the future, or make Jesus sound self-conscious or egotistical,
one suspects they [are reflecting] the later interests of his followers. We might be tempted to alter our portrait of
the early church to account for the seeming lack of trustworthiness and
consistency of the gospels. [Instead],
we can imagine that it was the [very diverse] church, not Jesus himself nor
even one of the evangelists, that was both Judaistic and anti-Jewish as the
Gospel of Matthew seems to be.
Unfortunately, current study of the
earliest Christianity conceives a greater unity [rather than diversity] at the
beginning. “Kerygma is the modern title
of one of these assumed original agreements.
They are said to be the recurrent themes, and to have represented a
simple and satisfactory body of thought for the unity of the faith. This picture of early Christianity does not
stem from a new appraisal of the gospels, but from a long-standing assumption
of uniformity in the early church. The
very idea of one Christian community is more concrete than I think our sources
warrant. The evangelists were spokesman
for separate communities. The
geographical and cultural expansion of the movement meant proliferation of
difference.
The Danger of Modernizing—I am persuaded that much of our current image of
early Christians reflects our own traditions and interests rather than the
early Christian documents. There is as much danger in modernizing primitive
Christianity as there is in modernizing Jesus. Avoid thinking of the gospel’s contents
as connected with church worship or formal instruction. The words “liturgical”
and “catechetical” are not very applicable to them. The order in the gospel
sections is not much due to either the Christian calendar or the actual
sequence of events in Jesus’ life. The gospels became a depository and later a
quarry for the most diverse interests and occasions. [Because] parts of their
contents were useful for answering personal and social ethical problems of
believers, or for keeping individuals courageous and faithful, [does not make
those uses the original intent of the gospel].
The synoptic parables have lately been
used particularly to guess the early Christian background. Yet they are very ambiguous. Parables are illustrations, and illustrations
are notoriously unanchored. The earliest
known use of gospel recitation is described by Origen: “It is by the name of Jesus, accompanied by
the recital of the narratives which relate to him that Christians seem to
prevail over evil spirits.” The
retention in Mark of Jesus’ words in Aramaic is probably pre-literary evidence
of the use of these traditions for early Christian cures.
The Link with the Historical Jesus—The gospels, [even while they] reflect the next
generation, they disclose gospel
writers, informants, and readers who kept the theory if not the substance of
depending on the link with a historical person. The later forms tended to impose their ideas
on the historical Jesus, and then to claim the kind of link that implied
derivation from Jesus. I am not
persuaded that any artificial or abnormal processes were at work to transmit
with unexpected fullness or accuracy the historical facts of Jesus’ career and
teaching.
Probably the attitudes and interests of
the early Christians modified their memories of Jesus as much as the
remembrance of Jesus determined the thoughts and interests of the early
Christians. The appraisal of Jesus
retrospectively was, in successive generations from the first, quite varied. To suppose that a present-day awareness of
the miraculous unity of Christ with the church is an accurate revival or
survival of the earliest Christian feelings, may be thoroughly
unhistorical. The search for a
proclamation about Jesus usable today may prove futile. The interest in reconstructing the words and
deeds of the historical Jesus separated from the picture of faith drawn by the
early church is certainly our interest, which no one of the authors of the New
Testament had. Biblical study passes
naturally and unconsciously through successive stages. A recent pattern has been the transfer of
scholarly interest to the preaching of Jesus’ followers. Our present purpose is to challenge where
challenge is needed the image of early Christianity that is sometimes read into
as well as out of the gospels.
161. The Religion of George Fox (by Howard H. Brinton; 1968)
Introduction—In reading through the folio text of Fox’s letters I
have found him to be more philosopher than I expected, going farther toward
developing a religious philosophy than do Barclay, Penn, & Pennington. 2
books of selections from Fox’s epistles have appeared: Samuel Tukes (1825); L.
Violet Hodgkin Holdsworth, A Day-Book of
Counsel & Comfort (1937). William Penn wrote of Fox: “an original, no
man’s copy; a new & heavenly minded man; an incessant laborer; unwearied &
undaunted. His presence expressed religious majesty.” The list of his published works occupies 53
pages. The present pamphlet deals only with the 420 letters in the 1698 folio.
Fox’s religion comes through most clearly in his
letters, [where] he speaks to his fellow Quakers. In the 1698 folio epistles, Fox writes
without restraint, regardless of repetitions or formal sentence construction, and
without any effort to conform to schoolmen’s standards. These letters resemble the preaching which I
remember from ministering Friends [around the turn of the 20th
century] who still wore traditional Quaker garb.
The following pages are an attempt to describe George
Fox’s religion in the usual sense of that word. In George Fox’s religion and philosophy there
is first his belief in the Christ Within every man. 2nd, is his doctrine of 3 ages:
before Adam fell; after Adam fell, a time of Law; the coming of the Christ and
the New Covenant. 3rd is the
frequent appeal for unity. Fox’s later letters are largely concerned with bringing
unity into a group in which ecclesiastical authority was vested in no one
individual. Leaders exercised influence, not authority. To counteract anarchy and the effects of
persecution the tone of Fox’s letters is occasionally emphatic to the point of
violence.
Fox uses many words to say what the Bible says
briefly; he cited the Bible in arguments, but appealed to the spirit which
produced the Bible as the final source of truth. Fox was a radical in his religious
views. I am not dealing here with the
so-called “Letter of George Fox to the Governor of Barbadoes.”
The Light of Christ in Every Man—This central and best-known doctrine of George Fox is
based on John 1:9. Fox constantly points
out that this Light existed from eternity and was the creative power, and is
the source of knowledge of good and evil and of all religious truth. This light is in every man of every religion;
all know something of Christ, even though they have never had Christianity
proclaimed to them. Quaker slaves held in Algiers
This doctrine of [heathen knowledge of the truth] was
particularly obnoxious to the Puritans. Convincement of this truth gave the Quakers a
different attitude from that of Puritans toward Negroes, Indians, and
Muslims. Given their belief Quakers
could not treat the Indians as “heathen savages” as the Puritans did in
following the Old Testament (OT) precedent set by the Jews. The Quaker was to “answer” that of God in
every one. Fox used “answer” in his own
peculiar way. To answer meant to reply
to, to correspond with, or even to develop and stimulate “that of God in other
persons, whether friend or enemy, regardless of race or creed. To traveling ministers the instruction is
given, “walk cheerfully over the earth, answering that of God in every one.”
Another important element in George Fox’s religion is
his “perfectionism,” which was based on the text: “Till we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” To be perfect, however, did not mean to reach
a state beyond which further growth was impossible. This meant simply to live up to the measure
of Light given you, whatever that measure might be. Fox frequently employs symbols used in John’s
Gospel (e.g. life and light of men, Light of the world, the way the truth and
the life).
In
speaking of sanctuary to prisoners he tells them that they need not be troubled
by their outward condition for they have an inward habitation to which they can
repair and be at peace. Fox made no
attempt to take the Quakers out of the world, but he did often tell them to
live at the same time in a different place, the inward world ruled by the
Spirit of Christ. Here the dualism is
sometimes indicated by the word “pure,” meaning that which is not mixed or
contaminated by anything worldly. John
Woolman never refers to the Inward Light, but always to “pure wisdom.” George Fox’s philosophy is that instead of
meeting difficulties and persecutions head on, we should look at that which is
over and above them.
Fox
said: “There is the danger and temptation to you, of drawing your minds into
your own business, and clogging them with it; so that ye can hardly do any
thing to the service of God, but there will be crying, my business, my
business; and your minds will go into things, and not over things.
The Three Ages—Much of Fox’s thought is based on a special philosophy of history of 3
ages: before Adam fell; after Adam fell, a time of Law; the coming of the
Christ and the New Covenant. The essence
of this conception comes from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. John 15:15
says: “Henceforth I call you not
servants . . . but I have called you friends: for all things that I have heard
of my Father I have made known to you.
The contrast between the Mosaic covenant made at Mount Sinai and the New
Covenant at the coming of Christ is significant to Fox, who says: “All the figures, shadows, and types, in the
OT and Covenant, Christ the substance is come, and abolishes them . . . the
children of the New Covenant are called, “a spiritual household, a royal and
holy priesthood. . . Christ our high priest, was made after the power of an
endless life.”
Fox also said: Before Adam’s Fall, man and woman were
equal. After the Fall, men dominated the
women; but in the New Covenant they are again equal. Fox could repudiate the OT as an imperfect
revelation of the Truth, and claim for the New Testament a new and higher
revelation based on the Spirit of Truth.
By coming into unity with Christ, the Second Adam, man could rise to a
higher state than that of the first Adam.
The Quaker case was based on an inward experience of
the Light of Christ which leads to God, but it was also based on the claim that
it was a New Covenant religion. [The
Light of the Old Covenant, compared to the Light of the New, is] like the
twilight before the dawn compared to the daylight when the sun rises (William
Penn). Jesus came to fulfill the Law,
not to end it. On the 2 great
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Even the persecutors of the Quakers who were sending
them to prison by the thousands had a Light in them which could be “answered”
or appealed to. The Quaker movement
would not have survived persecution had the Anglicans and Puritans been as
ruthless as were the Lutherans in slaughtering Anabaptists. Fox did not believe that the outward blood
shed by Christ on the cross was the means of salvation. Salvation comes from the cleansing power of
the blood shed inwardly in the heart and not outwardly. [Fox would contest this point at] “great
meetings of professors.” The biblical
text which appears more often than any other in his epistles is Genesis
3:15: “And I will put enmity between
thee (serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. . .” This Fox believes to be a prophecy of the
coming of Christ to restore man and nature to the condition before the
Fall. The “seed” of the Inward Light
will grow if it is sown in fertile ground.
The Word of God as the Source of Unity—The temporal emphasis [of the 3 Ages] is typical of
Hebrew thought. Greek thought soars to
the timeless and the eternal, and Fox soars with it, [so that] Christ appears
as the “Word of God” who existed before creation, who is still creating, and
who will exist forever after creation. Early
Quakers and the early Christians had many problems in common. Both were “come
outers,” rebels against conventional codes and behavior. Both depended for unity on common loyalty to
Christ, not only the human Christ, but above all the eternal Christ.
It is clear that Fox felt his relation to the early
Quaker meetings was analogous to what Apostle Paul had with the early Christian Churches
It should be noted that there was from the start an
element of anarchy in the Quaker movement.
Quakerism survived because it was a group mysticism in which all sought
to follow the same Inward Light and
thus come into unity. While Fox gives no
evidence of familiarity with [logos],
he makes frequent use of the term “Word of God” to designate the eternal Christ
through whom “all things were created.”
Fox, in telling persecuted Friends that they can take refuge in an inner
sanctuary free from the storms of this world is not far from Stoic philosophy.
Fox unintentionally found a coherent philosophy in
John, Ephesians (1:10 ) and Colossians
(1:12 -23). That
Christ is above all principalities and powers is often asserted in Fox’s
epistles; [Fox included the persecuting Christian churches under “principalities
and powers”]. [In Colossians] Jesus was promoted above the status of a Jewish
Messiah to that of a cosmic figure. Thus, the dramatic conception of history,
the belief in 3 ages is expanded to include the history of the universe. The conception that there is an integrating
power bringing order out of chaos is characteristic of Smuts, Lloyd Morgan,
Alfred N. Whitehead, Samuel Alexander, [even] C. J. Jung.
[While Fox and Quakers] were closer to Paul and the
prophets than to Hellenistic thought, Fox made use of Hellenic elements in
John’s gospels, Ephesians, and Colossians, but he used them in a practical
prophetic way. For the Quakers the
relation to God was a person-to-person dialogue in the manner of the prophets
rather than dependence on philosophic speculation. [In today’s theological controversy], the
transcendent God on his throne with Jesus has died and has become the immanent
God within us, present in the midst of man’s daily life. Fox would have little to learn from the most
modern theologians. William James wrote
(1902): “Christian sects today are simply reverting in essence to the position
which Fox and the early Quakers long ago [360 years] assumed.”
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163. The Hardest Journey (by Douglas V. Steere; 1969)
About the Author—Douglas Steere is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at
Haverford College Whittier College California
[Introduction]/Proclamation/Dialogue—The Secretary of London Yearly Meeting
(Arthur White) told me of the moving requests which had come to British Friends
from Protestants and Roman Catholics for insights into our inward experience of
silent worship and the tradition of following concerns that might come from
it. [This expectation was humbling when
we know all too well our poverty and mediocrity in this area; similar openings
have been coming from the USA
In the spring of 1967, 10 Zen Buddhist
personalities met 10 Christ scholars, with 5 Quakers as host. These were men who by experience and study
could speak to each other authentically and with an openness to each other that
was almost breathtaking. I think Friends
were given a glimpse of the new dimension of communication between Christians
and men of other world religions that will mark the generation ahead. Professor Doi speaks of transition from
Proclamation to Dialogue. It becomes
clear that the Spirit has things to say to us
through Zen and things for us to share with Zen; each of us will ignore [the
other] only at our peril. Zen Professor
Hisamatsu of Kyoto
[Holy Spirit Epoch]/Hidden Life—At Vatican Council II Cardinal Suenens pressed for changes in the Church’s
Original Schema which would indicate the Church’s openness to charisms [such as
those Quakers seek]. There was to be no
abandonment of the law or the Church, but a new kindling epoch of the Holy
Spirit. It will pour through the lives of lay men and women and through its
power will release them for hallowed service in the fabric of their world. The Holy Spirit is the revealer of injustice
and the dissolver of men’s reservations as to the costly correction of those
wrongs. It has been experienced here and
now by millions of apostles. Quakers
believe in the continual operation of this Pentecostal Spirit. What a tragedy
it would be if at a time when the way has open as at few times in history to
our witness that we not be ready to make our contribution.
In the field of depth psychology, there
is a climate of deep congeniality to the Quaker witness. Carl Jung wrote: “We have built a monumental world about
us. The divine Mediator stands outside
as an image, while man remains fragmentary; the unconscious and undeveloped
psyche [remains] as pagan and archaic as ever.
The great events of the world do not breathe the spirit of Christianity
but rather of unadorned paganism. The
inner person’s soul is out of key with his external beliefs; in the soul the
Christian has not kept pace with external developments.” Quakers know that when they yield to this
“root” to which all men are grafted, it opens them to others across all
barriers. Our Quaker witness can be
deepened and enriched by interchange with depth psychology.
Scientific Revolution/Sheer Activism—Islam is trying to see how it can accommodate itself
to the Western technological revolution whose fruits the governments of its
territories are determined to appropriate for their own people. Hinduism, likewise, feels threatened by the
triumph of “materialism” which it sees coming in the wake of this technological
invasion. [They welcome help with] the vast physical needs of their people, but
they see it undermining their spiritual world-view. The Quakers have felt this conflict of
science and religion less than most Christian bodies. Quakers too have had members who feared
advances in geology, evolution, and biblical criticism. There always seemed to be a leaven [who were
above panicking at having] to confront the new face of the physical world. Robert Frost said: “We’ve been led to expect more of science
than it can perform. . . There’s a whole
half of our lives that can’t be made a science of.” The Quaker view is that people in our time
may have falsely exalted the omniscience of physical sciences and neglected to
attend to the other dimensions of one’s response to reality. There needs to be an openness to that which
is creative in science and to a call to the inward life under the Spirit that
may alone save our world from destruction.
Have
Quakers found that they have been able to keep their own share in social change
disinfected from the inevitable egotism of good works? Have we got a word for young people in the
early stages of revulsion to killing tightly focused on the Viet Nam
The Hardest Journey is the Longest
Journey/Jean LeClerq—Dag
Hammarskjold uses the phrase “The longest journey is the journey inwards.” He also said: “At one moment I did answer yes to Someone or Something—and from
that hour I was certain my existence had meaning.” Dr. Sullivan asked: “Have
you ever had a moment of awe and glory that has cloven your life asunder and
put it back together again forever different than it was before?” John Woolman wrote: “My heart was often tender
and contrite and universal love for my fellow creatures increased in me.” How
well do we understand and sympathize with Jesus’ disciples who fell asleep
again and again in the night of his passion in Gethsemane ?
The Benedictine Jean Le Clerq’s object
is to encourage monks in small houses not to stop with their initial commitment
to God. [He seeks] for them a wonderful historical precedent and urges them to
take the steps they long for, [in order that these monks might enjoy God]. [A peasant who can say] “I just look up at
Him and He looks down at me,” is going on in, in terms that perfectly fit Jean
Le Clerq’s invitation to enjoy God and let the rest of the matter look after
itself.
[Simple May not be Easy/Still Enough…/[Busy-ness]—The hardest journey must include getting us out of
our own self-absorption, self-imprisonment, and self-willed determination to
run our own lives in our own well-worn grooves.
Nietzsche said that in an authentic friend one will always find a true
enemy; an enemy to that which is low in ourselves. Kierkegaard may explain with
brutal frankness why God may appear to us at moments as the enemy. Fenelon says, “How few there are who are
still enough to hear God speak.”
The man or woman with an eye on
professional achievement is almost sure to plead that there is simply no time
for this kind of semi-rustic withdrawal, and indicate how many nights a week
they are spending in good works. Some of
us might wonder at times about the book of life and of what is being written
about our own inward journey. Could it
be that the pain that shatters many of us in our “midnight hours” is a moment of being “still enough to hear God
speak.”
“Still Enough” [for]
Decisions/Changes/[Consequences]—Many
of us may be trying desperately to keep from making decisions [stemming from
being “Still enough” for our Friend-Enemy to direct our path]. Is it
conceivable that “still enough to hear God speak” may require lasting, instant
decisions, if one dares to enjoy the company of the Friend-Enemy? Dare we go on beating about the burning bush?
A veteran of prayer says that the
conditions of the stillness, of the enjoyment of God that we have been speaking
about means willingness to change, and to let go of [some of my accustomed
things]. John of the Cross says, “Learn that the flame of everlasting love doth
burn ere it transforms.” Rhodesian Bishop William Gaul suggests that it was sweeter
to God to have someone willing to walk the same mile 1,000 times than to take
the more glamorous 1,000 mile journey.
Does
the “stillness to hear God speak” reach to a willingness to take the
consequences of our actions and very possibly to be used in [some way that we
never thought] we would be willing to accept? Is “stillness then an almost
frightening intimation that the inward journey may ultimately sweep away our
reservations and may make us both tender and malleable, and that the prospect
both terrifies and lures us on? Distracting thoughts do not really screen us from
enjoying God if we do not try to fight against them. [Once I’ve] acknowledged them, they are no
longer the focus of my attention, for I am here to enjoy God.
Growth in Tenderness/Unused Life—[Perhaps in stillness there is another dimension,
namely a willingness to have a heart made full and tender]. If one is to love God back there is also the
need for one to understand the love of God poured out in Jesus Christ and
poured out inwardly upon us each hour of our lives. “Still enough . . .” may be still enough to
feel what such love costs God.
We carry within us [things unwritten,
friendships not made or carried forward], relationships not healed, family
tenderness not shared]. What after all is the sin against the Holy
Ghost other than this unlived life, the unused light that may die within
us? Anyone who makes use of one’s
soul no matter how clumsily, participates in the life of the universe. The greatest danger [on the hardest journey]
is not in stopping but in not setting out again.
[Inward to Outward Bridge
An apocryphal story has Jesus saying to a
man gathering sticks on the Sabbath, “O man, if thou knowest what thou doest,
blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, thou art curst.” When there comes
from within that radical disinfection of the egotism of good works, when one
“is joined to all the living, there is hope”; then the situation is
altered. Charles Peguy writes, “We must
be saved together, we must come to God together. Together we must be presented before God. Together we must return to the Father’s
house.” The only real tragedy in it all
would be that looking over the hardness of the journey, and the cost of the
self-spending, we should as [individuals and as a worship community] put back
into our pockets the coin of destiny that has been given to us and turn
aside. “Not in your skill but in your
need will you be blessed.”
166. The Atonement of George Fox (by Emilia Fogelklou; 1969)
About the Author—Born in southern Sweden Sweden
Foreword—Among
the earliest example of the tension between inward guidance and corporate
authority was the conflict between George Fox the “founder” of Quakerism, and
James Nayler, a quartermaster in Cromwell’s army who was converted to
Quakerism. In the autumn of 1656, under the stress of physical and spiritual exhaustion,
he allowed himself to be led by adoring, fanatical women through the gates of Bristol
I—So accustomed are we to think of George Fox as “Quakerism’s
Founder” that we fail to realize that his organization of the movement was an
affirmation of a social and spiritual development which had already taken
place, made possible by the emergence of 1st-hand religious
experience in many “1st Publishers of the Truth.” 1st Publishers went out to
discover those who were already one with them in spirit. Braithwaite wrote: “Farnworth, Aldam, and
probably other members of the Balby group, had reached the Quaker experience
before Fox came among them.” John
Lilburne the Leveller said, “George Fox . . . a precious man in my eyes, his
particular actions being no rules for me to walk by.” [For] the very heart of Quakerism was
this: Find your own teacher.
The first Friends challenged the whole feudal system
in church and state. Quakers not only
sought human equality on social and political grounds, as had the Diggers and
Levellers. Their goal was spiritual revolution. The Thou
of a community could not exist but for an I which had made contact with that greater self, which tied one to one’s
fellows. The feudal background of their
childhood imbued them with a tradition of loyalty and discipline, a great asset
to any group life. The earliest phase of
the Quaker movement was woven through with [these kinds of people] who had
first met the spirit of God in themselves and then in one another.
The early pairs of messengers were: Howgill and
Burrough, Camm and Audland, Caton and Stubbs, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, and
George Fox and James Nayler. Several in
the opposition to Quakerism seemed to reckon Nayler as the chief Quaker. [He was on his
farm recovering from disillusionment and a breakdown after Cromwell proved to
be less than the crusader he first seemed like.
He heard a voice on his own and was further inspired by Fox, who became
his hero and Father, although Fox was younger].
II—During stressful times Nayler faced a range of
problems—family, land, property, government—which the unlanded, unmarried,
politically indifferent Fox never faced. From 1655-56, the struggling group counted
many dead & broken among the 1st Publishers of Truth, who had
lived swiftly & dangerously. Submissive
adherence or adoration from new members menaced the spirit of Fellowship, and
tempted to vanity or self-complacence.
An unconscious victim of these forces, [an overwhelmed
and adored] Nayler struggled alone in London Bristol
Fox’s suspicions of Nayler’s exalted state were for
weeks based on rumors, and aggravated by visits by [“Nayler’s women”], who upbraided
him for dominating the Quaker movement, & bade him bow down to James
Nayler. [Shortly before the extravagance at Bristol Exeter
The adoration of Nayler by his disciples, both men and
women, and his response to that adoration, were not isolated phenomena, nor
were they limited to the Quaker movement. He entered Bristol London Bristol
III—The Nayler episode and its punishment had wide and
terrible consequences. Shame and
derision fell over the movement in England
There was a difference in personalities. Fox was a father figure and his outright
claim to authority was less offensive than was the image of the suffering son
which Nayler projected. Perhaps more
than any other factor the behavior of the hysterical and adoring women roused
the fury of Nayler’s judges. After
recovering in mind during his nearly 3 years in prison, Nayler did all in his
power for reconciliation. The breach was
outwardly healed thanks to Dewsbury in 1660.
Nayler spent his final months traveling, preaching, writing, turning
scoffing into deep respect. His dying
words were: “There is a spirit which I
feel that delights to do no evil.”
After the death of Hubberthorne, Farnsworth, and
Dewsbury, Nayler’s name became buried in hard silence. [Some would not mention him by name]. Fox did not realize that in condemning Nayler
he also condemned a blind spot in himself.
Now fear of a too immediate obedience to the Voice marred the movement,
and was destined to reveal its presence in future relationships.
IV—From this conflict Fox emerged as the unquestioned
leader of the Quaker movement. I now
clearly see that Nayler’s approach to community was still of the medieval or
feudal type. Where Fox revealed in his
sense of his own election more urge for power than need for tenderness, Nayler
shunned power and longed for affection.
The need for organized action tend to evoke power, which found its
source in George Fox.
Five years later the Quaker movement faced a 2nd
challenge: the Perrot conflict. John
Perrot went to Italy in 1657 to the convert the Pope. To the dried up meetings [back in England],
his emotional fervor gave real refreshment.
Many had been cast into prison [for not removing their hat]. To have meaning, the Quaker refusal to bow or
take off the hat clearly requires that there be a power before whom one does bow and take off the hat. To many this hat question seemed rather
futile, but to Fox it was all important, and he reproved Perrot at length.
The burden of Nayler must have weighed on Fox, though
he says little of the Nayler story as affecting him individually. Loyalty to Fox had grown stronger than the
sense of fellowship; but Perrot, too had many friends who dearly loved
him. This second conflict was subdued on
much the same lines as the first. Fox
saw the very possible dissolution of the Quaker movement, and he judged
harshly, forcing the rejection of Perrot, [and causing a self-imposed exile of
Perrot to Barbadoes in 1662].
V—The Nayler and Perrot conflicts had made clear the
hazards of unchecked inspiration. During
George Fox’s 3 years of imprisonment in Lancaster Scarborough Castles Scarborough in September 1666 to discover a solution of another kind. He wrote: “And ye Lord opened to me and lett
me see what I must doe: and howe I must order and establish ye men and women’s
monthly and quarterly meetings. . .
every man and woman that be heires of ye gospel they are heires of this
authority.” But authority could only be
exercised by those trained for such service.
The Quaker [“meeting for worship with attention to
business”] was an extra-ordinarily successful answer to a complex problem. Spiritual concern and responsible citizenship
go hand-in-hand, and debate alternates with silence. To us is it democracy, to Fox it was the
gospel order revealed again. The gospel
order gave him the fresh gladness of the early days. Because of the scars left in the Quaker body
after Fox’s summary judging in the Nayler and Perrot disputes, conflicts which
were subdued rather than resolved, his ordering of the meetings was interpreted
as if it were the final step in dictatorship.
VI—The ordering was an act of renunciation. Fox dethroned himself from a leadership that
was becoming increasingly stabilized.
The genius of Fox defined in action,
not in analyzing, what had already
existed as a Quaker democracy. To reach
this insight he had to pass through years of darkness. He never became conscious of the real content
of the Nayler conflict. Fox, who was “in
love of God to all that persecuted me,” was blind when it came to his old
yokefellow. Is it too bold to conjecture that Fox’s sacrifice of power was his
unconscious, unspoken but practical atonement for things past—mute in the realm
of words, very real in demonstrative action?
He acts as one who has slowly but surely digested his own sins and
mistakes and their teaching. When a
man’s excellence is taken for granted, it is not easy to conquer the superman
in him, especially in a person of mature age with an overwhelming religious
experience in his youth.
Fox is the founder, not of Quakerism as a spiritual
movement, but of the group structure through which that movement was able to
survive. In organizational form Fox
stated finally what had come into life as a fellowship 20 years before; it
could not be quite the same. In
discovering a balance between the claims of the individual and the wisdom of
the group, sparked by a strange synthesis of power and sacrifice, the great
survivor rescued the Quaker fellowship and bequeathed it to the future. Not the founder of a creed, he provided an
organization where it would be possible for living individuals to be their creed.
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167. William Penn: as reflected in his writings (by Elizabeth Gray Vining; 1969)
About the Author—Elizabeth Gray Vining’s biographies include: Crown Prince Akihito; Rufus Jones; John
Donne, Flora McDonald. The present work
penetrates the shadow of the political and Quaker leader William Penn to reveal
Penn the mystic. She also adds a
perceptive word on the “tender motions of the Light” which may well be of
service to present-day seekers.
“A Man, Like a Watch. . .”—Penn would appear to have been wholly an activist,
[given his personality, his frequent travels in his world of England Ireland Europe , and to the New World , and the
volume of writing he did]. Yet this
activist was also, like Fox, Barclay, and Penington, a mystic. He understood
and valued the Quaker silence and gave suggestions for its use that are valid
today. The word “mystic” was used in connection with Quakerism in the 17th
century by both Barclay and Penn.
Penn’s writings fall in the categories of: letters;
politics and government; religious writing, both scholarly and reflective. The most consistently mystical of all these
writing was No Cross, No Crown. The second version of this book was
written 12 years after the first, and has gone through several editions during
the 300 years since it was published.
Penn is not easy to read, often pompous, long-winded, and
repetitious. At its best his style is
vigorous, suited to his material occasionally simple and touching, sometimes
beautiful. [Penn’s writing mechanics
were as erratic as his writing style].
Penn’s Own Experience/Inward Religion/The Nature of
Light—William Penn had a mystical
experience as a child that he never forgot, while his father was in political
disgrace. Alone in a room he experienced
a strong and comforting sense of God’s reality and presence. He wrote: I never had any other religion than
what I felt, excepting a little profession that came with education. [When my soul finally] “meeting with Truth
(knowledge of that inward part that I was to have my regard to), I embraced it
with gladness of heart, though it was as sharp as a well-pointed dart, because
of iniquity.”
From the “outward courts and suburbs of religion”
which he equated with historical Christianity he urged people to find true
religion by turning inward: “The world talks of God, but what do they
do? They pray for power but reject
the principle in which it is. If you
would know, [worship, and serve] God as you should, you must come to the mean
He has ordained . . . and given for that purpose.”
To Penn as to other early Quakers the light within was
the light of Christ: “Wherefore
salvation is not yet come into thy house, though it is come to thy door and
thou has been often proffered it and professed it long. There is hopes thy day is not yet over and
that repentance is not yet hid from thine eyes.
His holy invitation continues to save thee.” The other names for it were: Seed; the Holy
Divine Principle; Word of Truth. The
Light was universal. Perhaps Penn went
further than many other Friends in asserting that in all ages men had had
enough of the Holy Spirit for their salvation.
Penn set forth for his children in simple form his belief in the Light
of Christ and its universality. [It was
advice that apparently and unfortunately they did not follow]: “As you come to obey this blessed Light in
its holy convictions, it will lead you out of the world’s dark and degenerate
ways and works and bring you into Christ’s way and life.
The Light its own Authority—Penn wrote Some
Fruits of Solitude and Essay Toward
the Present and Future Peace of Europe during a time of house arrest and
enforced leisure. Most Christians in the
17th century denied the possibility of continuing revelation. As Penn wrote: “The traditional Christian in
his ignorant and angry mind denied any fresh manifestation of God’s power and
spirit in man in these days, though never more needed to make true Christians.” “[Just as manna was] it daily must be
gathered and eaten, and that manna that was gathered yesterday cannot serve
today for food.” “The same sure
principle of Light and Truth that hath wrought a convincement upon our
understandings is able to give us that succor and support if our minds be but
seriously stayed therein as shall sanctify us throughout in body, soul and
spirit and so preserve us clean to God over all.”
Preparation for the Light—“True worship can only come from a heart prepared by
the Lord. And whatever prayer be made or
doctrine be uttered and not from the preparation of the Holy Spirit, it is not
acceptable with God, nor can it be the true evangelical worship. How
shall preparation for the Light be obtained?
By waiting patiently yet watchfully and intently upon God. Stand still in thy mind, wait to feel
something that is divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship God truly and
acceptably. It is God that discovers and
presses wants upon the soul, and when it cries it is God alone that supplies
thee [i.e. “Waiting upon the Lord,
not for him” (Brinton)].
Penn’s writings are full of admonitions to wait upon
the Lord, whether alone or in company with other worshipers. In The
Christian Quaker, Penn and George Whitehead answer the arguments advanced
by Thomas Hicks, a Baptist, [with Penn responding from a philosophical standpoint]. “[In
meeting] do you sit down in true silence, resting from your own will &
workings, and waiting upon the Lord, with your minds fixed upon the Light until
the Lord refresheth you and prepares your spirits and souls, to make you fit
for His service?”
The Tender Motions of the Light/Silence—It is significant that the words Penn used for the
apprehension of Light are so often words suggesting delicate, tender, almost
imperceptible movements within the mind and heart. “The still voice is not to
be heard in the noises and hurries of the mind, but in a retired frame.” “Love silence, even in the mind, for thoughts
are to that as words to the body, troublesome.” “Beware of idolatry and
worshiping images ... the imaginations you have of God & which you conceive
without inspiration of the Almighty... Do not bow down . . . when on the
contrary it is nothing else but a mere picture of your own making.”
Distractions/A Rule to Follow—Lawful as well as unlawful thoughts are a perilous
distraction in silent meditation. “You
may think about lawful things unseasonably,
when you should be wholly retired, or carelessly,
without regard to your guide, or excessively,
more than is needful.” “The Enemy will
seem to act to advocate for the justice of God, that he might cast you into
despondency that you may doubt of deliverance and salvation.”
In 1699 Penn wrote to his children simple directions
for the daily practice of the spiritual life.
“Read the Old Testament for history; the Psalms for meditation and
devotion, the Prophets for comfort and hope, but especially the New Testament
for doctrine, faith and worship.” “I
refer you to the light and spirit of Jesus that is within you and to the
scriptures of truth without you, and such other testimonies to the eternal
truth as have been borne in our day. . .
The evening come, read again the Scriptures.” It is disconcerting that Penn’s children
turned out so badly. It is possible that
they got too much good advice.
Withdrawl and Return/The Sum of it All—“Nor is a recluse life much more commendable or one
whit nearer to the nature of the True Cross; for if it be not unlawful it is
unnatural, which true religion teaches not...
True godliness don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live
better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it. . . Not that I would be thought to slight a true
retirement, for I do not only acknowledge but admire solitude. Christ himself was an example of it; He loved
and chose to frequent mountains, gardens, seasides. [Indeed, Penn thought it necessary for the
afflicted, the tempted, the solitary and the devout to be] “thereby
strengthened [that they] may with more power over their own spirits, enter into
the business of the world again.”
The inward communion with the divine led to something
positive in the outward life, not merely to comfortable and pleasant
feelings. The Light first of all lit the
dark places and revealed the sin in one’s life and then gave the power to get
rid of the sin. The life was changed and
for the better. The soul was called to
good works. The virtues [gained] are
those of the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s Epistles, which early Quakers took
to be not only enjoined but possible to achieve.
Penn was concerned with economic justice too, [about]
alleviating the poor’s condition not by condescending gifts but by
justice. [As active as he was], he might
have been more sensitive than most to the dangers of overdoing service. He cautioned about the necessity of
distinguishing between that which issued from one’s own will and that which
came from the will and motion of the spirit of God in oneself. “Run not in your own wills. Wait for His word of command.”
Like most true mystics Penn in the end came to the
simplicity and power of love. “Nor can
spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the
root and record of their friendship.” To
Penn at the end of his active and often turbulent life, the essence of all
religion was the love of God: the love of God for man, the love of man for God
and for his fellow man in God: “Love is
the hardest lesson in Christianity, but for that lesson it should be most our
care to learn it. Difficilia quae pulchara [Things that are excellent are difficult].” “Love is above all, and when it prevails in
us we shall all be lovely and in love with God and one with another.”
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“Without the spring of action that arises from the deeper level, a dimension where arguments and strategies do not exist, the world solutions turn to dust and ashes.” Carol M. Murphy
[Introduction]—[Immediacy & simplicity]. Now is were we live, now is where the past must be overcome, now is where we meet others, now is where we must find the presence of God. This now is concrete & non-verbal. Our fixation of attention on some problem presenting itself blinds us to the present reality of now. How can we do without the problem-centered approach in the realm of moral behavior? Can we afford to live only in the present moment? [A problem can be made irrelevant, at least in a particular situation, by an immediate, direct, person-to-person approach. Most of the world lives on the problematic level and looks for rational or useful solutions. But it is only at the deepest [inner] level that the man of holy simplicity meets his fellow man.
Moral Dilemmas—Peculiar to the moral realm are the non-rational conflicts of [which good to keep, which good to sacrifice], the dilemmas between compromise and disaster. Ethical action always takes place in a concrete and unpredictable predicament, and is not to be understood by generalizations or even by precedent from some past decision. [If someone takes the belief of preservation of life to what seems like an extreme to us], must we not honor the impulse that would sacrifice self for another’s life? What we honor is a quality of being.
Objective and Subjective—Simplicity can be called mystical in the sense that mystics aim at a restoration of the primal unity before [the object/subject split]. For the Western consciousness, particularly for the Christian, it is love which restores this mystical unity, a falling in love outwards. In the words of The Phoenix and the Turtle: “2 distincts, division none:/ Number there in love was slain.”
The Christian community ideally is where the inner reality of each is as real to [all the others] as it is to one’s self. The Christian moralist must maintain that true life is found in outgoing love; that our lives are not our own because we are members one of another. It is humankind’s tragedy that this state of new, mystical being should be a sometime thing, & so often appears to be an impossible ethic judging our self-divided condition.
Religious or Non-religious—There are deeply good people who have no name for God; [if they have] loving simplicity, they know divine reality in their own experience. Holiness is a mark of this condition of awareness; holiness is at the heart of religion. In this sense the morality of holiness must be religious; it must spring from & point to a reality greater than man’s idealism. If this world is “natural,” then the state of true being, New Being is “supernatural,” since its appearance is miraculous to us, & supercedes the problematic life we normally lead. The supernatural is a realm of love, [not of divine manipulation], where every entity is valued for itself. [Holy simplicity can only answer in word & deed that it is enough that every thing exists; they are to be wondered at & loved].
Ends & Means—[Using pragmatism & speaking of] “the greatest good for the greatest number,” the end must justify the means, & nothing but love is an end in itself. This devalues all creation save God. The morality of holiness begins with the concrete situation; it sees the situation sacramentally as afire with God. In a realm of ends, the means is the end, & to live by the means of love is to have attained the end. [Much of what goes on in the world is 1 person manipulating another]. People don’t have to be manipulators; they can be actualizers, reaching & trusting the inner core of the other. The actualizing person values others & dwells in the kingdom of ends.
Much of what appears to be “nonviolent” is merely carrying manipulative war by other means. [So long as an action is run on the “I win-you lose” principle], “nonviolence” can be a kind of moral blackmail. [When] idealists become disillusioned [and accept violence as necessary], partisanship replaces commitment, and “we must win and they must lose” becomes the order of the day. James W. Douglas points out: “The faith of nonviolence is a faith in the human spirit’s permanent capacity to open itself to truth.” We must concede that nonviolent methods bring visible results most surely when there is common ground between the participants and the breach between is not too wide. Human nature has its limitations, and the thin strand of brotherhood may snap, and the loving approach seems to fail. How is one to define “working” or “not working”?
Law and Freedom—[With holy simplicity], love gives freedom from law, but love always has its own obligations, even to the laying down of life. There is an impersonal condition in families & societies one might call “good order.” [The good or common order calls for the doing of chores]. The individual must respect the common order, no matter his private “hang-ups.” [Such systems are usually] alienated, pragmatic & manipulative. [To what degree must those seeking transcendent values be disaffiliated from the system?] Some practice charity to correct society’s inequities. But as Pope Pius XI said: charity is no substitute for justice unfairly withheld.
The revolutionary supposes himself to the advocate of a more fundamental change, but he usually replaces one kind of oppression with another. John Adams said: “Power always thinks it has a great Soul and vast Views beyond the Comprehension of the Weak, and that it is doing God Service, when it is violating all God’s laws.” The one who dwells in holy simplicity refuses to overthrow the system by violence, yet one also escapes the fate of becoming a new establishment. He is to be a constant minority, the salt that does not lose it savor. One must concern one’s self with the world without conforming to its unloving way. G. K. Chesterton said: “It is sometimes easy to give one’s country blood & easier to give her money. Sometimes the hardest thing is to give her truth.
Moral Education—Traditional ways of education in morality based on conscience are in flux, however, so we shall have to blaze a new trail, following the positive values of peak experiences. [Our “do’s” and “don’ts came] from our parents, who spoke with the borrowed voice of their families and cultural traditions in which they were brought up. The adolescent identifies more with his fellows than his parents—other young people seeking to exercise their own right of [questioning and] judgment. Parents’ laxity in asserting any values is breeding a generation too mistrustful of any value to sacrifice a moments pleasure for it. Freudian maturity frees us from authority; maturity also calls us to discipline; the 2 seem incompatible.
Play has it relevance even for us serious humans. In making its means its end, playfulness is natural to the state of holy simplicity. The moral integrity and truth to vocation is not the result of moralistic indoctrination, but of growing up in the loving matrix of family and community relationships. As the family represents the relation-ship into which one is born, so marriage represents a chosen and adult relationship. The immature immoralist will avoid commitment, the immature moralist will to be faithful because he has taken vows, the mature person is willing to take vows because he or she intends to be faithful. The danger in marriage is in allowing rigid legalism to separate the forms and constituents of a relationship from its heart. Be honest and faithful, and you can be trusted to redeem the particular occasion.
Being lies behind doing, and the particular way followed derives its value from the manner and spirit in which it is followed. Defined in a non-legalistic manner, poverty, chastity, and obedience are signposts on the road to a holy morality. Poverty is both non-attachment to inner defensiveness and the dependence on outward symbols of security and status; it does not necessarily mean renouncing possessions. Chasity is the love of persons for themselves and not for the pleasure they can arouse. Obedience is sensitivity and readiness to answer to the leadings of holy simplicity. Holy simplicity must remain relevant to the tragic complexities of life.
This sort of growth in character & decision-making has in the religious tradition taken place through prayer. It isn’t a matter of looking for visible signs & wonders; something has already happened & one has only to appropriate it in trust. Past & future are collapsed into now. [As with a cut finger], you know, though not in detail, that certain healing processes are already at work. When “answers” come through prayer, after a turning away from the problem to God, one needn’t allow the skeptic to persuade us that this is “only” drawing on human creativity.
[In holy simplicity’s decision-making process], we deal with the now—the power of the Kingdom of Heaven already at work. We go beyond the rational in dealing with moral dilemmas; we gain help in seeing over them. The holy moralist must receive his inspiration through agony—spiritual struggle. It is only through the courage to be imperfect & to take responsibility for one’s interpretation of the Light within that we grow toward perfection.
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168.
The MODERN PROMETHEAN: a dialogue with today’s youth (by Maurice S.
Friedman; 1969)
About the Author—Maurice Friedman was born in Tulsa ,
OK Ohio State Univ. of Chicago COs ; he is on the teaching staff at Pendle Hill. This
pamphlet’s substance was given as the C. W. Gilkey Lecture in Chicago
[Youthful
Dialog; Campus revolt]—If I am
impelled to a dialog with today’s youth, it is not because I believe my truth is superior, but because I
believe in the possibility of real dialog.
[I have had] a ¼ century of concern with the absence of an image of
authentic personal and social existence that might help us find a meaningful
direction. By 1958 the [complacency of
students] changed with the civil rights movement, the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, and the beginnings of the “freedom rides” in the South.
The most notorious element in the “youth scene” is the
drug cult, which spread outward from Greenwich
The
congealed violence that lies just beneath the surface in family life, civic
administration, government, and international relations, gives glaring evidence
of how much the alternatives “violent” and “nonviolent” falsify the concrete
situation. One may use nonviolence as a technique, without dialog and without
love. One Eastern college president
characterized the revolt on campus with one word: “hostility.” It is in the great Multiversities—the Berkeleys Columbias
The
large and impersonal nature of the multiversity plus the atmosphere of mutual
mistrust are quite as important factors in the student rebellions that arise as
any specific issues. The very essence of
multiversity is an expansion of education coupled with a contraction of mutual
contact between teacher and student.
[There is a] growing trend of “education for openness.” There are dynamic group processes that take
place and that may be recognized and understood without manipulation of or
threat to the students. The [pending]
revolution may lead to the release of untold potential for learning and
understanding. It may also lead to a new
mindlessness in which careful thought and learning are put down in favor of
easy insight or “spontaneous” feeling.
The
world that today’s youth has inherited is [one in which humanity] no longer
knows what it means to be human and we are aware that we do not. The death of man has come riding into our
century, and each successive holocaust (Auschwitz , Hiroshima , Vietnam Biafra ) has set the stage for a still more abysmal one. The brutal murders in France Germany
The
degradation of man is both fruit & root of the degeneration of the life
between person & person. The Jews’ & gypsies’ dehumanizing by the Nazis
was as terrible as their extermination. [Common questions used when people
interrelate is:] “What’s your line? What do you really want out of me &
why?” An even more potent source of
mistrust is the polarizing of concrete reality into catchwords [that force an either/or, for/against choice].
No
reconciliation was ever achieved through ignoring real differences, or
attempting to impose a sense of unity where there is none. [There is a growing sense] of a new
authoritarianism of premature certainties.
[What] today’s youth is passing through is not just an identity crisis,
but a crisis of confirmation and the image of man. [The confirmation is] of one’s right to exist
as the unique person that one is and can become. Most parents have probably never been able to
give this confirmation to the children because their own needs and anxieties in
a world of depression and war have distorted [unconditional] affirmation into a
[parent/child] contract.
There
is a dualism of thought [vs.] feeling.
In reacting against the overwhelming mass of information, some resort to
“pure feeling.” But the sickness of thought
divided from feeling is not cured by turning the psyche upside-down. “Pure feeling” is as much a symptom of this
illness as detached intellectuality.
There is also a cult of self-realization, [in which] the relation to
others and the response to life situations [become] means to that goal.
[Modern Man Archetypes]—Modern Vitalists=liberating vitality; Modern
Mystic=personal experience of the mystical; Modern Pragmatist= [the effects of
an object/thought are the same as the object/thought]; Problematic
Rebel=rebelling against existence.
Modern Vitalist believes that the release of vitality and energy into
life [is the ultimate goal]. The Modern
Mystic [places the personal mystical experience as the primary concern]. The current fascination with mind-transforming
drugs as a source of “religious experience” is an excellent example of this
trend. The Problematic Rebel’s
[resistance] is a complex, contradictory set of attitudes and actions that
reflects the problem; it is one’s reaction to one’s alienation and inner
division. The Modern Rebel has neither
the Greek, Biblical Judaic, or Christian base on which to stand. The Problematic Rebel is a Prometheus without
the order that supports Prometheus in his struggle with Zeus; he is a Job
without trust in God. He must find his
calling without knowing even that he is being called. There is the haunting fear that his rebellion
may be merely neurotic reaction rather than a courageous witness of man against
his destroyer.
[Modern Promethean; Modern Job]—There is a choice between postures which deepens our
alienation & [those] postures which withstand & transform. The Modern Promethean tries to recover the true
existence from which he has been alienated by denying the reality of the
independent other that confronts him. The Problematic Rebel’s self-affirmation
undermines the ground of his own existence by emptying the reality that
confronts him of any meaning. One alternative to denial of the absurd is the Dialog with the Absurd which finds
meaning in the very encounter. [Doctor Rieux of Camus’ The Plague &] his affirmation is a witness to humanity wrested
from the heart of the inhuman. Rieux is a Modern Job, who as an atheist,
contends with the Absurd [rather than God].
At Biblical
faith’s center stands not belief but trust. Job rebels when life becomes
insupportable to him. Job’s temptations are that he may find it impossible to
bring his suffering into his dialog with God, [&] that he will not stand his ground & witness for his own
innocence when no one else will. In the end Job withstands both temptations.
His protest becomes a protest against the suffering of all people. At the heart
of the Book of Job stands trusting &
contending, recognizing his dependence on God yet standing firm on the ground
of his created freedom.
Standing
one’s ground before what confronts one rather than giving way before it or
trying to escape it mark the Modern Job. The Modern Job neither accepts evil
nor cuts himself off from history to avoid it.
In each new situation, Job affirms where one can affirm and withstands
where one must withstand. Openness and
dialog lead inevitably to rebellion, but one that does not reject the reality
or value of the independent other that confronts one.
Our
contrast between the Modern Promethean and the Modern Job sheds light on the
basic paradox of self-realization, namely, that it is something that cannot be
aimed at directly. The Modern Promethean
attempts to find meaning and value in his own subjectivity. The Modern Job finds meaning even in his
meeting with the absurd. We know our
potentiality only as it becomes actuality in our response to each new
situation. The choice again and again is
between responding to the demands of the situation with the resources that are
available to us, and failing to do so. We
ought not aim directly at becoming a certain sort of man or even at finding and
realizing an image of man. We must not
obscure the sober reality that an imperfect society must produce imperfect men.
In
this time of abstractions, this “vast conspiracy of silence,” some one is
needed to give a meaning [and dialog] to everyday life. The Modern Job speaks so concretely from his
historical situation that he expresses in the same action the duty of man as
man. I also celebrate the Problematic
Rebel because of what he can become. I
trust in his courage to persevere through the dark times ahead—affirming where
he can affirm and withstanding where he must withstand. From the gropings and contradictions of the
Problematic Rebel there may yet emerge a new trust in existence, a new image of
man.
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169.
Holy Morality: A Religious Approach to Modern Ethics (by Carol Murphy;
1970)
About the Author—Carol R. Murphy has written 9 Pendle Hill Pamphlets, the 1st being The Faith of an Ex-Agnostic (#46; 1949). Her journey has brought her through religious philosophy and pastoral psychology to the nature of man. In the present pamphlet she deals with the immediacy and simplicity demanded by modern ethics. “Without the spring of action that arises from the deeper level, a dimension where arguments and strategies do not exist, the world solutions turn to dust and ashes.” Carol M. Murphy
[Introduction]—[Immediacy & simplicity]. Now is were we live, now is where the past must be overcome, now is where we meet others, now is where we must find the presence of God. This now is concrete & non-verbal. Our fixation of attention on some problem presenting itself blinds us to the present reality of now. How can we do without the problem-centered approach in the realm of moral behavior? Can we afford to live only in the present moment? [A problem can be made irrelevant, at least in a particular situation, by an immediate, direct, person-to-person approach. Most of the world lives on the problematic level and looks for rational or useful solutions. But it is only at the deepest [inner] level that the man of holy simplicity meets his fellow man.
Moral Dilemmas—Peculiar to the moral realm are the non-rational conflicts of [which good to keep, which good to sacrifice], the dilemmas between compromise and disaster. Ethical action always takes place in a concrete and unpredictable predicament, and is not to be understood by generalizations or even by precedent from some past decision. [If someone takes the belief of preservation of life to what seems like an extreme to us], must we not honor the impulse that would sacrifice self for another’s life? What we honor is a quality of being.
Objective and Subjective—Simplicity can be called mystical in the sense that mystics aim at a restoration of the primal unity before [the object/subject split]. For the Western consciousness, particularly for the Christian, it is love which restores this mystical unity, a falling in love outwards. In the words of The Phoenix and the Turtle: “2 distincts, division none:/ Number there in love was slain.”
The Christian community ideally is where the inner reality of each is as real to [all the others] as it is to one’s self. The Christian moralist must maintain that true life is found in outgoing love; that our lives are not our own because we are members one of another. It is humankind’s tragedy that this state of new, mystical being should be a sometime thing, & so often appears to be an impossible ethic judging our self-divided condition.
Religious or Non-religious—There are deeply good people who have no name for God; [if they have] loving simplicity, they know divine reality in their own experience. Holiness is a mark of this condition of awareness; holiness is at the heart of religion. In this sense the morality of holiness must be religious; it must spring from & point to a reality greater than man’s idealism. If this world is “natural,” then the state of true being, New Being is “supernatural,” since its appearance is miraculous to us, & supercedes the problematic life we normally lead. The supernatural is a realm of love, [not of divine manipulation], where every entity is valued for itself. [Holy simplicity can only answer in word & deed that it is enough that every thing exists; they are to be wondered at & loved].
Ends & Means—[Using pragmatism & speaking of] “the greatest good for the greatest number,” the end must justify the means, & nothing but love is an end in itself. This devalues all creation save God. The morality of holiness begins with the concrete situation; it sees the situation sacramentally as afire with God. In a realm of ends, the means is the end, & to live by the means of love is to have attained the end. [Much of what goes on in the world is 1 person manipulating another]. People don’t have to be manipulators; they can be actualizers, reaching & trusting the inner core of the other. The actualizing person values others & dwells in the kingdom of ends.
Much of what appears to be “nonviolent” is merely carrying manipulative war by other means. [So long as an action is run on the “I win-you lose” principle], “nonviolence” can be a kind of moral blackmail. [When] idealists become disillusioned [and accept violence as necessary], partisanship replaces commitment, and “we must win and they must lose” becomes the order of the day. James W. Douglas points out: “The faith of nonviolence is a faith in the human spirit’s permanent capacity to open itself to truth.” We must concede that nonviolent methods bring visible results most surely when there is common ground between the participants and the breach between is not too wide. Human nature has its limitations, and the thin strand of brotherhood may snap, and the loving approach seems to fail. How is one to define “working” or “not working”?
Law and Freedom—[With holy simplicity], love gives freedom from law, but love always has its own obligations, even to the laying down of life. There is an impersonal condition in families & societies one might call “good order.” [The good or common order calls for the doing of chores]. The individual must respect the common order, no matter his private “hang-ups.” [Such systems are usually] alienated, pragmatic & manipulative. [To what degree must those seeking transcendent values be disaffiliated from the system?] Some practice charity to correct society’s inequities. But as Pope Pius XI said: charity is no substitute for justice unfairly withheld.
The revolutionary supposes himself to the advocate of a more fundamental change, but he usually replaces one kind of oppression with another. John Adams said: “Power always thinks it has a great Soul and vast Views beyond the Comprehension of the Weak, and that it is doing God Service, when it is violating all God’s laws.” The one who dwells in holy simplicity refuses to overthrow the system by violence, yet one also escapes the fate of becoming a new establishment. He is to be a constant minority, the salt that does not lose it savor. One must concern one’s self with the world without conforming to its unloving way. G. K. Chesterton said: “It is sometimes easy to give one’s country blood & easier to give her money. Sometimes the hardest thing is to give her truth.
Moral Education—Traditional ways of education in morality based on conscience are in flux, however, so we shall have to blaze a new trail, following the positive values of peak experiences. [Our “do’s” and “don’ts came] from our parents, who spoke with the borrowed voice of their families and cultural traditions in which they were brought up. The adolescent identifies more with his fellows than his parents—other young people seeking to exercise their own right of [questioning and] judgment. Parents’ laxity in asserting any values is breeding a generation too mistrustful of any value to sacrifice a moments pleasure for it. Freudian maturity frees us from authority; maturity also calls us to discipline; the 2 seem incompatible.
Play has it relevance even for us serious humans. In making its means its end, playfulness is natural to the state of holy simplicity. The moral integrity and truth to vocation is not the result of moralistic indoctrination, but of growing up in the loving matrix of family and community relationships. As the family represents the relation-ship into which one is born, so marriage represents a chosen and adult relationship. The immature immoralist will avoid commitment, the immature moralist will to be faithful because he has taken vows, the mature person is willing to take vows because he or she intends to be faithful. The danger in marriage is in allowing rigid legalism to separate the forms and constituents of a relationship from its heart. Be honest and faithful, and you can be trusted to redeem the particular occasion.
Being lies behind doing, and the particular way followed derives its value from the manner and spirit in which it is followed. Defined in a non-legalistic manner, poverty, chastity, and obedience are signposts on the road to a holy morality. Poverty is both non-attachment to inner defensiveness and the dependence on outward symbols of security and status; it does not necessarily mean renouncing possessions. Chasity is the love of persons for themselves and not for the pleasure they can arouse. Obedience is sensitivity and readiness to answer to the leadings of holy simplicity. Holy simplicity must remain relevant to the tragic complexities of life.
This sort of growth in character & decision-making has in the religious tradition taken place through prayer. It isn’t a matter of looking for visible signs & wonders; something has already happened & one has only to appropriate it in trust. Past & future are collapsed into now. [As with a cut finger], you know, though not in detail, that certain healing processes are already at work. When “answers” come through prayer, after a turning away from the problem to God, one needn’t allow the skeptic to persuade us that this is “only” drawing on human creativity.
[In holy simplicity’s decision-making process], we deal with the now—the power of the Kingdom of Heaven already at work. We go beyond the rational in dealing with moral dilemmas; we gain help in seeing over them. The holy moralist must receive his inspiration through agony—spiritual struggle. It is only through the courage to be imperfect & to take responsibility for one’s interpretation of the Light within that we grow toward perfection.
170. Edward Hicks: Primitive Quaker (His Religion in Relation to his Art) (by Eleanore P. Mather; 1970)
About the Author—Born a Friend, Eleanore P. Mather graduated from Westtown School & from Mt Holyoke College. She has been editor of Pendle Hill Pamphlets. Though the present pamphlet points out cultural and social evidences of Quakerism in Edward Hicks’ painting, its special emphasis is on the inward aspect of his religion.
What is a Primitive Quaker?—Edward Hicks is now recognized as America’s foremost primitive painter, and his Peaceable Kingdoms and other works are sought after by museums from coast to coast. Hicks served his Newtown meeting as preacher, minister, committee member, as well as sweeping and laying fires before meeting. He applied the term “primitive” to early Christians and to early Quakers. Wrote Hicks: “Under the influence of this blessed spirit my soul finds a sweet union with all God’s children in their devotional exercises, whether . . . Protestant. . . Roman. . . Hindoo. . . or [Native American].” Divine revelation might be a few broken words spoken by an uneducated man, woman, or child. It was the work of George Fox to organize these fervent seekers into a form of church government which might serve as a balance to the extreme individualism of the faith.
Edward Hicks Becomes a Preacher—Edward Hicks wasn’t born a Quaker; he became one at 23. His parents were Tories and Episcopalians. With British defeat came impoverishment for Hicks’ father and his 3 children. Elizabeth and David Twining fostered Edward for a decade; he looked back on this time wistfully. Isaac wanted a law education for his son, but settled for an apprenticeship in a coach painter’s shop. His master also ran an inn. Hicks wrote: “Licentious lewdness was much more a besetting sin, and my preservation from ruin in this way appeared a miracle, for I certainly indulged in lewd conservation.” He joined Middletown meeting in spring 1803; neither his spiritual or financial progress was smooth. “I went staggering along, still keeping my neighbors faults in the wallet’s front end, & my own behind my back.” A female Friend influenced him “to talk less pray more.”
[Hicks’ first vocal ministry] was “but a few words that I could utter, & on taking my seat, I wept almost aloud.” [He was filled with love & concern for everyone for 2 or 3 weeks afterward]. “I not only borrowed money but [also] sentiments and language; hence I passed, like too many others, for more than I was worth.” He was officially recorded a minister at Middletown in 1812. In 1815 he helped found Newtown Preparative Meeting, which was to be his lifelong meeting.
Edward Hicks was an outstanding traveling minister in the Friends missionary work that lasted well into the 2nd half of the 19th century, traveling to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Long Island, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana and Canada at his own expense. He had a gift for preaching at funerals, and also used his speaking talents against the hypocritical and self-righteous, against the lukewarm and the libertine.
Edward Hicks was an outstanding traveling minister in the Friends missionary work that lasted well into the 2nd half of the 19th century, traveling to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Long Island, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana and Canada at his own expense. He had a gift for preaching at funerals, and also used his speaking talents against the hypocritical and self-righteous, against the lukewarm and the libertine.
Like so many old-time Quakers he was a man of one message. His Noah’s Ark promises the serenity of a new and better order within. “Public Friends” experienced: primitive innocence; juvenile frivolity; acceptance of the Light after inner struggle; public testimony in meeting; adoption of plain dress, and usually a sense of social concern. He was not a concerned abolitionist or pacifist, but perhaps his art, a translation of spirit into action, took the place of the more specific social concerns of his generation.
The Preacher Becomes an Artist—Several years after his move to Newtown Edward Hicks tried farming and failed miserably; he turned back to painting. It is significant that he was a craftsman before he was an artist. [The usefulness of his painting made his occupation more acceptable]. He referred to his art in an apologetic parenthesis as “being the only business he was able to follow.” Hostility to art in the early years of the republic was not confined to Quakers, or Puritans. If his neighbors disapproved of painting, at least they did not laugh at his. Alice Ford said: “His lack of opportunity [for training] is our good fortune; his well spring of genius was spirit.”
[In his painting craft, he learned to grind his own colors. He painted coaches, houses sign posts to tavern signs. He used flat colors, bold and decorative outlines, and a casual approach to proportion and perspective]. The product is what Holder Cahill has defined as “folk art.” Cahill writes: “There is no doubt that these works have technical deficiencies from the academic and naturalistic point of view. The folk artist tried to set down not so much what they saw as what they knew and felt.”
His work is startlingly original, though he used time-worn themes, and borrowed other people’s figures. With all his originality he still reveals the practical tradition of a craft rather than the academic tradition of formal art. [The Residence of David Twining (1787)] reflects the world of an American Quaker, with something in the mood and technique suggesting a more remote age; there is even a touch of the Holy Family about it all.
The Folk Artist and His Community—When Edward Hicks joined the Society of Friends he acquired not only a religion but a community. He cherished this adopted world, but he did not always get along with it; Edward was not a peaceable Quaker. He berated them about their un-Quakerly behavior, higher education, and even abolition as a political cause of factions and distraction from the inward life. He even sharply criticized Lucretia Mott. [Even] he wrote: “I certainly have no merit, and am really astonished that such a poor creature as I have always been, should ever have attained to such a standing in Society, and had so many good friends.” With his immediate family he was warm and tender.
Though he was obstinate, prejudiced, and contentious his faith was unswerving, and he became the voice of Bucks County Quakerism. His coaches and sleighs sped over its thoroughfares; his signposts directed travelers on their way; his tavern signs offered them refreshment; his painted furniture and easel pictures adorned their parlors. Friends and non-Friends alike flocked to hear his preaching. Edward Hicks might be estranged from his own time, but not from his own people. He had his family, his church, his village, and his county, all interwoven to form a solid social fabric which the modern [city-dweller] can scarcely comprehend.
The Kingdom of Conflict—Using Isaiah 11:6-9 as a text, Edward Hicks painted numerous sermons on the peaceable kingdom they describe. There are at least 3 ways in which these paintings relate to the religious beliefs of the artist: traditional, organizational, and inward. The traditional Quaker ideal of peace between nations was probably a strong fact in his original choice of the subject. Penn’s treaty with the Indians, borrowed from an earlier Quaker artist appears in most of the Kingdoms. A strong motivation for some of the Kingdoms was organizational, in particular the conflict that led to the great Separation of 1827.
Near the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia meetings tended to lay increasing stress on the outward atonement of the historical Christ and on the Scriptures. Opposing this trend was Elias Hicks, Edward’s cousin. His emphasis on Quakerism’s mystical side caused concern to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting elders. Country Friends embraced Elias, and because Edward considered the Orthodox trend as encroaching on primitive Quakerism, and because he was a great admirer of Elias, it was inevitable that he should be drawn into the controversy.
The Orthodox movement was led by a clerk and a former clerk of the Yearly Meeting. They tried to write a creed, and take rights away from the monthly meetings; it was a conflict between ministers and elders, between inspiration and authority. Orthodoxy prevailed, and Elias was barred from preaching in the Philadelphia area. The followers of Hicks withdrew. Both sides believed they were defending the true faith
Around 1820 he produced his first Peaceable Kingdom. [In the left background was a representation of Penn’s treaty with the Indians. In the right foreground was a group] consisting of a child with its arm around a lion’s neck, a steer, lamb and wolf, leopard and kid. As the decade progressed Hicks painted many variants of this simple scene. The Separation of 1827 change the background of the painting from Penn to a pyramid of Quakers, [Fox, Penn, and Barclay at the top, George Washington and Elias Hicks at the bottom] bearing a banner.
In an early type of Peaceable Kingdom (1820), Hicks borrowed the composition from Richard Westall. To it he added Penn’s treaty with the Indians; some of them have a lettered border with a paraphrase of the verses. The Separation of 1827 created Hicksites and Orthodox, and changed the composition of the Peaceable Kingdoms. The animals turn sullen and defiant. Penn’s treaty gave way to a pyramid of “Quakers Bearing Banners,” representing the Hicksites. George Washington and Elias Hicks, cousin to Edward stands in the forefront. Linking the substantial cloud of witnesses to the Light of Christ with a banner, its inscription associated with the birth of the historical Christ, is surely in answer to the Orthodox charge of heresy. Edward said of Jonathan Evans that he was “too much like myself, malignant and bitter toward his enemies. I consider him as honest as Saul of Tarsus. When Jesus Christ was revealed in him, Jonathan Evans became a changed man.”
The Inward Kingdom—In likening his old opponent Jonathan Evans, to the lion and the ox Edward Hicks touched on the third and most significant aspect of the Peaceable Kingdom, the inward one. As the years went on, his paintings became spiritual landscapes peopled with vices and virtues of mankind in animal form. The soul he was most interested in saving was his own.
Taken in toto the Kingdom series is a record of his spiritual growth, his recurrent struggles and the search for harmony in reconciliation with himself. He writes: “The lamb, the kid, the cow, and the ox are emblems of good men and women, while the wolf, leopard, bear, and lion are figures of the wicked.” The virtuous kid tends to decrease in size as his brilliant contrast, the sanguine leopard, increases.
The leopard starts out with only head and paws in the Westall composition. In the Kingdom with Quakers bearing Banners he stretches defiantly at full length. He always retains some element of interest, if only with his eyes. There is a peculiar identification of the artist with these great golden cats. [Their tails seems to take the place of] the serpent, which Hicks does not feature. Hicks puts his focus on the yoking of the lion and the fatling together by the little child, until the lion and the leopard captured the composition. To Hicks: “The leopard is the most subtle, cruel, restless creature, and at the same time the most beautiful of all the carnivorous animal of cat kind . . . men and women of this class in the sinful state, are not to be depended upon.” Hicks shared the Quaker belief that the leopard’s beauty belonged in the jungle, and the hope that it stayed there. For poor Edward the artist the leopard would not stay in the jungle. The leopard was a part of him, and how significant a part is suggested by the dominance and variety of its position in the paintings.
The lion evolves from looking like a patient dog submitting to the caresses of an importunate child. In the Separation Kingdoms his eyes harden and glitter and he shows a choleric humor. In the middle period Kingdoms the lion’s eyes become fearful and sorrowful. In a Middle Period Kingdom painting (1830-40), Penn and his Indians return. The lion sits next to the ox. With the middle period Kingdoms Hicks introduced all the figures of the prophecy, and creates a disturbed energy. We have left the world of outer conflict and have entered the troubled soul of the artist. Beside the lion stands his great alter ego, the ox, perhaps representing the grave, kindly elder. The ox is the only “good” animal to achieve any prominence in these compositions. A portrait of Hicks at his easel shows an alert, rugged, pugnacious face, spectacles pushed back on the forehead, brush and palette in hand, a Bible open beside him.
The Late Kingdom paintings (1844) show certain animals reaching their zenith, particularly the leopard and the ox. The little child is trying to yoke the young lion, the calf, and the fatling together with a tasseled cord. There is a shifting, as if someone had entered or left the group. The lion has become a mere observer. The leopard’s eyes are still piercing us with a question—or an answer. We are not quite sure.
Edward Hicks died on August 23, 1849. The last Kingdom was painted for his favorite daughter, Elizabeth. The trees in the background shimmer in a golden autumnal twilight. The wolf rises and appears to be listening. The little child has finally yoked the young lion with the calf and the fatling, and now marches them off, leaving the leopard to flow across the foreground like a skein of silk. Elizabeth encouraged him writing: “I have a firm faith thy dedication to the candle of Truth will not and cannot be lost. I believe that thou hast been an instrument to sow seed that has taken root in different parts of the vineyard, and will bear a rich harvest . . .”
The Preacher Becomes an Artist—Several years after his move to Newtown Edward Hicks tried farming and failed miserably; he turned back to painting. It is significant that he was a craftsman before he was an artist. [The usefulness of his painting made his occupation more acceptable]. He referred to his art in an apologetic parenthesis as “being the only business he was able to follow.” Hostility to art in the early years of the republic was not confined to Quakers, or Puritans. If his neighbors disapproved of painting, at least they did not laugh at his. Alice Ford said: “His lack of opportunity [for training] is our good fortune; his well spring of genius was spirit.”
[In his painting craft, he learned to grind his own colors. He painted coaches, houses sign posts to tavern signs. He used flat colors, bold and decorative outlines, and a casual approach to proportion and perspective]. The product is what Holder Cahill has defined as “folk art.” Cahill writes: “There is no doubt that these works have technical deficiencies from the academic and naturalistic point of view. The folk artist tried to set down not so much what they saw as what they knew and felt.”
His work is startlingly original, though he used time-worn themes, and borrowed other people’s figures. With all his originality he still reveals the practical tradition of a craft rather than the academic tradition of formal art. [The Residence of David Twining (1787)] reflects the world of an American Quaker, with something in the mood and technique suggesting a more remote age; there is even a touch of the Holy Family about it all.
The Folk Artist and His Community—When Edward Hicks joined the Society of Friends he acquired not only a religion but a community. He cherished this adopted world, but he did not always get along with it; Edward was not a peaceable Quaker. He berated them about their un-Quakerly behavior, higher education, and even abolition as a political cause of factions and distraction from the inward life. He even sharply criticized Lucretia Mott. [Even] he wrote: “I certainly have no merit, and am really astonished that such a poor creature as I have always been, should ever have attained to such a standing in Society, and had so many good friends.” With his immediate family he was warm and tender.
Though he was obstinate, prejudiced, and contentious his faith was unswerving, and he became the voice of Bucks County Quakerism. His coaches and sleighs sped over its thoroughfares; his signposts directed travelers on their way; his tavern signs offered them refreshment; his painted furniture and easel pictures adorned their parlors. Friends and non-Friends alike flocked to hear his preaching. Edward Hicks might be estranged from his own time, but not from his own people. He had his family, his church, his village, and his county, all interwoven to form a solid social fabric which the modern [city-dweller] can scarcely comprehend.
The Kingdom of Conflict—Using Isaiah 11:6-9 as a text, Edward Hicks painted numerous sermons on the peaceable kingdom they describe. There are at least 3 ways in which these paintings relate to the religious beliefs of the artist: traditional, organizational, and inward. The traditional Quaker ideal of peace between nations was probably a strong fact in his original choice of the subject. Penn’s treaty with the Indians, borrowed from an earlier Quaker artist appears in most of the Kingdoms. A strong motivation for some of the Kingdoms was organizational, in particular the conflict that led to the great Separation of 1827.
Near the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia meetings tended to lay increasing stress on the outward atonement of the historical Christ and on the Scriptures. Opposing this trend was Elias Hicks, Edward’s cousin. His emphasis on Quakerism’s mystical side caused concern to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting elders. Country Friends embraced Elias, and because Edward considered the Orthodox trend as encroaching on primitive Quakerism, and because he was a great admirer of Elias, it was inevitable that he should be drawn into the controversy.
The Orthodox movement was led by a clerk and a former clerk of the Yearly Meeting. They tried to write a creed, and take rights away from the monthly meetings; it was a conflict between ministers and elders, between inspiration and authority. Orthodoxy prevailed, and Elias was barred from preaching in the Philadelphia area. The followers of Hicks withdrew. Both sides believed they were defending the true faith
Around 1820 he produced his first Peaceable Kingdom. [In the left background was a representation of Penn’s treaty with the Indians. In the right foreground was a group] consisting of a child with its arm around a lion’s neck, a steer, lamb and wolf, leopard and kid. As the decade progressed Hicks painted many variants of this simple scene. The Separation of 1827 change the background of the painting from Penn to a pyramid of Quakers, [Fox, Penn, and Barclay at the top, George Washington and Elias Hicks at the bottom] bearing a banner.
In an early type of Peaceable Kingdom (1820), Hicks borrowed the composition from Richard Westall. To it he added Penn’s treaty with the Indians; some of them have a lettered border with a paraphrase of the verses. The Separation of 1827 created Hicksites and Orthodox, and changed the composition of the Peaceable Kingdoms. The animals turn sullen and defiant. Penn’s treaty gave way to a pyramid of “Quakers Bearing Banners,” representing the Hicksites. George Washington and Elias Hicks, cousin to Edward stands in the forefront. Linking the substantial cloud of witnesses to the Light of Christ with a banner, its inscription associated with the birth of the historical Christ, is surely in answer to the Orthodox charge of heresy. Edward said of Jonathan Evans that he was “too much like myself, malignant and bitter toward his enemies. I consider him as honest as Saul of Tarsus. When Jesus Christ was revealed in him, Jonathan Evans became a changed man.”
The Inward Kingdom—In likening his old opponent Jonathan Evans, to the lion and the ox Edward Hicks touched on the third and most significant aspect of the Peaceable Kingdom, the inward one. As the years went on, his paintings became spiritual landscapes peopled with vices and virtues of mankind in animal form. The soul he was most interested in saving was his own.
Taken in toto the Kingdom series is a record of his spiritual growth, his recurrent struggles and the search for harmony in reconciliation with himself. He writes: “The lamb, the kid, the cow, and the ox are emblems of good men and women, while the wolf, leopard, bear, and lion are figures of the wicked.” The virtuous kid tends to decrease in size as his brilliant contrast, the sanguine leopard, increases.
The leopard starts out with only head and paws in the Westall composition. In the Kingdom with Quakers bearing Banners he stretches defiantly at full length. He always retains some element of interest, if only with his eyes. There is a peculiar identification of the artist with these great golden cats. [Their tails seems to take the place of] the serpent, which Hicks does not feature. Hicks puts his focus on the yoking of the lion and the fatling together by the little child, until the lion and the leopard captured the composition. To Hicks: “The leopard is the most subtle, cruel, restless creature, and at the same time the most beautiful of all the carnivorous animal of cat kind . . . men and women of this class in the sinful state, are not to be depended upon.” Hicks shared the Quaker belief that the leopard’s beauty belonged in the jungle, and the hope that it stayed there. For poor Edward the artist the leopard would not stay in the jungle. The leopard was a part of him, and how significant a part is suggested by the dominance and variety of its position in the paintings.
The lion evolves from looking like a patient dog submitting to the caresses of an importunate child. In the Separation Kingdoms his eyes harden and glitter and he shows a choleric humor. In the middle period Kingdoms the lion’s eyes become fearful and sorrowful. In a Middle Period Kingdom painting (1830-40), Penn and his Indians return. The lion sits next to the ox. With the middle period Kingdoms Hicks introduced all the figures of the prophecy, and creates a disturbed energy. We have left the world of outer conflict and have entered the troubled soul of the artist. Beside the lion stands his great alter ego, the ox, perhaps representing the grave, kindly elder. The ox is the only “good” animal to achieve any prominence in these compositions. A portrait of Hicks at his easel shows an alert, rugged, pugnacious face, spectacles pushed back on the forehead, brush and palette in hand, a Bible open beside him.
The Late Kingdom paintings (1844) show certain animals reaching their zenith, particularly the leopard and the ox. The little child is trying to yoke the young lion, the calf, and the fatling together with a tasseled cord. There is a shifting, as if someone had entered or left the group. The lion has become a mere observer. The leopard’s eyes are still piercing us with a question—or an answer. We are not quite sure.
Edward Hicks died on August 23, 1849. The last Kingdom was painted for his favorite daughter, Elizabeth. The trees in the background shimmer in a golden autumnal twilight. The wolf rises and appears to be listening. The little child has finally yoked the young lion with the calf and the fatling, and now marches them off, leaving the leopard to flow across the foreground like a skein of silk. Elizabeth encouraged him writing: “I have a firm faith thy dedication to the candle of Truth will not and cannot be lost. I believe that thou hast been an instrument to sow seed that has taken root in different parts of the vineyard, and will bear a rich harvest . . .”
173. Evolution and the Inward Light (by Howard Haines Brinton; 1970)
About the Author—When Howard Brinton started at Pendle Hill with Anna
in 1936 as director, part of his role in a pioneer school/community was odd jobs.
His retinue included Tibbar (rabbit) and Nuto (their dog). Gerald Heard saw
this Peaceable Kingdom
Introduction—The
following [pamphlet] illustrates my former statement on The Religion of George Fox (#161).
It is a simple, elemental, philosophy easily understood by any Christian. It is idealistic, pragmatic, and existential
[i.e.] capable of being lived, and is formulated from John’s Prologue,
Ephesians and Colossians. Early
Quakerism made a great effort to resemble early Christianity. The unprogrammed meeting of today has the
same goal as early Quaker meetings, though the messages may be quite
different.
George Fox had no conception of evolution as Darwin
God’s Method
of Creation—George Fox
believed in the Inward Light as that which produces unity and reconciliation,
indispensable in a group held together by no human authority and only a minimum
of external organization. 3 stages of
[spiritual] development appear in Quaker journals: Divine Seed begins to grow,
early ecstatic experiences, feeling union with the God of Nature (Ages 7-12);
playfulness or useless frivolity, inevitable conflict between law and spirit,
unable to satisfy the demands of either; complete acceptance of the leadings of
the Light, no instant conversion, but a gradual change sometimes with setbacks. In the last state, the journal writer is to
some degree in the Kingdom of God
Many theologians do not understand the Quaker
conception of perfection. Perfection is
not satisfaction with one’s own condition.
To be “perfect” in the Quaker sense meant to live up to one’s own
“measure” of the Light, however small it might be; if that is done, more is
given. The Kingdom of Heaven
For Puritans, the assumption of total depravity led to
searches for evidence of divine favor, and resulted in continuous anxiety
interrupted occasionally by flashes of rapturous assurance. Even though a “leap of faith beyond life’s
boundary may bring us face to face with God some elements of [irrational] doubt
remain. In comparison with the Puritan
journals the Quaker journals are pervaded by a spirit of peace and relaxation,
[not into] self-satisfaction, but in a feeling of obedience to the divine
will.
The Quaker
Christology—Fox and the early Quakers
derived their Christology almost entirely from John’s gospel, Ephesians and
Colossians, and Paul’s concept of the 1st and 2nd Adam. They put them to vigorous use in holding
together a religious group having no human authority over it. Translating the Greek logos as “Word” is inadequate.
Since there is no other word in English or in any other language that
exactly corresponds to Logos, we will use it.
If it is true that the “Light enlightens every man” (John 1:9), than
every man is in some degree or “measure” a son of God, an incarnation of the
Light. It is obvious in our experience
that the Spirit is given with various degree of limitation, depending on the
individual (John 3:34 ). George Fox speaks of Christ as possessing the
Spirit without limitation. Jesus is
unique in that in him was a full measure of Light.
The
Functions of the Logos—In the pages
following the prologue John endeavors to describe the functions of Logos as
Creator. There are no birth stories in John, for Jesus does not feel himself to
be the Logos until the Spirit descends on him at his baptism. Jesus has always
been giving the Spirit; this eternal function is symbolized by temporal
acts. Jesus is “The Way, the Truth, and
the Life”; he is not only the goal, but the way toward it. The creative principle of the Logos operates
in both Christ and the disciples.
The religious philosophy of the New Testament (NT),
and therefore also of early Christianity, is not fully given to us in any one
place. Its clearest exposition outside
of the Gospel appears in the epistles to Ephesians and Colossians. [See Colossians
1:3-20] The bond of unity created by the
blood of a sacrificial offering is an Old Testament (OT) idea carried over to
the NT. It comes from the OT conception
of a blood sacrifice as a means of reconciliation. That was the old covenant or testament. In the new covenant or testament, Christ was
the lamb of God “slain from the foundation of the World.” Nearly 500 Quakers died in English prisons
because they believed that they were saved by the Light of Christ within them
and not by the death of Christ on the cross, by which an angry OT God was
appeased.
Philo of Alexandria
Wisdom and Logos are not necessarily equated. Perhaps we could say that wisdom is a kind of
model or blueprint of the universe which the Logos uses in creative work to
draw fragments into higher unity.
Confusion of wisdom and Logos is unnecessary if we consider ourselves
made in the image of God. We all have
something with us which is transcendent and inaccessible to others. Our persona,
that part we expose to the world, is known by the sensations which we cause
in other persons. We do have a kind of
mystic knowledge of each other quite different from the light and sound coming
from another. This knowledge of the
“inside” of the other person is possible only because we all share in the Logos
of God.
The Light is a community-creating agent and seeks,
unsuccessfully so far, in bringing all men into one community. This means that creation is not yet
completed. It follows from this that the
Inward Light not only unites us with God but also with one another. The Two Great Commandments are two sides of
the same coin. When George Fox calls
upon us to “answer that of God in every man,” he is appealing to the creative
life which is at work in every part of the universe, and which seeks to bring
all things into one universal community.
Evolution by
the Logos—If it is true that creation
has occurred & is occurring, then
personifying Logos is important to illustrating evolution’s final goal. We are trying
to show that ethics has primitive beginnings in biology. OT myths of creation
give us the conception that creation was a process. Jeremiah states the Quaker
position when he rejects cisterns of stagnant water & accepts instead
springs of living water. Logos philosophy which formulates spiritual &
psychological relationship is one of the oldest as well as the newest of
philosophies. Many modern philosophers agree that the divine’s function is to
bring orderly unity to diversified elements of being.
The original plan in the 1st cell in
history contained God’s Logos, or plan of creation, an active creative power. God’s
plan is in some way latent in all creation as it slowly evolves, sometimes
going backward, but mostly forward to God’s Kingdom. If the plan for the whole
is in every cell of my body then the Kingdom of Heaven
The Beloved
Community/Quaker Perfection—Josiah
Royce of Harvard’s ideal was the Absolute Community of Communities of the Kingdom of Heaven Kingdom of God
Atonement for Royce meant not the removal of sin but
the restoration of a redemptive community which had been broken by the sin of
disloyalty. Royce rejects the idea that
Christ’s death was an offering to appease an angry God, or that Christ suffered
as an example to us. Incarnation and
atonement have their roots in human experience.
Barclay, Penn, and Fox believed that the Kingdom of God
Quaker perfection is not arriving at the goal and
remaining there, but the intention to live up to the highest Light revealed to
each individual. Living as if you were
already in the Kingdom would at least give it a start. The Quakers believed that their movement was a
restoration of the original structure & beliefs of early Christianity. The Logos creates by exerting an upward pull
through love & reconciliation. In Plato’s philosophy the Idea of the
Beautiful draws the beautiful to itself in nature, but is checked by [the
resistance] of matter from being molded.
Limits of
Materialism/An Alternate Theory—[The
current research into genes] reduces life to a physical-chemical mechanism
operating by the fixed laws of mechanical causation. The difficulty with this theory is that no
one really believes it. [Every individual]
has a sense of freedom so deeply felt that no theory of physics or chemistry
can explain or remove it. The Eternal
Christ is the only begotten son of God because God has only one Logos. The Quakers seem more orthodox than they
really are because they use the same language regarding the Eternal Christ that
the Puritans used regarding the historical Christ.
It is very difficult to imagine that evolution, the
world around us has resulted from an almost infinitely long game of dice. Instead of [using] this inadequate view
through our senses, why not [use logos to explain creation]. Our logos makes us creators as we bring an
idea to reality. In the Community of
Communities all creation will be reconciled.
We ourselves feel, in our religious and moral experience, a pull from in
front as well as a push from behind. We
find that as evolution advances to higher and higher levels on each level
something new has been added which was not there before. When an atom is said to “desire” to combine
with another atom, “desire” is only a human symbol of something which it might
only faintly resemble.
[A close examination of the relationship of matter to
energy] leads to the notion of energy being fundamental, thus displacing matter
from that position. The same relegation
of matter to the background occurs in connection with the electromagnetic
field. An intangible field does not
operate by the laws of mechanics. Everyone acquainted with genuine Quakerism knows that a spiritual field exists in
what is sometimes called “a gathered meeting,” [generated by a combined seeking
of the Light or Logos by a spiritually oriented group of people]. It is this spiritual field that is the
community-creating agent and a manifestation of the Logos of God. It is not difficult to think of the
primordial Logos, the Creator of John’s prologue, as generating a field of
spiritual force to gradually pull our world toward itself into a single unity,
the Community of Communities. One difficulty
is that in our efforts to understand we use only the outer, tool-oriented
cortex of the brain. The deeper parts of
the brain dominated by feeling rather than thought, have a deeper insight into
the nature of things.
Survival by
Reconciliation—If the Logos of God is
the Creator who is still creating, and if Jesus of Nazareth was the temporal
personification of the Logos/Creator, then the words of Jesus tell us how the
creative process works. [“Survival of
the fittest” by New Testament standards] is survival of the one who best
complies with the gospel of reconciliation or love, using the Sermon on the
Mount as guide. Those who make violent
changes in the organic structure of society are bound to fail. War creates changes, but they are generally
superficial, [with serious side effects].
Arnold Toynbee has shown that militarism is a fatal disease, resulting
in pride and a fall [from power]. The
two countries whose cultures have lasted the longest are India China
We are attempting to show that in all life
reconciliation is the key to survival in the long run, even though it often
appears to fail in the short run. Gerald
Heard considers sensitivity and awareness the principal assets in the struggle
for survival. When some in a species
attain to new and different areas of sensitivity and awareness it is by finding
a new environment. Adjustment to
environment may be so successful that there is no “change” to a higher
species. The lack of success the
ancestor to reptiles and land animals had in one environment enabled it to
function in another. Satisfaction with
the status quo may halt the process
of further human evolution.
Into Higher
Forms—Those forms of life which form
a community either in one physical body or in many in which the whole directs
the parts and the parts the whole, have the greatest survival possibility. There is an optimum size for such a community
depending upon the character of the species concerned. The Greek polis,
at its best was an ideal community, and Greek art and literature reached a
climax in them. The modern nation state
cannot be a community because it is too large to function successfully as such;
it is more like a mob than a community.
Specialization is a great enemy of community living in our modern
cities. If our large cities could be
broken up into small communities their problems could be solved.
Police action in a city is a mechanistic procedure;
the result is a mechanism too large and intricate to function as a whole. [Man’s] tools may destroy him if his brain is
unable to carry forward the “ministry of reconciliation.” How
can we secure the sensitivity and awareness to [evolve and] avoid
catastrophe? Evolution proceeds by
increasing diversification, which survives only if accompanied by increasing
reconciliation and adaptation or integration.
Through small religious communities and not through Roman armies the
best part of the culture of the Graeco-Roman world passed into the culture of Western Europe .
The Quaker
Community—If we consider Catholicism,
Protestantism, and Quakerism as the 3 distinct forms of Christianity [and
connect them to different types of society], then Catholicism is based on
feudal society, Protestantism is based on capitalism, and Quakerism is based
on Communitarianism. 17th Century capitalism, [combined with] Protestantism
resulted in making a religion out of carefulness in business and prudent
spending. It is not true to say that
Penn’s Holy Experiment failed; it succeeded for as long as the English
government let it alone.
The social order of Pennsylvania
The Logos philosophy is mystical, because man’s
relation to the Logos is mystical and not rational. The Quaker meeting, [with its silent waiting
for divine authority to prompt vocal ministry] is a deliberate attempt to
cultivate sensitivity and awareness of the Light; early Quakers used the term
“tenderness” rather than sensitivity.
Becoming “tender” meant acquiring the ability to grow spiritually and to
increase one’s “measure” of light.
Conclusion—The logos philosophy is the simplest and most
profound, the newest and the oldest of all philosophies. The philosophy of the same importance is
materialism, [with its mechanistic definition of man and life]. Psychologists and philosophers who base all
reasoning [on materialism] are like surveyors who can ignore the curvature of
the earth because they are surveying only a small part of it.
Love permits the species to survive through
cooperation and mutual support; hatred destroys the possibility of cooperation
which is essential to survival. If those
who profess the Christian religion would take seriously the commandments of
Christ, our chances of survival would be enormously increased. Man has a logos by which he creates. And he creates insofar as he cooperates with
the creative Logos of the universe. I am
known outwardly by what I do and say. I know
myself inwardly by my hopes, despairs, my joys and pains, my love and anger.
God’s creation is not finished, and if man acts too
absurdly and destructively it may never be finished. If the ethics of Christ are not followed, the
human race and perhaps all life will become extinct. [Actually], all the great religions were
pacifist in their beginnings except Islam.
When at their best, the great world religions have taught not only that
the results of war are always evil, but that war itself is an evil regardless
of its results. The Supreme Being does
not work in the world as one physical force among other forces, but as an
invisible spiritual power which produces understanding, cooperation, and
love. Real religion always makes for
peace.
[The great religions I speak of] all began in Asia . When they remained faithful to the teachings
of their founders they maintain that humanity is one, and that all life is
based on and derived from a Supreme Life.
We are all branches of the same vine, radii of the same circle, apart at
the circumference, one at the center.
The Incarnation of the Supreme Being, in the Bhagavad Gita, the Lotus
Scripture, or the Logos of the NT can say “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
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175. Mutual Irradiation: a Quaker view of ecumenism (by Douglas V. Steere; 1971)
About the Author—Douglas Steere is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Haverford College
O my God, how does it happen in this poor old world that thou art so great & yet nobody finds thee, that thou callest so loudly & yet nobody hears thee, that thou art so near & yet nobody feels thee, that thou givest thyself to everybody & yet nobody knows thy name. Men flee from thee & say they cannot find thee; they turn their backs & say they cannot see thee; they stop their ears and say they cannot hear thee—(Hans Denck, 16th century)
O my God, how does it happen in this poor old world that thou art so great & yet nobody finds thee, that thou callest so loudly & yet nobody hears thee, that thou art so near & yet nobody feels thee, that thou givest thyself to everybody & yet nobody knows thy name. Men flee from thee & say they cannot find thee; they turn their backs & say they cannot see thee; they stop their ears and say they cannot hear thee—(Hans Denck, 16th century)
How few there
are who are still enough to hear God speak (François Fenelon, 17th century)
Foreword—Douglas
Steere has had a concern for what he calls “mutual irradiation” [he prefers it
to “dialogue”] for almost 2 decades, [in particular with Zen Buddhism and
Hinduism]. In 1967 he carried on two
resident conferences [as Secretary of the Friends World Committee on
Consultation (FWCC)]; one in Japan with Zen Buddhists; one in India with Hindu
scholars, both meeting with an ecumenical group of Christian scholars.
This pamphlet is from the English preparation of a
German lecture. It reaches into the rationale of the ecumenical movement, and
treats of those hesitations and roadblocks that Friends find surfacing as they
develop intimate relationships, both within the Christian communion and beyond
it; it looks for Quaker opportunities to serve.
[Introduction/Ecumenism/4 Postures/ “There but for…—I do not believe that problems that Hans Denck and
François Fenelon point to [in the beginning quotes] can begin to exhaust the
barriers that keep us from hearing what God has to say to us. A message of importance for us is to be found
in the ecumenical surge that has taken place among the Protestants, the
Orthodox, and the Roman Catholics.
New relations are emerging between Christians and
Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims. For those of us who suffer from hardening of
the categories, the message to found in this vast ecumenical movement will
cause much pain. Arnold Toynbee said that what will most interest historians
1,000 years from now will be what happened when Buddhism & Christianity 1st
interpenetrated each other; he could have said as much for Hinduism &
Islam.
Ecumenism simply means “world-embracing.” It means overcoming several barriers and
finding what embraces them all. [It
means “moving fences outward”] to embrace but not erase the unique and very
special spiritual witness of the different religious groups. Christianity has 4 [ways of relating to world
religions]: destroy; merge; co-exist; and mutual irradiation. This 4th approach would try to
provide the most congenial setting possible for releasing the deepest witness
that the Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim might make to his Christian companion, and
that the Christian might share back. [We
will start with the 4 approaches within Christianity].
[While we may tell jokes about our relationship with
the “religious opposition”], we have come to realize that what happens to one
segment of a people’s religion happens to all. [The author has seen evidence
that the relationship between France Germany
Quakers: Hesitations/3rd
Stream/Revolution/Functional Ecumenism—Quakers have approached Protestant ecumenical negotiations with pronounced
hesitation, even though American Quaker membership is well-represented in the
World Council of Churches. At our best, Friends have touched a spring of life
that reaches beyond forms. The Ecumenical Movement touched on issues of creed &
church government, which were foreign to the Quaker experience. British Friends
were blunt and refused outright to submit to the creedal formula that was required
for World Council membership. Many Continental & Scandinavian Friends feel
themselves part of a 3rd force, part of a mystical stream that might
one day draw all back into its current.
[For me there has always been] a conflict in Quaker
minds about involvement in the Protestant coalition. They want to be a part of
anything that would heal the Christian world’s divided body. On the other hand, many Friends were hesitant
to become identified [too strongly] with the Protestant segment while the
Protestant-Catholic breach still existed. And there is a revolutionary element
in Quakers, a movement rather than a church,
that distrust church structures of all sorts.
To enter the ecumenical association as just another small and
insignificant church body would rob them of their revolutionary status [and
what makes them unique.]
[Pope John XXIII’s vision] accenting the radical universality
of God’s love is radical enough to challenge any revolutionary. The Catholic
novelist Georges Bernanos writes: “The holy invisible church which we know includes
pagans, heretics, schismatics and non-believers whom God alone knows . . . the
communion of Saints . . . which of us is sure of belonging to it?” John XXIII
is calling us to witness to the operative presence, here and now, of this
fathomless love and concern that is at the heart of things: a presence which is
at work in the unconscious life of every part of creation. It would be hard to find a more moving appeal
to our own intimate experience of this [timeless] supporting mystical stream
that has been flowing always through the unconscious life of all people
everywhere, but broke out in the life of Jesus Christ.
My notion of this vision is a functional ecumenism
that begins with us encouraging each other to practice our own religious
tradition and to share our experience with each other [without fear of being
assimilated]. We should be prepared to
join with other confessions in all kinds of common explorations and common
tasks. A truly functional ecumenism wants to witness to the world how much God
cares. A functional ecumenism will open us up to [treating the world as one
global community without regard to the particular belief held by those we help,
and to the witness of our fellows of whatever religion].
Zen Buddhist/Quakers/ Mutual Irradiation—In 1967, the Quakers invited a small group of Zen
Buddhists representing both the Rinzai and Soto persuasions to meet with
Christians. A small Quaker team which
included a Japanese and an American woman served as hosts. The morning discussions centered in turn upon
one of the 2 stated topics: “The Inward
Journey” and “Social Responsibility for the Ordering of Our World.”
Each participant had an opportunity to give an opening
talk and there was ample time for continuing the issues raised. Afternoons
were left free for resting or walking or visiting; evenings were mostly given
to sharing music. The Japanese Christians discovered that they have a layer of
traditional Buddhism in their unconscious.
They were able to re-assess their Buddhist past and decide what part of
it might be accepted and utilized. The Zen Buddhists had nearly all encountered
Jesus Christ at some stage of their pilgrimage. Zen Buddhists were chosen for
this small, elite group because they are a living and articulate organ of the
inward Japanese life, and because they were a natural group for Quakers to turn
to. As anti-liturgical and
unconventional witnesses to the spirit rather than the law, they have a lot in
common with Quakers. [Stories were told
to illustrate Zen philosophy].
With so much in common, it was challenging to find
the unyielding priority which the Zen gave to [first] “going into the
mountains” [i.e.] turning inward in mediation and searching to find the inward
Buddhahood or the new angle of vision.
Quakers have experienced that [meeting another’s need first outside the
mountain] may open the way to the inward “mountains.” The consciousness of what our Zen Buddhists
friends would say to this and many other issues [still comes to mind when I am
trying to decide an issue]. [The
insistence on this priority] searched not only the Quakers but all the
Christians present. It illustrates true
ecumenism and mutual irradiation. The
Zen humor about themselves and their professions and the openness of Christians
admitting to their efforts and failures [exerted an influence over the entire
group].
[In approaching ecumenism], Dr. Jacques Cuttat lays
down as a requirement that each must give to the other’s faith the amplitude of
love, postpone value judgment, and “suspend for a time our adherence to our own
communion in order to understand the non-Christian brother as he understands
himself.” When both share their
experiences “we have what can be called a truly ‘inter-religious space.” [Having different aspects of Christianity and
Zen Buddhism present] gave a deeper cast to the witness. Professor Hisamatsu wrote: To reverse the split in subjectivity and to
realize a stable post-modern original subjectivity is a universal and vital
task.”
Hindu-Christian Colloquium/Vicarious Participation—In April 1967, FWCC hosted a meeting of Hindu and
Christian scholars (Roman Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Mar Thoma, Protestant, and
Quaker); we met in a season of acute spiritual need. Father Klostermaier,
said, “We must help each other to preserve this precious tradition in India India
A whole new literature [written by Western authors] is
now giving religious insights of these great world religions [of Buddhism and
Hinduism]. The universal invitation to a vast introversion which may loosen
man’s greed and acquisitive clutching at the world of nature and of his fellows,
and the loosening of ego-centric pretension may permit new awareness. Hinduism
too, is marked by this same inward-turning accent and [awareness of
connection] with the soul of the infinite Godhead. Dr. Cuttat says: “The great
‘lesson’ of the spiritual East is not universality; it is spiritual
concentration.” And he says, “Eastern spirituality insists that aspirations to
the Divine are inherent in the human vocation, and not a “spiritual luxury.” The
common people of India
Islam witnesses to what it means to live in God’s Providence
Every Gift…/Intellectual Task—I believe that Quakers do have a small but a
peculiarly important role to play as catalysts in the ecumenical hospitality
that has been suggested here. At their
best, I think that Friends are naturally oriented to begin from within and to
draw the whole ecumenical process in this direction. Marius Grout said, “If contemplation which
introduces us to the very heart of creation does not inflame us with . . . a
love that gives us . . . the understanding of the infinite misery of the world,
it is a vain contemplation . . . of a false God.” [Our involvement in the ecumenical process
prompts the following questions from other religions]: How do you find it possible to counter the dispersive forces of life
and to keep attentive in the inward center with only one hour a week devoted to
it? When is the time that you take for
the healing of the soul? These
questions are gifts, for there is no alternative to being brought back into the
seat of yielding and of tendering.
On the intellectual side it is doubtful if Friends are
likely to make any decisive contribution to a deeper ecumenism. Our only reply might be that while we may not
ourselves at this point be able to formulate a view of the universal Christ, we
can be among those who are most open to it.
Any truth that we have found in these great world religions has only
sharpened the urgency of Christ’s inward call upon us and has given us a new
sense of how little we yet know of him, and of how much we have yet to learn. [What
happens] when the prophetic type of religion [with its personal responsibility
meets] the profound Buddhist and Hindu concentration up-on consciousness and
awareness and “myself” is transcended? Ecumenical encounters may bring a
realization that the stream of God’s mercy can flow down through more than one
shape of institutional river-bed.
There should be no minimizing of the need for a
climate of sincere seeking. For the
ecumenical encounter to be creative, there is required not only the tender effort
to understand, but an equally frank and open climate that acknowledges and
shares genuine differences in all their starkness. Something may happen in understanding
another’s truth that irradiates one’s own tradition and may even hint at a
hidden convergence, a truth that embraces both.
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179. Light and Life in the Fourth Gospel By Howard H. Brinton; 1971
About the Author—When Howard Brinton started as director at Pendle Hill with Anna (1936), part of his role in a pioneer school/community was odd jobs. His retinue included Tibbar (rabbit) & Nuto (dog). Gerald Heard saw this Peaceable Kingdom procession as illustration of his survival by reconciliation philosophy. Howard seems indestructible, rising from ailments like the phoenix. He continues to interpret the essential Quaker message.
Foreword—This pamphlet deals mainly with the philosophy and psychology of early Quakerism as derived from John’s gospel and first epistle. In Quakerism the powerful influence of the Methodist revival gradually substituted salvation through blood atonement for salvation through the Inward Light. [In the original Quaker faith] God the Son, according to John’s Logos doctrine is God as revealed and as creator. God the Father is God in God’s self, to be known only through mystical intuition. I think that this faith is entirely in harmony with modern thought in philosophy, theology, and religion.
I—George Fox, Robert Barclay, and William Penn all based their theology on John’s gospel. Fox [provided “leadership” and a minimum of organization in a group whose primary leader was not human]. Barclay furnished a profound theology based on John’s gospel. Penn led the 1st active lobby in history for Quaker prisoners. What does John mean by “eternal life?” [How does this gospel compare to the religious classics of other religions?] What kind of Christianity can save our modern world?
The Inward Light which the Quakers look to as their means of “salvation” is also the Inward Life; the Eternal Christ is also Life. In John’s gospel Inward Life reaches its highest quality in “Eternal Life,” “Life Abundant,” or “Life Everlasting.” Life is a miracle, known only by feeling and not by an intellectual process, it remains completely out of the reach of scientific understanding. Eternal life is even less subject to intellectual understanding.
Life’s opposite is the machine which is often used as a substitute for life. The most sophisticated machine is without those internal feelings that make up the soul of a human being. For a machine cause always precedes effect. In an organism, the cause may [be some desired future happening that has an effect on present action]. [In one of John’s organic analogies], the branches depend on the vine as the vine depends on the branches. An organism is governed by a power within. [There is a kind of “mutual containment,” i.e. of us in the soul of the world and the soul of the world in us]. Jesus prays that they may all be one: “. . . as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”
The word “know” occurs a great many times in John’s gospel. To know as John and Plato used the word meant to participate with what was known. Here John’s “know” means a more intimate and organic relation than the word “know” means today. Life as subject and life as object are no longer organic parts of a world organism. As a result part of the world organism has become more like an unorganized sand heap than a world soul.
God is the bridge between one living subject and another, and without God they would not know each other inwardly, since God is the inward life of both. We have identified Christ with life. When Jesus speaks of eternal life he does not mean an endless period of time. He may mean the elimination of the time dimension. Time experienced is a variable, although clock time is a constant. Also, it seems to some writers that Jesus overcomes the space dimension. When Jesus speaks of himself as the light of the world he means a light which can be experienced everywhere [at the same time]. We usually think personality is something that is localized in time and space. But this limitation may not apply to a higher form of personality. Today we have invented machines which almost overcome space and time by enabling us to travel quickly and talk to any part of the world.
The word “eternal” in John’s gospel often does not mean a life which will last forever, though sometimes it apparently does. The Greek aion refers both to a particular quality of life in the present and also to an age of life beyond the grave which has no definite beginning or end. In John 11:24-26, 4:14, and 8:58, Jesus makes eternal life a present-day achievement as well as a future event. What then is eternal life in the present? “ . . . I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Life abundant has an eternal quality. [Life lived fully has an eternal quality]. The highest forms of life, because they can produce themselves both biologically and spiritually, they possess an eternal dimension extending without limit into the past and future. It is only the spiritual birth which has an eternal quality; it may a gradual or a sudden birth.
II—The “Quaker” verse of John’s gospel (1:9) says that the Light “which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” These words show that every human being, regardless of race or religion, possesses sufficient Light for one’s salvation. This universalism was called “Gentile Divinity” by early Quakers. John Whittier writes: “All souls that struggle & aspire/All heart of prayer by Thee are lit/And dim or clear Thy tongues of fire/On dusky tribes & twilight centuries sit. Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know’st/Wide as our need Thy favors fall;/ The white wings of the Holy Ghost/Stoop seen or unseen, oer the heads of all.” George Fox said: “. . .The gospel is to be preached to every creature; & Christ. . . hath enlightened them with the light, which is the life in himself.” The Greek philosophers Aristotle and Solon, and the Roman philosopher Seneca, within the 6 centuries before and the 1st century after Christ echo the same beliefs.
The universality of the light finds a high degree of confirmation when the gospel of John is compared to the Lotus of the Wonderful Law of Buddhism, and the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism. These 3 writings show a remarkable similarity to one another in some respects; their highest and most fundamental doctrines [remind one of climbers starting from different sides of a mountain]. The closer they get to the top the closer they are to one another.
The most difficult problem in the theology of all religions concerns the reconciliation of the temporal and the eternal. How can we discover the eternal in the temporal and the temporal in the eternal? [Perhaps] if the [eternal] cosmic soul of the world becomes incarnated, then the problem is solved. This happens in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, though the incarnations are not equally historic. These three also describe a religion which is not confined to any one people or one place; all three are universal. They all show the influence of more primitive religions brought into a unified theory. The reconciliation of the eternal and the temporal does not take place only in a single incarnation of the leading figure. It takes place to some degree in every human being. The presence of eternal life and light is never complete except in the incarnation of the Eternal.
Buddha and Krishna promise to return to the world whenever they are needed to overcome evil, and they are the personification of the Absolute, the soul of the Universe; Christ promises to remain as the Light and Life in his followers. Jesus says in John’s gospel: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.” In the Bhagavad Gita, peace is the goal, obtained by a complete freedom from samsara, the restless world of appearance which has no reality. In Lotus Scripture peace is obtained by freedom from desire.
In John we can find a philosophy and theology for Christianity, and in the first 3 gospels we can find a code of behavior; each without the other is incomplete. Note the similarities between John, the Lotus Scripture (Buddhist), and the Bhagavad Gita (Hindus) in the following passages.
Lotus Scripture: The Dwelling of the Tathagata (Buddha) is the compassionate heart within all. The Throne of Tathagata is the spirituality of all existence… The Buddha is born in the world to save all living creatures from fires of birth, age, disease, grief… From the rain of one cloud, each plant acquires its growth and the profusion of its flowers and fruit. Though produced in the same soil and moistened by the same rain, yet these plants and trees are all different… I am the Tathagata, the Worshipful, the All Wise, of Perfectly Enlightened Conduct, the Understander of the World, the Peerless Leader … the Teacher of gods and men, the Buddha, the World-honored One… The Law preached by the Tathagata is of one form. If in other regions there are beings/reverent and joying in faith/Again I am in their midst/To preach the Supreme Law.
2nd the Bhagavad Gita: Who sees Me in all/and sees all in Me/For him I am not lost/And he is not lost for Me… Than Me no other higher thing/Whatsoever exists, Dhanamjaya;/On Me all this (universe) is strung,/ Like heaps of pearls on a string… I am the soul, Gudakesa,/ That abides in the heart of all beings.
III—The only kind of Christianity which can be successful in Asia in that which is present in John’s gospel, [because] of its similarity with Asian religious classics. It would be a great mistake to endeavor to offer to the Orient a Christianity based on atonement through a blood sacrifice to an angry God. This is very far from John’s statement that “God is love.” If Asia accepts from our Western world only its scientific materialism and not its Christian religion, then Asia will destroy itself just as our Western culture seems ready to do.
In Paul’s theology as a whole, Paul thinks that salvation occurs through the life of Christ within, not through the blood he shed without. Paul more than once warns us not to confuse the fleshly and spiritual. If Christianity is to be preached successfully in Asia, it must include the great OT prophetic, ethical writings, the first three Gospels, and the theology of the fourth. The Synoptic gospels [reach outward to all of humankind; John reaches “inward” and “upward” to Christ and God respectively]. John says “God is love”; but this love is best described in the parables & sayings of the first 3 gospels; they bring us back to earth & time, after John has led us to eternity.
The West finds it difficult to grasp Zen Buddhism or Quakerism because these religions represent not intellectual analysis but intuitional feelings. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). This truth is life, known only by feeling and not by thinking. [A dead shroud of concrete from a freeway is replacing the living fields and woods near where I am writing]. We are living in a world in which death is gradually supplanting life. The final end of this process is predictable. Our own culture is now faced with challenges which it may be unable to meet. An “interior proletariat” such as the Benedictine monasteries of the 6th century and later, may be able carry our Western culture into the future.
Past cultures passed through a spring, summer, fall, and ended in winter. Oswald Spengler sees a materialistic philosophy, lack of a genuine religion, skepticism regarding the value of life, and the breakdown of family life as signs of winter. Today, the principal cause of anxiety is man’s hidden fear that he is only a collection of atoms and therefore there is no evidence of an immortal soul. If an interior proletariat should rise in the future to preserve a culture which is worth preserving, it seems now that this will occur in Asia rather than in the Western world. It may be that the Far East will be able to preserve a part of that Western world to which the Near East contributed so much by creating Christianity in the first century of our era.
180. Apocalypso: revelations in theater (by Jack Shepherd; 1971)
About the Author—Jack Shepherd joined the Theater Royal in Portsmouth , England Hong Kong in 1957, he produced the 1st television play in
Chinese. He came to Pendle Hill in 1966 and
[sojourned until 1971].
I-II—Note
the implications of the [made-up] word apocalypso: [musical] entertainment and story; improvisation;
hints of revelation and discovery. The final production of Center Stage at the Wharton Center Black City
The next year became mostly Greek. We experimented
with The Trojan Women. We worked out the shape and sequence of events, but
did not rehearse actual scenes. We turned Euripedes’ 2 Gods into a top CIA &
Kremlin agent, [who discussed] the disposal of Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra, &
Helen. They tried to explain to the wretched women that their fates of slavery
and worse implied nothing personal; merely the logic of war. The experience was
powerful, but could never be repeated, because much of its power came from
spontaneity.
After the comic The
Frogs by Aristophanes, we were ready for Pavene for a Dead Princess, following the theme of Oresteiad. Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigenia, Clytemnestra
murders Agamemnon, Orestes murders Clytemnestra. Helen appears. [Trapped in this cycle], they appeal to the audience for help. The scripted material played for about half
an hour, and the audience participation for about 10 minutes. The players needed to be able to grow
together in the performance, anticipating thoughts and feelings while still
remaining in character.
The Apocalypso Repertory was born in April 1970. The
newness [of this idea] lies latent in each performance. The players bring their own humanity, talent,
[and feelings]. Each of the audience
members brings their own humanity and current mood. Between the alchemic compounds [of actors and
audience], communion is generated which is more than the sum of its parts; no
performance is the same as the next. We
reckon ourselves well applauded when people report a sleepless night after the
show.
III—Suddenly
ideas and scripts began to pour forth; the problem was to find occasions to
bring them to life. In the summer of 1970
we did The Gods Out at Elbow, where
the gods Hera, Vulcan, and Persephone discuss what gods should do when human
needs change and humans stop paying their dues.
Vulcan comes up with the idea of doing theater. Hera wants to know, “What was our [godly] function?” Persephone
answered, “Helping people understand themselves.” The audience was invited to help in shaping
the theater. The 2nd play the
same night, Help and Holy Physic, was
about the daughter of Romeo and Juliet, who objects to the [safe choices her
parents made] and the “comfortable and cautious dreams they settled for.” [She wants her parents’ original dream
back]. The audience provides her with
answers; this play was shared with all kinds of audiences.
We could not lumber ourselves with scenery, furniture,
or props which could not easily be carried or found on the spot. We learned to achieve a timelessness in dress
and properties. [I do not choose to
write a play on a certain, chosen topic at a certain time]. Plays are born when they are ready. [The seed for the above play was planted one
Monday at lunchtime; by Wednesday the script was finished]. The played touched on the problem of the
generation gap, and how a vision can decline into a dream.
IV-V—One
Sunday I was thinking of two young women [and put them together as] Mary and
Martha; and I felt like a tired Lazarus.
By Tuesday morning Fire and Fleet
and Candlelight was written. [The
story takes place] 10 years after Lazarus’ resurrection. Mary is off on her own; Martha is managing
Lazarus on lecture tours, but demand has fallen off. [Lazarus is afraid death must be due
again]. All 3 of them are tired,
discouraged, on the edge of despair and do not want to admit it. They have to appeal for help, for some kind
of wisdom.
We [did the play] to a conference of about 200
non-violent-revolution activists, [who happened to feel the same way as the
characters], so our play touched a nerve. When we appealed to them for help
they could only share their own suffering with us. None of us wanted to talk to
anybody, only to live silent for while with that agonizing and healing
communion. [If that play was designed to be performed for that group], it was
beyond our awareness [and planning]. We
gave it 3 performances, each different from the other because the audiences
were different. The experience confirmed
for me that despair must be engaged not by resisting it but by going right
through it to the point of accepting bankruptcy; then one is on its far side,
and closer to the truth than before. [We
also learned that] to bother about production pedantries is a waste of time as
long as the story, idea, and passion are authentic. Even in theater you can’t keep smiles out of
tragedy, nor sadness out of comedy.
Shadow Play wrote itself in a single sitting overnight after
[spending] time with someone struggling with unhappiness & hurt. [In it] a
poll-taker wanders around trying to work up courage to ask strangers dumb
questions, while a man lurks about furtively. The man is shadowing her &
neither of them knows why. [It was a comedy hit the first 3 times. In the 4th
it turned into] a close & painful session of soul-searching about [how we
end up] preying on others. How could the
comic idea, same story, same sequence of words, suddenly become serious?
The idea for Something
Rich and Strange began as an excuse to enjoy some of Shakespeare’s sonnets,
especially the Dark Lady sonnets. Fred
the window-washer starts writing poetry, but it’s poetry Shakespeare has
already written. The play transmuted into
a parable. The lesson was to never have
reality or illusion without the other.
Just live with the ongoing dance.
The Sleep of
Wild Horses began as an intentional
experiment in the positive use of silence and darkness. A woman journalist, burdened by crazy
politics and insane violence, is anxious to start writing a book called “The
World’s End.” The inn she is staying at has a power breakdown, and there is the
unaccountable sound of galloping horses. In the play there are only 3 people, 3
candles, and a Bible. It becomes evident that the 4 Horses of the Apocalypse
have returned to the inn’s stable, and the time is at hand for opening the 7th
seal (Rev. 8:1); [silence descends]. The audience is asked the question “How is the silence to be used?” The other woman says “What is written is
written” and disappears into the darkness. The mute stableman retreats into the
dark. The journalist, by the light of
her solitary candle, walks off to begin her book.
VI—[Even
though I said that plays often write themselves, and only when they are ready]
I thought about [suggested topics] of welfare-rights, poverty, and the strange
American notion that poverty is a crime calling for the punishment of the poor
and it began to look like a play, after all.
Suppose a rich man invites wealthy friends to dinner to discuss
relieving the poor of hardship. His
wealthy friends don’t come and he invites the poor. The friends try to suppress his efforts and
prevent a poor man from coming. Title? Be
My Guest.
The 1st performance of Be my Guest took place at Philadelphia
[In the 1st year there were more than 30
scripts available; Devices and Desires
was only one of them. We were learning
that scripts open to audience involvement can contain unexpected dynamite; the
explosion could be laughable, grave, or not come at all. [After discussion of it], we could not help
wondering what the 7 Deadly Sins thought of the New Morality. [We choose Lechery, Envy, and Sloth]. [They decided that New Morality was the
creation of theologians]. Their slogan
to counter New Morality was “Absolution is made meaningful by Sin.” After discussion with and suggestions from
the audience, the Sins decide to change their names. Envy becomes Criticism, Sloth becomes
Rapture, Lechery becomes Celebration.
VII-VIII—Certainly
in life, we often make attempts to be serious, but have to surrender to
hilarity. And yet at that point, the
seriousness strikes home swiftly and relentlessly. [We were led to the 6th
Beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in
heart for they shall see God]. Sixth Beatitude was 1st
produced in May 1971, the scene is a professor’s farewell speech, with an
unknown woman and her little girl, who insists on dancing about the room during
the speech. [The mother is seeking
responses to her parenting fears and her “comfortable grey life.” Could
purity of heart be the answer? The
professor has great enthusiasm for next year’s course, shaped by the
audience. The proof of the course is] “. . . THEY SHALL SEE GOD!” God does show himself, but only to one person
in the room. The last, apparently absurd
glimpse of the professor shows him lurching towards the truth about purity.
[I am unable to] describe with any precision these
experiences of shared creation. It is
the nature of the experience to be indescribable, and only shareable. Writing about
the experience might serve to encourage readers to taste, and share. Laughter and tears, light and darkness, sound
and silence; in each pair the latter is thought of as the absence of the
former; the first is positive, the second negative. Apocalypso
takes place when the apparent positives and negatives are held in an embrace—a
dance—wherein it is not certain which is leading or following, or where one
ends and the other begins. Much of [the
results] lies at the disposal of the audience.
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Introduction—I am saying here that the only Quakerism that can survive in the future will have to mystical, prophetic, and evangelical. These are the very best elements in our tradition. It is the vital energy for which our institutions have provided reasonably effective conductors that is most precious to us.
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182. On speaking out of the silence; vocal ministry in unprogrammed meeting for worship (by Douglas V. Steere; 1972)
About the Author—Douglas Steere joined the Religious Society of Friends
by convincement in 1932, after a period of religious quest. Having worshiped with friends in nearly
every part of the world, he had occasion be ministered to by many sorts of
messages. The present pamphlet is from a
paper given at his Radnor Meeting.
[I]—We are
now conscious of the fact that there are many ministries [besides vocal
ministry], ministries of: works; [solving]
social & institutional problems; writing; counseling. There are others
besides Quakers who are interested in the 3 centuries of corporate experience
of unprogrammed meetings and the prophetic ministry that may emerge from a lay
group. [Among Quakers] there is a faith that something is going on in our
silent waiting, something beyond our surface mind’s capacity; there is a
yearning communication that is continually operative.
What is this
yearning communication that was promised us and that we have from time to time experienced
in our meetings? Dorothy Sayers
suggests [of the Trinity] that the creative unplumbable abyss of the Godhead
yearns itself forth as God the Father [creator]; as the message of redeeming
love in the Son; and in the Holy Spirit’s continuous communication within the
unfathomable depths of men. All 3 of these movements of the God-head are in
continuous communication now and when we give or receive vocal ministry. We
come to our meetings for worship because we suspect that this communication may
help us discern what action is being asked of us, and may strengthen us [enough]
to carry this out. We come, too, for
healing and forgiveness and renewal.
We do not come alone to meeting. Others sit down with us: in those actually in
the room with us; in those wretched and poor of the earth of the earth, both in
spirit and in body; a new sense of unity with them may be opened at that
sitting. Some hope for complete silence
in meeting, but consistently silent meetings wither away. The Advices say, “Let none of us assume that
vocal ministry is never to be our part.” Neither should someone come to
unprogrammed meeting certain that they will
minister.
John William Graham says, “It comes in waiting. When I
sit down in meeting I recall whatever may have struck me freshly during the
past week... Often two or three of the thoughts that have struck home during
the week are woven together in unexpected ways.
When the fire is kindled, the blaze is not long… The sermon is made, but I the slow compiler
did not make it.” No mention is made of
his fellow worshipers, but ministry that is lastingly helpful is always deeply
aware of the people who are gathered together in meeting. In a meeting for worship in a redemptive
community which the Society of Friends is meant to be, the human situation of
the community is a real factor in the communication.
Most ministry is given in some connection with the
ministry [that has preceded it]. I think that learning to move in the exercise
of the meeting so that one is a part of it, yet taken beyond it and brought to
see some new light is most important in creative ministry. A cluster of
messages that goes on down, with each message deepening & intensifying and
helping to light up a further facet of the communication can be most effective.
If there is One who gathers the meeting inwardly and who is communicating and
drawing at our lives, it should not surprise us if several persons in the
meeting were moved to minister on the same theme. [There are frequent instances
of one feeling] drawn to share a message, only to find another rising &
ministering on almost the same theme. The vocal ministry’s workshop when we are
drawn into its inner chamber is alert with power and wonder.
The great freedom of the unprogrammed Quaker meeting
may be taken as an invitation to press some personal cause. Often the silence
and its subsequent ministry can transform this speaking into something very
helpful. When in the life, Friends have
spoken to man’s deepest needs and have never been content to confine ministry
to moral preachments. For the one often torn by inward struggles who has been
drawn to speak, there may be only a broken burst, or a prayer, or a snatch of a
question [to share in vocal ministry]. William Dewsbury wrote: “And thou, faithful babe, though thou stutter
for a few words in the dread of the Lord, they are accepted.” For me, the dropping of surplus illustrations
or peripheral considerations frequently takes place, sometimes willingly and
sometimes with pain. Constantly the restraining influence of the Guide stops my
saying all that I meant, or half meant to say; rarely have I regretted the
omissions; it may well be that we can’t finish, but we can always stop.
There is such a thing as ministry that can be so
finished and rounded off that members may hesitate to attach other messages to
it. How
should controversial issues be brought into the ministry of the meeting? Howard Brinton said: “A solemn reverent appeal for greater
sensitivity of conscience in economic matters might deepen the meeting.” It is possible for Friends to outrun their Guide,
and to be misled into identifying their own current resolution of social issues
with Divine truth. To wait for the Guide
and to be content to have the melting-down process that can take place in a
gathered meeting do its work; this can only strengthen worship.
To receive a message in meeting is not the same as to
receive the call to give it. It may not
have been matured, nor shaken down as yet.
[It may yet be put to use in some as yet undisclosed way. There are also instances where a Friend
returns to a meeting for 3 weeks in a row and is not feeling released from his
obligation to repeat the identical message.
No message is likely to be meant for every one of the worshippers. What may not affect me, may open out life for
another. [Simple gestures may be more
effective than outright verbal encouragement after a helpful vocal
ministry]. There is no standard
preparation for vocal ministry.
Quakers have never made the Bible their only
authority, but have always insisted that it is only as we are brought into the
same spirit that gave forth the Bible that we can begin to understand it.
Learning can strengthen what one has to give when it was put at the disposal of
a deeper guiding; it is no substitute for the authentic tendering that takes
place in a gathered meeting’s heart. Henry T. Hodgkin’s daily preparation in
private was connected to and crucial for his public life. Whatever gifts or sufferings or prayer-life
or training or insights or learning Jesus takes, he mercifully transforms them
and draws them into his service in another state than he found them.
y own experience is that the gathered meeting
provides a nurturing ground for effective ministry. [I have recommended corporate gathered
silence to other denominations, and a longer time in pastoral Quaker meetings
for open “communion” (when anyone from the congregation may pray or minister)].
[Vocal prayer can be helpful and open a meeting to the Guide, so long as it
does not become a mere formality]. If we are true to [corporate waiting and
vocal ministry], it will bless our lives, make our community more redemptive,
and be something we can offer to the ecumenical Christian treasury that may be
seen as a gift whose usefulness is beyond measure.
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183. Art and the changing world: uncommon sense in the 20th century (by Dorothea Blom; 1972)
About the Author—Dorothea Blom, is teacher, writer, and lecturer, on leave from the Pleasantville [NY] Adult School
O Lord of Life, help us know what we do. Guide us away from adding to the dangers, and give us the wisdom to serve the promise—in this present. Lend us the power to differentiate between custom and convention on the one hand, and real value on the other. Give us the fantastic imagination to recognize the “Narrow Gate” between anger and despair, that we may enter into it and participate in the Continuing Creation . . .
O Lord of Life, help us know what we do. Guide us away from adding to the dangers, and give us the wisdom to serve the promise—in this present. Lend us the power to differentiate between custom and convention on the one hand, and real value on the other. Give us the fantastic imagination to recognize the “Narrow Gate” between anger and despair, that we may enter into it and participate in the Continuing Creation . . .
New Ways of
Seeing—Nothing happens in the great
wide world outside us which does not affect the inner world and nothing happens
within our beings which does not affect the world we live in. As an art student around 1930 I found myself
part of 2 worlds sealed off from each other.
[I was part of] the commuting village, and part of a subculture. While dedicated to art, it had intense
awareness of social injustice; religion had been discredited.
The first honored traditional values; the second lived
an exploratory life, aware of the gap between ideals and the reality of the
world, and refusing to accept convention as necessarily having real value. The art which that subculture focused on
decades ago has filtered through the whole environment of the later 20th
century, into architecture, textile design, magazine illustration, [and visual
media]. It was both a shock and a strain
to be confronted suddenly with several unfamiliar visual languages
representing different ways of seeing and relating to life.
Cubism influenced John Marin, Paul Klee, Jacques
Lipchitz, and Mondrian. Matisse
represented an aspect of reality very different from Cubism. One of the most
exciting happenings of my art student days was the birth of the Museum of Modern Art New York
I was friends with a physicist and his psychologist
wife. He was a “survivor” of sessions
with] the Un-American Activities Committee, and wanted nothing to do with
religion. He met Howard Brinton, a
former physicist and the Director of Pendle Hill and was eventually influenced
to seek out a Quaker meeting. It was not
until I met this physicist as a seeker that I saw the connection between new
physics and the new ways of seeing.
Science, art, and religion surely contained a growing edge in common,
forming one fabric.
This intuition stayed at the back of my mind for
several years. I began looking for books by scientists who saw reality organically
instead of mechanistically. I gave a series on “The Religious Significance of
Art and Science in the 20th Century.” Both the death of the Post
Renaissance era and the birth of the Electronic Age or the Age of Aquarius need
to happen in each of us. We find a number of great minds recognizing the
intense specialization [and productivity that was part of the Post Renaissance
Era] as a necessary [and dangerous] phase of human development.
Common Sense
in the 20th Century—The
Common Sense of the 20th Century consists of the culmination of a
vast process of nearly a 1000 years.
Looking back into history from the 20th Century, we find that
art before 1000 A.D. huddled inside churches. After 1000 A.D., new life begins flowering on
the outside of churches. The Romanesque style begins in Southern France and Northern
Spain , and reached full
ripeness before 1100 A.D. Gothic
sculpture reached a Classic poise around 1200.
The same influences sifted down into Italy
In 15th century Florence Florence Newton US
Common Sense in the 20th century assumed
that reason and logic must triumph over feeling, intuition, and instinct. The
educational system built into the Western consciousness an inordinate faith in
“the scientific method.” At this time I
feel compassion toward Western Man, for the price he paid and still pays for an
intense outward focus. His inner reality has shrunk to a narrow safety zone of
the familiar. Having lost with his own
nature, he lost his capacity to delight in the nourishing interplay of inner
and outer world; he no longer found life Holy.
Uncommon
Sense in the 20th Century—[This
century’s] artists wrought new visual languages to equate new relationships to
reality. Process is essential reality. Energy is central to process. Many Point
Perspective expresses our relation to reality as a many-faceted happening.
Walking around Henry Moore’s sculptures can be a vitalizing relation to many
point perspective. His Family Group
(1948-49) of a mother, father and child on a bench is one of many human
images of classic poise and serenity. Transformation and transmutation as a
happening inherent in the very nature of life, physical, psychological,
spiritual, are the basic assumptions of alchemists, who were a very positive
influence on modern science. Imagination, rather than reason, is the crowning
glory of man’s potential.
The difference between the reality of the mechanistic
view of life and one based on reality as process and organic relationship is
not a matter of opinion but of contrasting ways of experiencing life. Applied
to life as a whole, this focus on the present invites a transformation of it
into an infinitely expansive globe held in place by past and future. Human
nature looks different. Many now see humans as gentle and humble creatures who
survived because of tremendous energy, intelligence, and imagination. The
phrase ties us to nature. We may be in a race to see if the gulf within humans and in our relation to the planet can be bridged in time for
survival. The new sensibility of Uncommon Sense has a strong impulse toward
integration of all the human functions. We find increasing numbers of people
who value both sides of the opposites: reason/emotion; body/soul; inner
life/outer life.
New religious life surges, but many religious
institutions are unable to accept it or contain it. It is the religion of presentness affecting
one’s being and seeking to find life whole. Are Common Sense & Uncommon Sense irreconcilable opposites? Common sense fits with Martin Buber’s “I
& it” connection with life. Uncommon Sense suggests “I & Thou.” When
trusted this connection with the world leavens & renews, opens up meaning
& significance. It is the focus we need now if we are to know how to use all these tools and all this
knowledge.
The Image
Educates where Reason Never Reaches—We
have accumulated, in the century since Manet, a heritage of art that would woo
us into fresh responses to life. Paul
Tillich said new religious feeling came through the visual arts, not the
churches. My own seeing is punctuated
with new vision awakening new life in me.
Sometimes after an exhibit or an unusual moving picture, the world looks
new as if I’d never seen it before. As
time moves on, I find it becomes increasingly “natural” to see in terms of qualities rather than objects. [All the art I have seen leads to seeing] a
world of changing relationships, forms, and shapes swinging in kinetic harmony.
The cities and urban worlds have their own
revelation. Looking down a city
street/canyon, instead of single-point perspective I see the energy of plunge,
as John Marin used perspective. In Lower
Manhattan ,1920—John
Marin’s visual language shows assimilation of non-European art traditions. There is a sense of Cubism, Chinese “splashed
ink” painting, & Japanese Sumi brushwork. He used converging lines of
linear perspective as energy rather than to create a 3 dimensional illusion in
a 2 dimensional space. I see [not
objects but] energy and delight, and my heart dances in answer. As long as human beings get trapped in
cities, we need to learn to love these concrete and steel monsters, hopefully
to make them more loveable and therefore more livable.
Recent generation of art also help us recognize all
that it means to be human. De Chirico’s
labyrinth-like cities can be the visual equivalent of loneliness. In Disturbing
Journey (1913), Giorgio de Chirico paints a deserted, labyrinthine city;
Roman arches and a train seems to echo the rational mechanistic world. This picture demands your involvement in the
present, and represents perplexed loneliness.
Works like this are referred to as “high participation” art. Some of Picasso’s graphics reveal the inward
drama of many aspects of ourselves trying to find relation to one another. His Minotauromachy
(1935) has the Minotaur, a
horse’s legs with a woman’s naked breast on top, an innocent child with her
bouquet of flowers and a candle, a man on a ladder; it is an inward drama of opposites interacting. Inventor of many styles, Picasso has also
created a vast mythology. The 20th
century is rich in images to give form to the formless in ourselves. When trusted they engage us in evolving relationship
with all that we are and with others; art is a contemplative event.
We discover that the best “abstract” art of our time abstracts qualities from the world around
us to help us see nature and the world, ourselves, and others in a new way, so
that we may be able to respond freshly and imaginatively to a changing world.
The intensity of fresh seeing and fresh responding tends to become
self-perpetuating, generating new life as long as a person lives. New impressions become for the mind, heart,
and spirit what food is to the body: nourishment for new life. New technology serves as readily for
contemplative art as paint or bronze.
Summary of
Tomorrow—Looking at young adults in
general I see a mobile flux of young people moving in and through life
styles. Some simply need time out to
find their own reality and discover how to function effectively in a world of
abounding absurdities. The world looks
very different [to each of us] from our different vantage points. Yet we are all primitives in an unfamiliar
world, and we need desperately to see with each other’s eyes as well as with
our own, [as we deal with rapid change].
[Perhaps, rather than proceeding gradually, evolution has made a leap
forward, as some scientists believe].
The change going on in us [because of rapid change outside] is more than
we can grasp without fantastic imagination.
Teilhard senses in man in preparation for this
evolutionary leap, “an upsurge of unused powers.” It cause his inner equilibrium to become
upset” and brings about “the inner terrors of metamorphosis.” Man, truly beset from behind and before,
becomes in vastly increasing numbers both groping and malleable—susceptible to
evolutionary leap. For Teilhard,
Planetization is the psychic interpenetration of cultures which has gone on for
eons; now, with electronic technology and instant global communication, it
happens with explosive rapidity. When
Western individual good and Communist
communal good relate as equals, we
have an example of Convergence.
[The artists of the early 20th century drew
on non-Western styles in the process of evolving cubism. Traditional Western art has been called “low
participation” art: you merely look at it.
Most of the world’s art aimed to involve you, activating the whole
gathered person and affecting your relation to life. [A painting is only truly finished] when each
person truly communicates with it.
The Participation Explosion may be said to have begun
with the American Revolution and to have accelerated ever since. [The poor have an increased awareness of
those better off]. People everywhere
awaken with a new awareness of their indigenous roots, their cultural richness,
and seek to recover the values salvageable at those roots. Convergence and the Participation Explosion
in combination move toward a unified world where the indigenous mingles with
psychic inter-penetration: unity and
diversity.
One danger is idealizing the past or the future. Another lies in a paralyzing fear of the
future instead of realizing that the best interest of the future depends upon
what each of us does in the present. I
have been accused of being an optimist, but for me neither pessimism nor
optimism is realistic. Perhaps we will
destroy ourselves or our planet before the new era is safely born. I choose to participate in the world being
born, whether or not it arrives safely.
For me being alive at this crucial moment of time is very exciting, and
there is no other time I would rather have lived.
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191.
Feminine aspects of Divinity (by Ermine Huntress Lantero; 1973)
About the Author—Ermine Huntress Lantero spent 4 years at Pendle Hill (1938-1942) as librarian & 1st editor of Inward Light. She taught Bible and religion at Wellesley and Sweet Briar. She is preparing books: Space, Time, and Deity: A Pilgrimage through Science Fiction and …Fantasy; and The Feminine Aspects of Divinity.
“In Divine Science we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity” (Mary Baker Eddy)
“In Divine Science we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity” (Mary Baker Eddy)
“I am thy bride [Wisdom tells him] &
thy longing after my power is my drawing to myself. I sit on my throne, but
thou knowest me not. I am in thee, but
thy body is not in me . . . I am the light of the mind” (Jacob Boehme).
For she is a
reflection of eternal light/, a spotless mirror of the working of God/, and an
image of his goodness./ Though she is but one, she can do all things/ and while
remaining in herself, she renews all things/ In every generation she passes
into holy souls/ and makes them friends of God and prophets…(Wisdom of
Solomon).
“At last I realized that the Holy Spirit is the Mother Heart of the Holy Trinity. . . For every yearning, God has made provision for its satisfaction. . . Every Christian should have the mother love of the Holy Comforter” (Genevieve Parkhurst).
The Divine Image—In recent years there has been growing recognition that religious language of the Judeo-Christian tradition is over-weighted with masculine symbolism, a [result of] patriarchal domination. “He” is at least better than “it.” Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784) and Mary Baker Eddy were early signs of feminine rebellion. Mary Baker Eddy said: “In Divine Science we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.” We find her balanced view of a Father-Mother God right and valuable.
The Divine Image—In recent years there has been growing recognition that religious language of the Judeo-Christian tradition is over-weighted with masculine symbolism, a [result of] patriarchal domination. “He” is at least better than “it.” Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784) and Mary Baker Eddy were early signs of feminine rebellion. Mary Baker Eddy said: “In Divine Science we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.” We find her balanced view of a Father-Mother God right and valuable.
Masculine symbols are dominant and male theologians
have frozen them into patterns of abstraction; but the feminine images are also
there, awaiting fuller appreciation which we were not ready for till now. In
the Genesis 1:27 verse about creating “man” in God’s image, “male and
female” is parallelism, not a change of subject. While individuals belong to
one sex or the other, we are androgynous in the sense of having both male and
female hormones, as well as potential character traits traditionally
associated with both sexes. That a
solitary male God should claim to be a Father who begot a Son, strikes the
primitives and Far-Eastern cultures as nonsense.
Quakers were in a position to know that God was
Spirit. In the Friends lifestyle, a rare degree of equality between men &
women was insured by their realistic acknowledgment of “that of God” in every
human. The Inward Light, a reality present to their individual & collective
experience, was no more masculine than feminine.
The
Contra-sexual Balance—Archaeology
shows that from the Mediterranean lands to the Indus Valley
Moses and the Hebrews carried on a heroic struggle to
depose the god Baal and the goddess Astarte in all forms. But they acknowledged a polarity of gender or
“contra-sexuality” on the transcendental level in other ways. In the Genesis creation story, sexuality and
fertility are not His attributes but his inventions. Nature is separated off from God and made
available for man’s use according to Divine command, even for man’s domi-nion. Some Old Testament (OT) scholars see this
story as a radical secularization of the earth; reduced to a mere creature,
deprived of holiness. [It has been
misinterpreted this way, ignoring] passages that instill reverence and a sense
of stewardship; the earth is holy,
though in a way that is entirely new.
Sometimes God commands; at other times God’s creation
by word and earth’s bringing forth seem to constitute a joint creative act. In the tragedy of Adam and Eve, is the serpent really the devil, or
something less sinister? [Does God] feel
Himself threatened by their
curiosity and lèse-majesté (violating royal rights)? The prophets speak of Israel Israel Israel Israel Jerusalem
Sophia, the
friend of Man—Wisdom books, [both
biblical and apocryphal], are as a rule ascribed to Solomon, but they are
collections from many sources over many centuries. Job and Ecclesiastes are also wisdom
literature, protests against the complacent optimism of more orthodox teachers. “Wisdom” in Proverbs covers: folk wisdom;
skill or cunning; prudent maxims; moral maxims; wise rule; of insight and
understanding. According to Proverbs
8:22, Wisdom is a created entity, first of God’s creatures, who assisted in the
rest of creation. [Was Wisdom a master workman, advising God, and delighting in the results
of Creation? Or was she a daughter, laughing and playing before God like a
child? Proverb 8:30 can be read either way.
She is a teacher and counselor, with affectionate
concern for humankind, the tireless instructor who teaches man how to live. “The
fear [reverent awe] of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10 ). In Greek, Wisdom becomes Sophia. The Torah was personified by later writers as
God’s feminine consultant at the Creation.
In the New Testament (NT), she is equated with the Logos, which is
Christ and loses her feminine identity.
Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) was both mystic and
philosopher. In his reconstruction of
the inner evolution of God-universe-man, the heavenly Virgin Sophia plays many
different roles: empty mirror of the abyss;
Mother of God; Divine Imagination; model of the universe; Eternal Nature; man’s
heavenly genius, bride of the soul, mother of the reborn. She knocks inwardly at the door of man’s
soul, or “hovers outwardly before him” in the beautiful or awe-inspiring
aspects of the natural world, awaiting his acceptance of her as both Bride and
Mother.
[The Shaker Mother Ann Lee was seen as
manifesting God] “as the Eternal Mother & Wisdom.” Vladimir Soloviev
(1853-1900) was perhaps Russia
The Holy
Spirit as Mother—The OT Spirit of God
is grammatically but not noticeably feminine.
It has been Wisdom that unifies the world. [Using Spirit of God in the creation story]
is justifiable whatever the original writer meant, since it was understood
throughout our era as meaning that Spirit which was involved in the creation
and could be taken poetically as feminine.
The Hebrew verb translated as “was moving” [could be translated
“hovered” or “brooded” [like a] mother bird over her cosmic egg. In the NT, the Spirit uses the form of a
dove, which had long been the bird of the Mother-Goddess.
[Over the years] the Spirit is transmuted by the
alchemy of a unique series of historic experiences from a broad cosmic
principle to a specific dynamic associated with Christ. Christ promised to send a Counselor or Spirit
of Truth. In the NT the Spirit is
masculine where it is personal at all.
Only in fringe sects whose writings are mostly lost was the Spirit still
thought of as feminine. In any case the
all-masculine Trinity became dogma.
Genevieve Parkhurst said: “At
last I realized that the Holy Spirit is the Mother Heart of the Holy Trinity. .
. Every Christian should have the mother
love of the Holy Comforter.”
Mary as
Mediator—The most obvious &
effective way in which Christendom reinstated the Divine Mother was in the
veneration of the Virgin Mary. The exaltation of Mary did not get under way
immediately. Both Mary & the Church were seen as the 2nd Eve,
who by their obedience undid the disobedience of the 1st Eve. The
belief in her perpetual virginity, her bodily Assumption into heaven, & her
exaltation all began in the 5th century. When theologians removed Christ from the
sphere of human feeling, whatever understanding, compassion, maternal
tenderness, etc. the common folk once found in Jesus of Nazareth, they now had
to find in Mary. She was seen as
[devoted to those who were devoted to her].
Around the 15th century, Mary’s Immaculate Conception was
introduced; i.e. she was miraculously freed from the otherwise universal taint
of original sin by the retroactive grace of her Son. [New doctrines like this] were gradually made
explicit as the Spirit led the Church into all truth.
In the last 150 years there have been a number of
“apparitions” of Mary, leading to forms of devotion that Rome
The Shekinah
as Presence in Exile—In the first few
centuries A.D., Aramaic versions of the OT introduced the word “Shekinah”
(literally “indwelling), as the feminine mediating principle between God and
man. The Jerusalem Israel
Shekinah is the tenth attribute of God in Kabbalism’s Zohar:
the Kingdom, the mystical Community, the Bride. Due to a primordial Fall long before Adam,
the Shekinah is in exile while the world lasts.
The exile of the Shekinah is a genuine symbol of the “broken” state of
things in the realm of divine potentialities.”
Any true marriage, according to the Kabbalah, becomes a symbolic
realization of the love between the King and His Shekinah; it helps to heal the
wounded heart of God.
Comfort,
Life, And Fire of Love—Sophia, Spirit
and Shekinah may be seen as somewhat different but overlapping bands of the
total spectrum of Divinity as immanent in the universe and in man; all three
are closely related to the Quaker Inward Light.
[As one opens one’s self to a dialogue with one’s dream symbols, what
were once highly personal figures may allow universal symbols to break through
with a sensing of divinity; fantasy may be intensified into genuine vision.
Athena is the Greek equivalent of Sophia; being better
known to our culture and portrayed in art, she is more available to pictorial
imagination. “Comforter,” in the Latin
is literally Strengthener; it can suggest anything from a soft maternal bed
quilt to Luther’s ruggedly masculine “mighty fortress.” God is One in all the aspects [I have used here]. God has been and is as much a matter of vivid
first-hand experience as any encounter with a specific aspect. The Inward Lights leading into unity would
make no sense whatever unless God were a unity.
God graciously expresses Himself in whatever aspects are necessary to
enable us to apprehend Him, through all our ages of cultural change. There is an element of paradox here, but no
contradiction.
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193. The Available Mind (by Carol R. Murphy;
1974)
The Great method of prayer is to have
none. If in going to prayer one can form
in oneself a pure capacity for receiving the spirit of God, that will suffice
for all method. Prayer should be
accomplished by grace and not by artifice.
St. Jeanne De Chantal
About the
Author—This the 11th
pamphlet from the pen of Carol R. Murphy, who has been exploring the roles of
reason, revelation, and mystical experience in the mature religious faith. In the present essay she surveys some of the
new thinking about meditation and
suggests that even those who have not yet become adepts in contemplation can
live in a greater state of awareness with minds available to the Holy Spirit.
While
walking in the woods one day, I
realized how little under discipline my thoughts were. My mind, like an untrained puppy, was
galloping off to roll in a mire of self-pity, yap angrily at some unwelcome
idea, or sniff at an approaching chore. [Efforts at] prayer cause only acute fits of
self-conscious effort in those whose faith is precarious at best. The mind has tides of its own, and cannot be
forced to think about what it is not ready [for].
[Busy minds do not] naturally turn to pleasant
thoughts. Thinking is both the vice and
virtue of the active mind. I begin to
classify preoccupations in [TV terms:
commercials (self-justification); public service messages (warnings of
duties); coming attractions (expected events).
The peak experiences we treasure come, if at all, from a hard-to-attain
heightened awareness of the present.
[Anything which brings a fresh perspective, like travel or seasonal
change, or a different focus for our attention like exertion] can bring a minor
ecstasy. What does all this awareness of Now have to do with the search for
God? If we are to be ready for God’s
presence, we must be able to shut up and listen.
Inner
Silence—If a mystical sort of experience is made the basis of religion, how can
we know if it tells the truth about reality?
Most of us have to find some
sort of religious belief without any blissful certainty of union with the
Ultimate. If the mind expands its scope,
it is expanding its view of reality or discovering an alternative view of
reality. The meditator can: [focus on one symbol of his religious faith];
become [through his mind a non-distorting mirror which accepts and relinquishes
every event that flows through his awareness; or he can enter the shaman’s or
visionary’s perilous world of dreams and vision.
One type of meditator] uses his ability to become
habituated to a constant sight or sound until it vanishes from awareness
leaving a void. He is trying to break up [or “stop”] a customary way of
organizing his consciousness so that a new vision or revelation of reality
becomes possible. If you learn to “stop” your [inner] world you may be able to
enter an alternative world. The brain’s right hemisphere is the
gestalt-perceiving, image-making, artistic, simultaneous-thinking half;
scientists need this part of the brain for inventive leaps & new
discoveries.
The Mystical
Alternative—One vision is not “hallucination”
and another “objective reality. What we call “reality” includes the
interpreting mind. The more
complementary interpretations there are to enrich each other, the better. A
Believer may say that all is perfect divine harmony; I must be true to my
experience of an imperfect, tragic, absurd world. We must be open to this
alternative reality even when we cannot enter it ourselves.
Arnold Koestler offers the theory that in weaving
together temporal events, there is along with the warp of causality, the weft of
[non-logical chance events that nonetheless] weave the threads of temporal
events together in patterns of coincidental encounters. We can begin to realize that, however
distinct in logic, spirit and matter actually do interpenetrate. The alternative world is a restructuring of
our everyday world so that it can intersect with real power. We participate in creating the world we live
in from moment to moment; so does God, of course. If we create in harmony with God, we live in
God’s world.
The
Ambiguity of Power—Before the saint,
there was the shaman. His magical use of power can be called pre-moral, rather
than amoral or diabolic. [A shaman knows] places of power, wrestles with power,
[trusts in] the “walk of power,” Our Establishment religion has many ways of
dealing with a lack of spiritual power: [shrewd politics]; pietism;
salesmanship; private hypocrisy. How
many Friends Meetings are the powerhouses of shared contemplation they were
meant to be?
Jesus was ambivalent about his use of power for a good
reason. The divine can become demonic if there is the least bit of love of
power instead of love of people. True contemplative spirituality is enlargement
of consciousness, attainment of power, [and]
conquest of self. Living [gradually & unconsciously into] a life of
commitment, beginning unawares and proceeding step by step is a more genuine
way than a conscious resolve to be a self-sacrificing
Christian. The mind and body together [need to be] an outward
expression of the life of meditation.
The
Non-violent Life/Expectancy—Which comes first—meditation or way of life? [Meditation
without knowing how to live is a near-empty silence]. Life without meditation becomes dead conformity. W. D. Norwood write: “[A master of judo’s] willingness to be
struck in order to help is almost a definition of love. [This attitude] can be extended to every
circumstance of life, a continuously aware, non-calculating, non-antagonistic
“grooving” with the movement of events. In traditional Catholic spirituality,
this is known as abandonment to the will of God in every moment. If I can’t
fight my endless chains of thought, I must flow with them.
Expectancy—this I think is a very fruitful quality in
the available mind. A healer finds the expected healing; the healer helps to
create it. It is probably necessary for
it to be present in both healed and healer.
Is skepticism necessarily the
villain of [circumstances calling for expectancy? When does expectancy become gullibility?
In consulting the Chinese I Ching the student must be open to the possibility that
psychokinesis or the synchronous weft of life will [make the sticks or coins
fall so as to] direct one to the proper portion of the book. In the Chinese
view reality has a complementary dualism. The Chinese encoded this in 64
hexagrams showing all combination of yang
and yin elements in earth, man and
the heavens, and each ready to slide into the other configurations. I will
liken 3 basic Chinese concepts to the Trinity.
T’ai Chi is the Universal
Principle, the Ground of Being (Godhead). The Tao or Way to be followed in seeking harmony with the Ultimate;
this is the Logos, though not incarnated. Tao
enters our own minds to guide us as Teh,
and can be likened to the Holy Spirit.
Probably all religious descriptions must have ultimate reality, its
expression in creation, and the response of the created.
Guidance/Humility—The I Ching,
provides no magic protection, but a series of cosmic “traffic signs,” leaving
you the adult responsibility to read and heed the “signs of the times” in order
to flow with the traffic. I Ching does not minimize hazards, but
displays optimism that all things can work together for good to the superior
man. [The use of this ancient work
gives] no direct command or prediction, but a mirror for the subconscious mind
so that the resultant augury comes from a creative interaction between the
prophetic statement and oneself.
[While liberals are concerned with and national
issues, others are concerned with personal financial and family issues] And there is no escape from the ambiguity of
inspiration and our obligation to interpret and to test it. Obeying God requires the investment of our
own responsibility and creativity. If individual inspiration can go astray,
what shall we say of testing by the consensus of a group? There is the danger of group-think and
majority pressure to continue a wrong action.
What is needed is a “broken and contrite heart,” i.e. the ability to
admit error, to be able to change course 180 degrees if necessary, out of faith
that the truth is larger than anyone’s ego.
The meditator must be open to enlarging the vision of one’s world.
The Leaven
in the World—Meditators will need
faith [in the relevance of their inward search] when they go out into the world
of social action. Because unenlightened
and desperate action is wrong. Those who
can “stop the world” or attune themselves to the Tao, will go out from that
central experience with spiritual power and do things with a difference. The “superior man” can show us how the judo
spirit of living agonistic encounters is more salutary to the commonweal than
hostilities to the point of annihilation.
Ideally, neither party wins or loses; both are brought to tame their
opposed forces to the discipline of a shared pattern of coexistence.
We do have to use nature; but the meditator can help
us to do so, with the sense of kinship and wonder felt by the American Indians
toward animals and “our little vegetable redeemers.” In providing us with this leaven of
contemplation, the meditator will meet with opposition and
[misunderstanding]. We who cannot follow
all the way must be able to discern genuine meditators when they come among us
teaching and healing, and be open to the glimpse of the vision they try to make
real to us. I am still walking through
the woods, a meditator who never quite got started, but at least we have
followed the argument. We need: inner
quiet; to flow with the conflicting/cooperating forces of life; expectancy,
enlarged awareness; humility, self-correction, rebirth. Abraham Heschel said: “The meaning of life is to build a life as if
it were a work of art.” And so the
available mind must become the available life.
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194. Quakerism of the Future: Mystical, Prophetic & Evangelical (by John Yungblut; 1974)
About the Author—After serving the Episcopal Church for 20 years, he became a member of the Religious Society of Friends in 1960. He was director of Quaker House, a civil rights and peace program in Atlanta, from 1960-1968. From 1968-1972 he was director of the International Student House in Washington, D.C. He and his wife taught at Pendle Hill. This essay is from the Henry J. Cadbury Lecture on March 27, 1974.Introduction—I am saying here that the only Quakerism that can survive in the future will have to mystical, prophetic, and evangelical. These are the very best elements in our tradition. It is the vital energy for which our institutions have provided reasonably effective conductors that is most precious to us.
Beneath the currents which have shaped Christian thought there sounds like the fabled sunken bell, the strains of Mysticism. The mystic note floats up from the depths—now muffled, now clear. (E. Herman)
The mystical is most crucial, because it provides sustained motivation both for the prophetic involvement and the evangelical spirit. Rufus Jones saw Quakerism as a spiritual movement “showing deep affinities with Mysticism” and [sought] to interpret it in this light. Within the Society of Friends, a growing group would have us disclaim this heritage. [They do not see as] mystical the life-affirming religion of Jesus, Paul, and John in the New Testament (NT). It is true that no word has had such varying and conflicting connotations, or been more abused than “mysticism.” But there is no other word that will do adequate service. It is hard to describe the characteristic mystical experience. Eastern sages say: “He who says what it is doesn’t know, and he who knows, doesn’t say.”
Dean Inge defines it as: “The attempt to realize, in thought and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal.” George Fox said: “I knew experimentally that Jesus Christ enlightens” & “I now knew God by [personal] revelation.” William Penn wrote: “Wherefore stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship God truly and acceptably. The Almighty’s power will break in, his spirit will work & prepare the heart, that it may offer up acceptable sacrifice.”
Robert Barclay’s thinking had aspects of the mystical, [but it was mixed with a low opinion of man; the Light within us] has nothing to with man’s own nature [and is separate from man’s soul]. Fox, Penn and Penington [disagreed with the Light’s separateness from man], and believed that man was capable of moving toward perfection through obedience. Rufus Jones has convincingly traced the devastating passiveness of the 200-year Quietistic period in Quaker history, at least in part, to Barclay’s despair of the natural man.
Insofar that Fox experienced the mystical, he did not need to have learned this from anyone else. The mystical faculty resides in all men and women by virtue of our shared humanity; it is the evolving edge in man. The mystical experience comes by grace. We can at least engage in purging. We can, by an effort of the will resolve to move toward the simple life in which we are not encumbered with possessions nor driven by an over-scheduled daily program. We can examine ourselves to see if moral duplicity in any of its many forms currently precludes the movement of the spirit in mystical experience. We can trust that when the wind of the Spirit does blow we will not be without an unfailing inward mariner who can keep us on course. [Such a] movement of the Spirit in our midst [is] the mark of a gathered or covered meeting.
The Prophetic—[When we consider all the mystical opportunities given us, all the calls to obedience, all that that early Quakers had to say, it comes down to] “but what canst thou say?” We must hold that Jesus was a mystic and a prophet because of his mystical consciousness of the Kingdom as a present reality. Lewis Benson says: “Fox identifies himself and the Quaker movement with the prophetic tradition and his oppressors as standing in the priestly tradition.” The mystical consciousness of Jesus’ presence and prophetic utterance through a meeting member lays at the heart of Quaker prophetic testimonies. Quietism conditioned Friends against genuine mystical experience and its prophetic demands.
It is no accident that the prophetic emphasis was recovered largely through men like Rufus Jones and Clarence Pickett. Prophetic action issuing from mystical identification gave birth to the American Friends Service Committee. The want of a genuinely mystical theology tended to reduce the incidence of mystical experience and the passion for social protest among Friends. [And now] when one looked in vain for movements reflecting the same idealism that earlier had motivated the civil rights and peace efforts, suddenly there began to spring up communal experiments. The true community to which they are committed is produced as much by grace as by dedicated effort, and must be recovered afresh every day. These [communal] life centers are potential training cells which do at least insulate individuals for a season from much in our contemporary society that conditions them against seeking mystical consciousness.
The Evangelical—When I say that the Quakerism of the future must [include the] evangelical, I think first of the fact that Early Friends attached to the Scriptures an importance second only to the revelation imparted by their mystical experience of Jesus as the Christ. Only a recognized organic connection with our [gospel] tap root can prevent our withering. To have survival value I believe the Society of Friends must be evangelical in the sense of preserving a faith that is demonstrably and organically related to the gospels in the New Testament.
The 2nd meaning assigned to the word “evangelical” is “those Protestant churches that emphasize salvation by faith in the atonement of Jesus.” A committee of evangelical Friends invited Friends of all groupings and called for “a national conference, guided by the Holy Spirit to seek a workable, challenging and cooperative means for the Friends Church to be an active, enthusiastic, Christ-centered, and Spirit-directed force in this day of revolution.” A spirit of gracious listening and hearing prevailed on that occasion. I do not look for consensus or organic unity in the foreseeable future. I understand my personal salvation in terms of being made whole. This kind of at-one-ment was realized in Jesus’ life. He became at one with himself and with God. I want to be disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, and to learn of him to live and to die.
Because of important continuing revelation I need to distinguish between the Jesus of history and the evolving Christ myth. Myth is the only language religion can use to speak of the ultimate truths it perceives. Christ for me is God in man, the Son of man in the new sense of man’s successor. Though this Christ was revealed most fully in Jesus, we must not think any longer of Jesus and the Christ as identical. Jesus did not have 2 separate and distinct natures, one human and one divine. He had one nature, human, the very core of which is divine. Evangelical’s 3rd meaning is feeling the passion to spread the good news. The time has come to preach the faith we have resolved to practice.
The mystical is most crucial, because it provides sustained motivation both for the prophetic involvement and the evangelical spirit. Rufus Jones saw Quakerism as a spiritual movement “showing deep affinities with Mysticism” and [sought] to interpret it in this light. Within the Society of Friends, a growing group would have us disclaim this heritage. [They do not see as] mystical the life-affirming religion of Jesus, Paul, and John in the New Testament (NT). It is true that no word has had such varying and conflicting connotations, or been more abused than “mysticism.” But there is no other word that will do adequate service. It is hard to describe the characteristic mystical experience. Eastern sages say: “He who says what it is doesn’t know, and he who knows, doesn’t say.”
Dean Inge defines it as: “The attempt to realize, in thought and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal.” George Fox said: “I knew experimentally that Jesus Christ enlightens” & “I now knew God by [personal] revelation.” William Penn wrote: “Wherefore stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship God truly and acceptably. The Almighty’s power will break in, his spirit will work & prepare the heart, that it may offer up acceptable sacrifice.”
Robert Barclay’s thinking had aspects of the mystical, [but it was mixed with a low opinion of man; the Light within us] has nothing to with man’s own nature [and is separate from man’s soul]. Fox, Penn and Penington [disagreed with the Light’s separateness from man], and believed that man was capable of moving toward perfection through obedience. Rufus Jones has convincingly traced the devastating passiveness of the 200-year Quietistic period in Quaker history, at least in part, to Barclay’s despair of the natural man.
Insofar that Fox experienced the mystical, he did not need to have learned this from anyone else. The mystical faculty resides in all men and women by virtue of our shared humanity; it is the evolving edge in man. The mystical experience comes by grace. We can at least engage in purging. We can, by an effort of the will resolve to move toward the simple life in which we are not encumbered with possessions nor driven by an over-scheduled daily program. We can examine ourselves to see if moral duplicity in any of its many forms currently precludes the movement of the spirit in mystical experience. We can trust that when the wind of the Spirit does blow we will not be without an unfailing inward mariner who can keep us on course. [Such a] movement of the Spirit in our midst [is] the mark of a gathered or covered meeting.
The Prophetic—[When we consider all the mystical opportunities given us, all the calls to obedience, all that that early Quakers had to say, it comes down to] “but what canst thou say?” We must hold that Jesus was a mystic and a prophet because of his mystical consciousness of the Kingdom as a present reality. Lewis Benson says: “Fox identifies himself and the Quaker movement with the prophetic tradition and his oppressors as standing in the priestly tradition.” The mystical consciousness of Jesus’ presence and prophetic utterance through a meeting member lays at the heart of Quaker prophetic testimonies. Quietism conditioned Friends against genuine mystical experience and its prophetic demands.
It is no accident that the prophetic emphasis was recovered largely through men like Rufus Jones and Clarence Pickett. Prophetic action issuing from mystical identification gave birth to the American Friends Service Committee. The want of a genuinely mystical theology tended to reduce the incidence of mystical experience and the passion for social protest among Friends. [And now] when one looked in vain for movements reflecting the same idealism that earlier had motivated the civil rights and peace efforts, suddenly there began to spring up communal experiments. The true community to which they are committed is produced as much by grace as by dedicated effort, and must be recovered afresh every day. These [communal] life centers are potential training cells which do at least insulate individuals for a season from much in our contemporary society that conditions them against seeking mystical consciousness.
The Evangelical—When I say that the Quakerism of the future must [include the] evangelical, I think first of the fact that Early Friends attached to the Scriptures an importance second only to the revelation imparted by their mystical experience of Jesus as the Christ. Only a recognized organic connection with our [gospel] tap root can prevent our withering. To have survival value I believe the Society of Friends must be evangelical in the sense of preserving a faith that is demonstrably and organically related to the gospels in the New Testament.
The 2nd meaning assigned to the word “evangelical” is “those Protestant churches that emphasize salvation by faith in the atonement of Jesus.” A committee of evangelical Friends invited Friends of all groupings and called for “a national conference, guided by the Holy Spirit to seek a workable, challenging and cooperative means for the Friends Church to be an active, enthusiastic, Christ-centered, and Spirit-directed force in this day of revolution.” A spirit of gracious listening and hearing prevailed on that occasion. I do not look for consensus or organic unity in the foreseeable future. I understand my personal salvation in terms of being made whole. This kind of at-one-ment was realized in Jesus’ life. He became at one with himself and with God. I want to be disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, and to learn of him to live and to die.
Because of important continuing revelation I need to distinguish between the Jesus of history and the evolving Christ myth. Myth is the only language religion can use to speak of the ultimate truths it perceives. Christ for me is God in man, the Son of man in the new sense of man’s successor. Though this Christ was revealed most fully in Jesus, we must not think any longer of Jesus and the Christ as identical. Jesus did not have 2 separate and distinct natures, one human and one divine. He had one nature, human, the very core of which is divine. Evangelical’s 3rd meaning is feeling the passion to spread the good news. The time has come to preach the faith we have resolved to practice.
We are the inheritors of a mystical faith; we are, all of us born mystics. In proportion as the mystical faculty is nourished and given scope in our lives we shall be driven to prophetic action. Our growing mystical consciousness shall transform us in evangelical Christians, bursting to share what we have learned about living in the Kingdom from Jesus of Nazareth. Fox revised “the truth of his day” in significant ways, in keeping with his world view and his personal revelation. We are being more true to the spirit that was in Fox by adapting the myth to meet the demands of the [currently] revealed truths than by trying to return to his theology in all details. It is not Quakerism that must survive, but a Christian faith with the characteristics we described. I shall continue to hope that the Society of Friends will become increasingly mystical, prophetic, and evangelical.
196. Women and Quakerism by Hope Elizabeth Luder; 1974)
About the Author—Hope Luder has been teaching high school history for
several years and some college teaching.
She stayed several months with a Mexican family, who like her simply for
being a Quaker. The current issues of
the women’s movement, including the problems of sex roles have sparked her
interest in “Women and U.S. History.”
She found that her oral report aroused much interest in her non-Quaker
class.
Early Quaker Beliefs—The number of socially active women in the Society of
Friends has been out of proportion to its size. Lucretia Mott & Susan B.
Anthony came from Quaker backgrounds. [Others mentioned here include:] Mary
Dyer; Mary Fisher; Elizabeth Fry; & the Grimké sisters. Why did Quakerism produce so many
outstanding women? From its beginnings [in the mid-17th
century], Quakerism asserted that women were equal to men [spiritually]. The
valuable support George Fox received from Margaret Fell & Elizabeth Hooten
must have made him conscious of the potential contribution of women to the
movement. This & other “peculiar” customs led to persecution of Quakers.
They survived due to a spirit of equality combined with effective organization.
George Fox’s “that of God in every man,” implies the
spiritual equality of all people. He
believed there could be new insights beyond what was in the Bible; that the same spirit which was in Jesus continued
to reveal itself and was to be emphasized more than the letter of the law.
[Where] Eve’s part in the fall was used to justify women’s inferior status, Fox
claimed that now is the time of the spirit, not the time of the Fall. [Eve’s
status should be that existing before the
Fall]. [When confronted with a verse calling for women’s silence, Margaret
pointed to another verse referring to women praying and prophesying and being
generally helpful. Fox also comments
that the men need not fear anyone [women] getting over them; for the power and
spirit of God gives liberty to all. For
over 200 years the Quakers seem to have been virtually alone in disregarding
Paul’s directive.
Quaker Opportunities for Women—Every position in the organization of Quakerism was
open to women. A local meeting might
have several ministers. [All could speak in meeting,] but recognized ministers
tended to do more of the speaking. Outside of Friends, women’s preaching was
considered to be shockingly immodest & unnatural. Women’s activity as traveling ministers was
particularly shocking. A Meeting would often consult the spouse before granting
permission & might put pressure on a reluctant husband. A Woman elder might
seem as offensive as preaching, but it drew less attention. An elder was
“recognized” & had considerable moral authority.
Business meetings were held separately for men and
women; the Women’s Meeting were clerked by a woman. Old meeting houses had movable partitions used
for business meeting and removed for [silent worship]. George Fox believed that women would feel
freer to play a constructive part in the meeting if they met separately. A request for marriage had to be read first
before the Women’s meeting. The
authority of women’s meetings generally was not equal to that the men’s
meetings. The men of one Rhode Island
Meeting protested that giving men the final decision on some matters set up a
preeminence “where the truth admits of none.”
Quaker women were subject to the same unequal laws, [but more Quaker
women were educated than Non-Quaker women].
Quaker marriage ceremonies never included a vow of
obedience or “giving away the bride.” Despite the partial & ambiguous
nature of the Quaker woman’s equality, the difference between her position
& that of other women must have had great effect on the scope of her
interests & on her confidence in herself. The dignity, self-assurance, and
seriousness of many Quaker women must have been a strong example to be set [for
any woman].
Quaker Women of the Early Period—The numbers, enthusiasm, and energy of early women
converts to Quakerism give the impression of an explosion of released energy in
people who have a long-needed outlet for their conviction and talents. The women often aroused more hatred from mobs
and magistrates, and were more severely punished than the men. Foremost among George Fox’s converts was
Margaret Fell, who helped early Friends in the North of England. In Fox’s later ministry she became his wife
[and wholehearted] “helpmeet.” She
shared the hazards of the faith, including a 4-year prison term. George and Margaret Fell spent only about 6
of their 20 years of marriage together.
Toward the end of her long life, Margaret Fell Fox wrote some epistles
directed against the quietist tendencies.
[Her opinion of plain dress was]:
“This is a silly poor gospel.”
Elizabeth Hooten was a middle-aged married woman
living comfortably when she was converted.
At the age of 70 she was severely punished for appearing at the
Massachusetts Colony a 2nd time.
[She made several more trips after this, dying during one of them]. The most noted traveler of all the early
Quakers was a pretty ex-servant girl named Mary Fisher. She traveled to, was punished and ejected
from Massachusetts South
Carolina
The intolerant policies of Massachusetts Bay resulted in the death of 4 Quakers, who were hanged
in Boston Common. One of the 4 was Mary Dyer, who refused to leave the colony a
2nd time. Elizabeth Harris traveled in the Maryland America
18th Century Quietism and 19th
Century Reform—Many people were
“disowned” by meetings [for what now seem like petty reasons] during the
quietistic period of the 18th century. One of the best known of this period’s
traveling ministers was Rebecca Jones.
With the development of reform movements, women began to find
opportunities to contribute to society.
The quietistic phase came gradually to an end during the 19th
century. Many women contributed in a
variety of ways to the changes going on within Quakerism. [When Hannah Barnard questioned some of what
was found in the Bible, she became the subject of bitter persecution and
intense partisan debate]. Probably the
most outstanding of the women involved in the Awakening was Elizabeth Comstock;
she was involved in prison reform, the Underground Railroad and relief for
Negro refugees. She effectively appealed
to young Quakers to become active in the issues of the day.
Both England America England Europe . She was
criticized even by other Quakers for neglecting her large family. Her achievements were held up as proof of
women’s potential, and as showing that women could do some things better than
men. A Scottish Duke wrote: “She was . . . a majestic woman . . . Over the whole countenance was an ineffable
expression of sweetness, dignity and power.”
The Emancipation of Negroes—More American Quaker women became famous for the
service in reforms than in England New World . Most American women reformers were involved in the
emancipation of Negroes, the Women’s Rights Movement, or both. Quakers had been the 1st
religious group in the English colonies to show a corporate concern over
slavery. John Woolman is well known among Friend for raising this issue; Sarah
Harrison was also successful in getting many Quakers to free their slaves.
Many Quakers were involved in the Underground Railroad, sometimes whole
families.
Laura Haviland of Michigan US Mt. Pleasant , South
Carolina
Prudence Crandall tried for 1½ years to educate black
girls in Canterbury , Connecticut Aiken ,
South Carolina
Lucretia Mott—She was a connecting link between the Anti-Slavery & the Women’s
Rights Movement. Lucretia’s serene &
ladylike looks & behavior, devotion to principle, & utter
respectability, made it difficult to subject her to the criticism &
ridicule that were then heaped on reformers and feminists. She founded the
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. With calm presence of mind Lucretia
faced ugly mobs in dangerous situations.
The Seneca Falls Convention called by Lucretia Mott &
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucretia Mott’s ideas appeared in an influential
pamphlet called A Discourse on
Women. She points out that lack of
educational and other opportunities for growth and development are paralyzing
to a woman’s mind, and make many women “hug their chains.” [She also said:] “Were women the abject thing
the law considers her to be when married, she would not be worthy the companionship
of man.” She once said of herself, “I am
a much overrated woman—it is humiliating.”
The Women’s Rights Movement—The Quaker contribution to the Women’s Rights Movement
is remarkable. The interest of Friends
in women’s rights predates the Movement.
3 Quaker colleges—Guilford , North Carolina Massachusetts
As can be seen in the lives of the Grimkés & Abby
Kelley, the anti-slavery movement helped begin the Women’s Rights Movement. [Working
for the rights of others pointed out how rights were being denied women]. Maria Mitchell served as President of the
Association for the Advancement of Women, which she helped found. She commanded respect from those who
applauded her dignity, logic, & clear thinking. Her personality was blunt &
humorous, with a lot of outspoken individualism; she left Friends because their
disownment policy.
For close to half a century the team of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton & Susan B. Anthony headed the Women’s Rights Movement. Susan B.
Anthony said, “In this country everyone may vote save idiots, lunatics,
convicts, & women, & I don’t like the class I’m in.” Susan B. Anthony
identified strongly with Quakerism, and relied on her Quaker father’s sympathy &
support. Susan’s indomitable determination held firm through many discouraging
years. She herself, after being despised & derided, became famous in old
age, recognized as a person of great
ability. At the turn of the 20th century, the Women’s Rights
Movement still had Quaker participants.
Alice Paul was a Quaker social worker who co-authored the Equal Rights
Amendment, 1st introduced to Congress in 1923.
Conclusion—Historians
have often pointed out that Quakerism has had an influence out of proportion to
its numbers. The contribution of Quaker women provides a striking example of
the importance of environment in encouraging or discouraging individual
achievement. For over 2 centuries the Society of Friends was the only
well-known religious group to give women a chance to speak in public. Quaker
girls grew up in an atmosphere which & among women role models who
encouraged them to become capable and self-confident adults. What is the history of women’s bearing on
the future? Surely the Society of Friends’ historic & continuing
tendency to treat people as individuals, rather than in male or female roles,
still has a contribution to make in our world today.
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197. Art responds to the Bible (by Dorothea Johnson Blom; 1974)
I am Abraham,
Jacob, and Esau/ I am Joseph and his brothers./
I am Peter who denies,/ Thomas who doubts,/ And Judas who betrays. I am also the nameless, faceless, [beloved]
disciple.
About the Author—Dorothea Blom has been teacher, writer, artist, and
wife of a master craftsman. Presently at
Pendle Hill, she presented to Woodbrooke in England
Art as a
Language of Spirit—Not having
art in Quaker Meeting Houses has kept bad “religious” art out of their worship
experience. I suspect that Quakers found nothing in visual art to equal their
deep religious experience. From various prints, I have acquired evolving images
of Job that have prompted my meditation in many Friends meetings. Art has for most of history been a handmaiden
to religion: testifying, verifying, lending concreteness in terms credible to a
given time and culture; this still happens today. 20th century artists can open the
possibility of becoming present in a way that can call us into the
Presence. The works of El Greco, Georges
de la Tour, and Blake, among others reflect mystical presentness rather than
the illusion of familiar reality. Picasso
once said a work of art is half-finished and each person who truly communicates
with it refinishes it.
What applies to art also applies to the Bible. Each artist who shares his life in terms of
[a Bible scene or theme] offers us a new relation to it. We may “refinish” it &
find a new relation to the Bible. It takes practice to trust the process of
“being chosen” by a work of art or a passage in the Bible—holding to it, allowing
new life to come in its own way. We need art to help us relate to the Bible.
Rembrandt’s painting of Simeon and the Christ Child [made the story] come alive
for me. The function of artists [past and present] is to open up for us new
ways of seeing and responding.
When I taught art and the Bible in ecumenical classes,
each group insisted that their religious backgrounds had failed to teach them
the Bible. The eager interest in the
Bible by many of the young attenders was marked by a transcendence of the
theological differences. Artists don’t
share their theology. One shares one’s
experience, seeing meaning, significance, transcending the verbal
explanations. [Most of the] “religious
art” of my childhood never connected with the sense of mystical awe I sometimes
had as a child. I have made of art
history a hunting ground for discovering a relation to the Bible. It is my conviction that the 20th
century is producing more experiential religious art than any century of the
Post-Renaissance West.
Genesis
Experientially—Bits and pieces,
[“seeds”] of Genesis are a part of all of us.
If one of them has germinated and become vital, it may be because of a
work of art that left its image within. I
began using [the myth of Genesis] for meditation. The third time through it was sheer
revelation. I began to see the whole of
Genesis as my own life pattern; I had dreams about Bible dramas. [Genesis repeatedly] unifies, diversifies,
shatters and scatters. Each time the
shattering and scattering takes place, there is room again for the God-made
center to be reborn on a more aware base.
Genesis reveals to me my many selves, always in a state of flux.
The Creation and the Fall—The Genesis art that affects me most is by
Michelangelo and Rembrandt. There is an over-richness in the big expanse of
teeming images on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, [painted from 1508-12]. God
creating Adam presents more than the mythic beginning of the race: it is the
new beginning inherently always in us. God’s left arm encompasses Eve, while
the right one extends toward Adam’s limp reach; [it is] just before the spark
of life leaps across the gap. The frescoes are much easier to relate to in
reproductions than in the originals.
The Garden of Eden and the Fall calls up a sense of an
original innocence that has been lost.
Before the Sistine Chapel, Giovanni di Paolo’s (1403-82) Expulsion from
Paradise in his ANNUNCIATION painting shows Adam and Eve looking as bewildered
children as they are ushered out of Eden. Michelangelo’s “beings” are Gods of
Olympus, monumental and heroic. In the best images of the Fall nudity becomes a
language of vulnerability.
More About Genesis—Some of Rembrandt’s most profound works center on
Genesis, especially his Abraham Serves
Veal and Curds to his Divine Visitors and The Angel Stops Abraham from Slaying Isaac. Salvador Dali includes the theme of
giving up and letting go of what we value most in his semi-abstract set for the
Jerusalem Bible. During Rembrandt’s most successful years in Amsterdam
Commissioned to do windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center
Jacob and Esau—Each one of us, with repeated and sustained focus comes to recognize
some few mythic themes which especially awaken our own processes of God and
life relationship; both we and it undergo an evolution. Spirit must at some point rob the initiative,
but equally, the spirit needs its good earth base—and earth turns out to be
spirit finding its form in matter. Jacob
and the ladder and Jacob wrestling the angel affect me the most of the images
in this sequence. That which we reject
and cheat of our own natures becomes “the enemy within,” and gets projected on
persons or groups outside ourselves. In
recent years Jacob’s ladder has become for me the seven Beatitudes climaxing
with the peacemakers. It is important for me to climb up and down that ladder
freely, and be at home on every rung.
Gauguin, Klee, Lipschitz, and Fitzgerald [have painted on this
theme]. I’ve made sketches of both
ladder and wrestling themes alongside new insights they bring.
Transformation
Images from the Gospels—One of the
Bible’s strong messages is that transformation is not only possible, but is
very much the point of human existence; transformations are our
birthright. My favorite responders to
the life of Christ are Giotto, El Greco, Rembrandt, and Rouault. Giotto (fused a new visual experience of his
world into the deeply symbolic and inward Byzantine tradition. If there is one word revealing Giotto it
might be recognition [of the central
event, emotion, nature, or identity in a given picture]. In CHRIST AT THE SEA OF GALILEE, Jacopo
Tintoretto (1518-1594) shows a mythic quality of Christ walking on water that
suggests an event that is always happening rather than something which happened
long ago. His vision impressed [and
influenced] El Greco when the latter studied in Venice
The Christmas sequence has become an important part of
my year. The Christmas tree (Tree of
Life; Life Celebrating Tree) is a part of it. In 2 pictures [of the “Radiant
Child” (a nativity by Geertgen (1460-1495), and the Nativity by Rembrandt in 1646)], the light which illumines the
immediate environment comes from the Child himself. Another moving “Divine Child” is Georges de
la Tour’s New Born, with the light
coming from a candle. There is a
beautiful simplicity in Sassetta’s daylight Journey
of the Magi. Leonardo’s St. Anne with Virgin and Child [leads me
to respond to] an Earth Mother, a human mother, a Divine Child and an animal
touching one another as a complete cycle, rather than Leonardo’s description of
the subject].
Wise as a Serpent, Harmless as a Dove—The dove has been honored by the West. In the 20th
century it becomes a symbol for the peace our hearts & souls long for. The
command to be wise as a serpent & harmless as a dove is the Yin and Yang of
the NT. Wisdom without innocence can be crafty & sinister; innocence
without wisdom tends to be naïveté, an invitation to evil forces. In Joseph Turner’s Morning After the Deluge, a serpent is lifted high on a pole. For
me the serpent on the pole is another one of the great transformation images of
the Bible. That which is a curse, when lifted up, becomes a blessing. The
Western tendency to feel revolted by snakes may be a male repudiation of the
female [& Earth Goddess] aspects of human nature. As we seek a new relation to earth, we need a
new mythic relation to serpents, who feel the pulse of life in the earth with
its whole being.
The Cross and Beyond—The cross is one of the most universal transformation
symbols. The Plains Indians [see] a
cross as 3-dimensional: one line North-South; one line East-West; one line
vertical. I like to think that wherever
these 3 lines cross, a person is. The
Egyptian ankh indicates life which contains life and death. One of my favorite crosses is in the Basilica
of Saint Apollinaire in Classe at Ravenna Ireland
There are 3 types of crucifixion images: decorative-symbolic; expressionistic; and the
classic, with the serene and relaxed Christ.
Very few crucifixions have been growing points for me. The one in the Cathedral in Perpignan Southern
France was photographed from
many angles; the views [for me] took the form of many aspects of Christ
[throughout his life]. Within recent
years, in styles expressive of energy, the Christ figure seems to leap from the
cross, sometimes as if to embrace you.
Picasso & Chagall of the “old masters of the 20th
century” gave us crucifixion images.
Chagall often wove Jewish & Christian symbols into a single image,
such as Rabbi & scroll along with Mother & Child. Rouault’s crucifixions also are symbolic. More
than any other “old master” of our century Georges Roualt (1871-1958) focused
on the New Testament. His CRUCIFIXION, 1918, with its blocks of color, thick
lines, & simply-drawn faces, responds as part of a new visual idiom for a
new age. El Greco’s crucifixions have contemplative serenity. A prolific,
[Byzantine-style] painter of the NT, El Greco has one of the most mystical of
visual languages.
The City of God America
What means most to me are the bird’s eye view patterns
we get of the Garden of Eden at the beginning of the Bible, and the City of God
at the end; in both we find the Tree of Life.
Did the Church Fathers of long
ago, who arranged the Bible, intentionally open and close their work with this
Tree? [The Garden’s Tree seems to
belong to our original innocence], whereas the City’s Tree reflects the
rediscovered innocence of those who come to it from a diverse and complicated
world. What transformation!
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198. Re-conciliation: the hidden hyphen (by Mary Chase Morrison; 1974)
About the Author—Teacher of the Gospels course at Pendle Hill
1957-1974, Mary Morrison describes herself as 49% Quaker, 51% Episcopalian. A
Contributing Editor of The Episcopalian, she
has written many articles & one book, Jesus:
Man & Master; 1968. She also
wrote Pendle Hill Pamphlet #120, William
Law: Selections on the Inner Life.
The present pamphlet went from a 200-word journal to dialog & public
conversation, to this form.
We have traded the exterior frontier for an interior one./ And now all the riches of our own nature,/ wild, untamed [and unashamed],/ distorted, imprisoned, darkened,/ are calling/ calling to us—/ to these small, frightened, limited selves/ that we insist upon being,/ and are convinced that we are—/ offering us all the fire and life and adventure/ that we have cut ourselves off from; all the fullness of our human nature that God gave us,/ frightening and wonderful. Dostoevsky
We have traded the exterior frontier for an interior one./ And now all the riches of our own nature,/ wild, untamed [and unashamed],/ distorted, imprisoned, darkened,/ are calling/ calling to us—/ to these small, frightened, limited selves/ that we insist upon being,/ and are convinced that we are—/ offering us all the fire and life and adventure/ that we have cut ourselves off from; all the fullness of our human nature that God gave us,/ frightening and wonderful. Dostoevsky
“Reconciliation”
is an easy word to say, smooth &
flowing, speaking itself almost gracefully as a dance. The word is much sharper than it seems, for
there is a hyphen hidden in it. Re-Conciliation. [Conciliation] again has to be done in the face of some
kind of relationship disaster. That hidden hyphen is a razor’s edge. If we stop
& think, we see ourselves to be living on top of that invisible hyphen,
[separated from the earth, society, our tradition, our children, even
ourselves]. Perhaps this hyphen time in
which we live is a good time, because the voices [calling us back] can be
heard. Those Paradises that we used to
walk toward are so many! And so hard to
leave. There is also the Paradise of what one might call the Pax Europa, the sheltered state of the British Empire . [Jesus
predicted conflict in Mark 13:8, but we disregard it for our Paradises]. Our Paradises are really Fools’
Paradises. We must [stop walking away],
turn and take our fingers out of our ears, and listen, standing here on the
razor edge of that hyphen that marks our separation. Will
we turn? And if so, how?
The Earth—We have separated
ourselves from her by our comfort, luxury, ease. Our style of life is making
the earth groan; for we have consumption. In Jesus’ teachings, riches &
power are always a hindrance to God’s Kingdom, [which may be] finding our own
place of freedom on earth in nature’s workings. We will never know [how
homeless & out of place we are] if some of us insist on being rich &
consumptive. Will we turn? If so, how?
Many changes have come about in the past century as a
result of the “conquest” of nature. We are softer—but perhaps we are more
sensitive. Perhaps we can put this sensitivity & desire for relationship to
work. We can begin where we are by being modest: own a modest car; keep a
modest household; [use a modest amount of power]. We can be local in our
buying. As we are modest before her, perhaps nature can show us her fresh face
again.
Riches are not only possessions & freedom from earthbound
necessities; riches are also power. Riches are also stupidity, blinding,
fettering, & hampering the person who has them in ways they cannot even begin
to suspect. When we immigrants came here we separated ourselves from the people
we found here, & made no attempt to understand their land/property concepts.
Fortunately there were 2 large groups who couldn’t become like us; the Native
Americans didn’t even want to try. The Blacks tried, but failed the White
European part. Now they show us how we have separated ourselves from the human
race. They are calling to us. Will we
turn? And if so, how?
[Between Jesus and the centurion], neither of them
pretends that the chasm does not exist. After
showing friendship, the centurion sends and asks; [he recognizes and is
sensitive to the cultural differences].
He builds, not a staircase down from his conquering culture to a
conquered one, but a bridge on level ground from one to the other. Jesus finds in this direct, simple approach
an opening for his power such that he says, “Not even in Israel
[3 Questions: Might
we be mistaken? Is there something more important than being right? If truth be told, are we speaking it, or is
it being heard? [With honest answers
to these questions,] all our group differences would serve not
to divide us but enrich us, because we would know that only out of diversity
itself can our wholeness come. Truth is
large enough so that we can disagree and still remain within its
boundaries.
Our
Children—They have uprooted
themselves from the familiar soil, and are far off, searching for a “lost and
legendary treasure.” And they are
calling, calling to us to search for it with them. Will we turn? If so, how? There
is no need to feel guilty about cutting ourselves off from their search. In a sense we didn’t do it. It happened to us. The scientific revolution [caused us to seek]
objectivity, investigation, and proof [on the one hand, and to take us] away
from the wisdom of our long tradition [on the other]. One bit of ancient wisdom has managed to
sneak under our guard; we still know how to take a joke. [We don’t analyze it according to True-False,
moral standards, or verifying known facts].
We wait for it to gather its strength, exploding like a delightful bomb with its unexpectedness and aptness; we
laugh. That is how wisdom can and should
come to us.
[Impervious Wisdom]—Wisdom has a way of
being impervious to the impervious. She
will always present a blank meaninglessness to all but the most patient and
penetrating scrutiny. For most of us nothing
has come to us in the first place, so we do not know what we are missing. Is
wisdom silent, or are we deaf? We
should take to silence and meditation and wait quietly for what may seem like
nothing. We need to approach our reading
and listening differently, allowing them to feed us.
But we are still in the middle of modern error if we
expect her to tell us things; answers
acquire meaning through our response. Myths are the everlasting oracles of
life. They have to be consulted anew, with every age approaching them with its
own ignorance and understanding. [There is] Heavenly Wisdom [to be found in the
Bible]. And there is the long human
process of coming to know oneself and the world; being real. By the time you are Real, most of your hair
has been loved off, your eyes [break down, and you get very shabby]. If we were like this our children would not
go away from us. If we were like this
our great mythic truths would come and speak freshly to us about the height and
breadth and depth of what it means to be human beings together in our world.
Friends and
Enemies—If there is disagreement with
friends [or household], we know it—we feel it—we cannot escape it. How
are real clearness and ease and freshness and grace to come again? We know all the dead end roads that are
available: the road into destructive, inappropriate action; the [freezing out,
making the other or ourselves no longer a person]. And there is “forgiveness,” Elizabeth Howes asks, “Who has not experienced that deadly kind of noble ‘forgiveness’ that
leaves one permanently one-down, in the wrong forever?
The only way out is through, [& through
reconciliation]. We must learn how angry & hurt we really are. In that
moment, in hell & knowing it, we feel “a sense of Presence.” We are ready
to leave at the altar the gift of anger, & go & be reconciled to our
brother, who may be coming from the altar too. We may be able to ask creative
questions that lets one speak openly to one’s self & to us of one’s anger,
hurt, or fear. We may even be able to speak our own anger. If not reconciled,
our situation may make us reconcilers for others even if not ourselves. We now
know how to move along the cutting hyphen of separation, [perhaps even making
of it a bridge].
Ourselves—the self calling to the self across that hyphen; now
it is not merely a call, but a great shout, a desperate cry. [At one time,
our] preoccupations with the external have silenced the voice by calling upon
us to assemble and use relatively simple, efficient selves. Now we face the
frontier, wilderness, & fear of what is inside one. We are finding
ourselves far more complex than we knew.
[That complexity is calling to us.] Will
we turn?
We can sit in the middle of [modern society’s] network
of protections, [but we pay for it in irritability at trifles]. William Law said: “Sufficient indications are these to every
one that there is a dark guest within him, concealed under the cover of flesh
and blood, often lulled to sleep by worldly lights and amusements; [still, it
may] show itself. If it has not its proper
relief in this life, it must be one’s torment in the next.”
Our “good,” [simple] selves occupy us like a conquered
land, dictating the form that life will take in us. [Our complex selves, full
of “fire and life & adventure” revolts against rigid controls. How did we come to be so imprisoned in
“goodness?” How did we lock ourselves into so limited a concept of what
goodness is? Here is Jesus’ concern for us. We have taken the “good” part
we want to play in the world, & made it our whole. But it is only our
actor’s mask, our persona, not the
whole of us. [What most take as a call to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father
is perfect,” [is a call to be full-grown, complete, mature]. What does this mean for human beings? We
need to: listen to what is actually going on inside us; speak it forth in the
presence, but otherwise hold it until this wild, untamed, unknown part of us
can come forward & let us know what it is good for; use discipline and
coordination of what goes on inside of us; living with our many selves until in
some sense they become one.
So let us be reconciled to ourselves in affection,
toward life; and to other individuals, other groups, other races, and the earth
herself, in the same way. What is reconciliation when it is
done? It is hard to realize when you
look at reconciliation that anything is happening. [In art’s portrayal those reconciled] seem as
if they could hardly believe their good fortune—as if they knew they were
taking part in a miracle. [In any case,
these meetings in art, in Shakespeare’s plays, in life itself] are all after
the long grief and pain of separation.
And they are full of unbelievable joy—the joy of meeting again, of
reconciliation.
William
Law said: For the goodness of a living creature must be its own life. We must all
be born again from a principle above nature, or no goodness can be living in
us. . . And from this birth alone it is,
that the free genuine works of goodness flow forth with the freedom of the
divine life, wherewith the Spirit of God has made us free.
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199. Contemplation and Leisure (by Douglas V. Steere; 1975): Foreword; Contemplation and Leisure; Contemplation: Where and When;
All the
nobler instincts of our race are born in solitude and suckled by silence. This solitude need be no far away wilderness;
this silence need be no Himalayan peak.
You stop for a second as you cross your city square and glance at the
belt of Orion.” John Cowper Powys
"There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence, that is the fountain of action and joy. It rises as if in a wordless gentleness and flows out to me from unseen roots in all created being.” Thomas Merton
Foreword—Douglas Steere once wrote a pamphlet called Work and Contemplation that saw a lot of
use in Quaker Work Camps. In this and
another exploration, he concluded that work tends to become meaningless and
destructive unless meaning is restored by contemplation. Contemplation should be searched and tested
by work; only in action can thought be ripened into truth. In this essay he convinces us that the inner
core of leisure is essentially a [contemplative] mood which pervades all we
do, not an empty space or block of time.
Douglas taught philosophy at Haverford College
Contemplation and Leisure—On the interior level, the matter of discerning where, if at all, leisure leaves off and contemplation beings is instantly before us. I will try to focus on contemplation’s basic root in man. [When one seeks an answer or to fulfill a purpose, one may sometimes go far afield when the essential answer or purpose is close at hand]. Each of us has a philosopher, a contemplator if you like, within us; it is built-in equipment. [And it has a long list of queries meant to influence the direction and “flavor” of your life].
Contemplation and Leisure—On the interior level, the matter of discerning where, if at all, leisure leaves off and contemplation beings is instantly before us. I will try to focus on contemplation’s basic root in man. [When one seeks an answer or to fulfill a purpose, one may sometimes go far afield when the essential answer or purpose is close at hand]. Each of us has a philosopher, a contemplator if you like, within us; it is built-in equipment. [And it has a long list of queries meant to influence the direction and “flavor” of your life].
There is a strange power in buried deep in one that
enables one to carry on an inward dialogue between layers of one’s own
being. This power is the rudimentary
stub of what might be called contemplation.
We might find some help in defining contemplation if we put it in terms
of a sustained scrutiny for meaning.
Many people tend to identify contemplation with its most exalted
forms. The French Quaker Marius Grout, in
referring to special men and women of radiant life, said: “If there is a wish we should wish today, it
is that we might see in ourselves the beginnings of such contemplation.” [When someone, active or at rest, chooses a
subject or object of contemplation, and enters into its deeper meaning, that
is contemplation].
The common use of contemplation can take place
anywhere, at any time, in any circumstance, and its naturalness is the
neglected factor. Mark Gibbard, a
British Anglican monk believes that any form of behavior can be contemplative. Professor Whitehead used to speak about a
possible inward dimension to all experience as “an offensive against the
repetitive mechanism of the universe.”
[Contemplation:
Where and When]—The worst disservice
we could do would be to identify contemplation with a block of empty time or
space, or to limit it to a certain peculiarly endowed class of persons. John Cowper Powys said [the quote at the
beginning of this piece]. [If contemplation became a] central concern for our
society, [times & places could be found and/or created] for its direct
nurture and cultivation. E. I. Watkins
says, “Only the man who sees nothing beyond his nose, who lives in routine and
unintelligent obedience, or who drifts aimlessly through life, cannot or will
not contemplate.” Evelyn Underhill
The disappearance of the porch & the lack of any
room for meditation in the modern house [reflects society’s current attitude
toward contemplation]. [In the activities of travel & communication], we have
heaped experiences on top of one another in such profusion that we have never
got around to inquiring what they mean for us.
The ebb of compassion & the jostling of images in the breast of
modern man produces a kind of inner numbness, an incapacity for deep
feeling. [It is important to support
& preserve communities & traditions in which inward awareness is of
central importance; the ones the author mentions in this pamphlet are villages
in India
[Indian Time
vs. Western Planning]—My wife and I 1st
visited India Douglas , you are in India Philadelphia
We traveled north to Bolpur; a friend of the artist
was going to introduce us to a philosopher there. The fascinating meeting started at 8 in the
morning and went past noon ;
the philosopher wanted me to stay a month.
I began to realize that Philadelphia
The “spiritual substance” of India India
The Quaker movement throughout their history have been
in continuous protest against all that is overplanned in church: programs;
rituals; physical plants; creedal requirements; and authority. George Fox wrote: “There is the danger and temptation to you,
of drawing your minds into your own business, and clogging them with it; so
that ye can hardly do any thing to the service of God. . . your minds will go
into things and not over things.” Max
Picard’s The World of Silence warns
that our noise-packed, contemporary world was pocked with Zusammen-lsösigkeit, [loss of togetherness,]
discontinuousness. How else than by a
process of almost schizophrenic discontinuity can you explain [the
discontinuity] in the workplace, in race relations, in international
relations.
A contemplation that will seek a principle of order
that will challenge these anarchies and these dissonances must be a genuine
penetration that goes so deep that it reaches through to a principle of order
that will draw these conflicting areas into a common responsibility. Ruskin declared: “The greatest thing the human soul ever does
in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. . . To see clearly is poetry and prophecy and
religion in one.” Bernard of Clairvaux
counsels Eugenius III “not to give yourself up altogether nor at all times to
the active life, but to set aside some time for consideration [contemplation].
. . Consideration purifies the very
fountain that is the mind from which it springs. . . It is consideration which in prosperity feels
the sting of adversity; in adversity it is as though it felt it not.”
[Features of
Contemplation]—Contemplation is
self-justifying. It is good in
itself. The Cloud of Unknowing says:
“The condition of the active life is such that it is both begun and
ended in this life. The contemplative
life is begun in this life and it shall last forever and ever.” Plotinus saw 2 great movements taking
place: the movement by which the One,
the ground of all Being, donated to all things their being; the process of
contemplation by which the created being come awake, and by reflecting on their
source, move back again to the One from which they came. [This would restore Zusammenheit, togetherness, which] sees science, economics,
politics, and art all as connected, all as responsible to help man in this
return movement. It is one major
movement of genuine contemplation. “A steep and unaccountable transition,”
Thoreau has described it, from what is called a common sense view of things, to
an infinitely expanding and liberating one, from seeing things as men describe
them, to seeing them as men cannot describe them.
Always the gift of contemplation returns this capacity
to see things as they are and to insist that any attempt at grasping an
ultimate unity in things must be achieved only after there is the deepest
reverence given to the untamable mystery in all things. The fruits of
contemplation have been expressed very differently but they seem, each in its
own way, to be rimmed with this gift of pointing [to where we cannot
describe]. Anker Larsen points to the
deeper ranges of contemplation when he says:
“This deep tenderness which I felt, first with myself and then even
stronger around and above me . . . drew me into the Eternal Now. That was my first actual meeting with Reality
because such is the real life; a Now that is and a Now which happens . . . I sat in my garden but
there was no place in the word where I was not.”
Of leisure Joseph Pieper says: “Leisure implies an attitude of non-activity,
of inward calm of silence; it means not
being ‘busy’ . . . Leisure is a form of silence, and silence as is it used in
this context means that the soul’s power to ‘answer’ to the reality of the
world is left undisturbed.” [This
restores] in us the interior space that is meant to be there, of giving us a
wider margin around the page. When
Joseph Pieper moves on to define what these preparatory states should lead to
and speaks of their clearing of the way, he has left the empty spaces and now
is speaking of the deep, intuitive action of the human spirit which I have
tried to describe as contemplation. It
becomes clear that he is defining true leisure as a form of contemplation.
[After the truest leisure and the deepest
contemplation], activity is an answering of the soul to both the disclosure and
to the unfathomable mystery of that to which it is exposed, and this may cover
the whole spectrum of our relation with nature, with each other, and with that
which undergirds them both. Thomas
Merton said: “There is in all things an
inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence, that is the fountain of action
and joy. It rises as if in a wordless
gentleness and flows out to me from unseen roots in all created being.”
This “fountain of action and joy” and this “hidden
wholeness is in all things, and therefore is accessible to all. It is a quality of approach to any situation,
an inwardly spacious way of being present and open to where we are. Henri Bergson said that only contemplation
and a greater soul could pierce the temptation of those who presently control
the technological apparatus to fail the deprived peoples of the earth, and to
go on sequestering the vast new increments of wealth for themselves alone. True leisure and true contemplation on all
its levels is a condition of the human spirit that needs no social
justification for its practice. Yet it
is hard to see how one could exaggerate the human stakes that are involved in
its return to strength in our time.
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200. Born Remembering (by Elise Boulding; 1975)
About the Author—Elise Boulding is professor of sociology at the Univ. of CO
[Remembering
Childhood]—Every one has had
experience of early childhood remembering [being aware of] an otherness not to
be explained by family experiences, stories heard, events witnessed. Why is it that we are born remembering,
[aware], & live forgetting? [In my life I have remembered, forgotten &
remembered again]. I grew up in a tiny [unchurched] immigrant Scandinavian
community of 12 families outside Newark
Mother & Father never talked about God, never used
petitionary prayer, & only read the Bible on Christmas Eve; yet God was
present. On Christmas Eve the family Bible came to the supper table, &
father read Luke’s Christmas story by candlelight. Afterwards we danced around
the candle-lit tree & sang carols & dancing songs. God was also present
every evening, for grace, & [while I prayed & mother sat by my side].
Listening to God was one of my clearest childhood
memories. There was always a quiet inner space I could go into, a listening
place. I wasn’t listening for voices. [I found myself a church so I could study
more about the Bible; it was 2 miles away]. Long before I was in high school,
the pastor’s wife took me aside & asked if I would like to come into her
high school class. To this day going into any church fills me with joyful
anticipation.
The fact that I have been able in some way to reach
back to the early rememberings, to the freshness of the feeling of God’s
presence as I knew it when small, has been very important in keeping what
wholeness there has been in my life. I grew
into the Lord’s Prayer, & I’m still growing into it. Because Bibles
have sometimes been used as straitjackets by adults who did not understand,
doesn’t mean that they are straitjackets. [I compared God’s oversight &
being with Jesus’ teaching, speaking & doing]. Giving Jesus his “right”
place has never been easy for me, perhaps because I loved God first. I came to
love Jesus as a teacher. Many years later,
I came to experience him inwardly as a teaching Presence; I felt taught without
words; he comes in times of spiritual barrenness.
When did I discover Mary? I am not sure how old I was, but standing one
day before her statue, I felt her presence, [as] Mother, sister, holy
lady. She was with me beginning with the
turbulent high school days, atheistic college days and ever since. In dark times I find a Catholic church and
kneel before Mary. I accept my childlike
spirituality when I need her strength.
Having won a college scholarship, I would now have to redouble my
efforts to justify that original migration.
I suddenly saw my love of God as a sign of weakness.
[College;
Marriage; Children; India
While religion had not been verbally articulated very
much in my home, pacifism had; my mother was an ardent pacifist [who] never
connected with a peace movement. [The day I visited] the Baroness’ store-front
center [for a Catholic hospitality house] was a turning point for me. The
Baroness was a Russian émigré who saw social reality as at core a spiritual
reality. Another lovely place the Lord led me to was the church of John Haynes
Holmes
The impact that these person made on my life was out
of all proportion to my contact with them; I stayed in New York
Kenneth & I took the founding of our little Quaker
“Colony of Heaven” both seriously and joyfully, [endeavoring] to make our home
a center of tranquility & peace. Before our 3rd child I wrote Friends Testimonies in the Home. It
seemed to me that it was in the mundane tasks that God’s love shone most
clearly. A Quaker meeting is a fine place to raise children up when families do
many things together. A group of about 6 families [pretty much] raised each
other’s children. We were all equally active in the peace movement, and in
local community projects. There was undue busyness. God was never absent, but
often ignored; I did a lot of forgetting in those years.
At 51, I traded an emptying nest at home for a
professorship at the University of Colorado India Gandhi Museum Colorado
God, be in my
feet and my walking./God, be in my hands and in my touching./ God, be in my eyes and in my seeing./ God, be
in my ears and in my hearing./ God be in my mind and in and in my thinking./ God, be in my heart and in my loving. Elise
Boulding
[Frog in a
Well]—Part II of the remembering
involved in my “conversion” came a few months later when a teenager, damaged by
drugs & suffering a major emotional crisis, stayed with us. Watching his
suffering, I suddenly saw myself as a small frog in the bottom of a deep well,
trying to get out. The spirit had to break through [occasionally], but how tiny
the eruptions, how heavy-handed our daily behavior. The tension of the
preceding years uncoiled like a giant spring in the crouched figure at the well
bottom. It was met by God’s grace & I sprang up free. [Feeling like a
newborn, I would whisper phrases like those at the beginning of this piece. I
tried not to do anything I could not put God into. Early morning rising &
prayer also helped me stay centered. Increased sensitivity to others who were
in an intense state of seeking brought new fellowship in unexpected
places.
At this time I felt distant from the Friends
immediately around me, with whom I could not share what was happening, but very
close to the “Quaker saints” that had been part of my religious formation in
the Society. 2 authors that gave me a
vivid understanding of the incredible process of remaking, reforming the human material were Evelyn Underhill St. John
It seemed to be my task to explore that question, &
I did not know how to go about it. It was only at the end of that summer that I
came to the comprehension that God is always at work in us even though there
are times when we are too numbed by pain to realize it. By fall I had a certain
feeling of resignation about the difficult path before me. Friends found a
small Benedictine monastery at Cold Spring , NY
For me the rhythm of monastic life—matins, lauds, breakfast,
reading, praying, lunch, chores, walking, reading, vespers, conversation,
supper, compline, and prayer—was the long sought, long-lost rhythm of my own
deepest inner spaces. “Jesus, I am one
of your kind! You are what we are to become.
Unbearable stretching of spirit—torn upwards, rooted below. Was
that your crucifixion? [Brother
Victor wrote out] a weekly rotation of Psalms for Lauds and Vespers, and the
pattern for Compline; I have used them ever since.
I have been back to the Monastery many times since
that October. There is a small community of the Bro-thers, 2 Sisters, &
myself. Our spiritual bond is strong & we feel like a community, even though we will never live in the same
community. I have also come to find community with the very tender Catholics,
including the Brothers of the Christ in the Desert Monastery. [Brother Victor
had a gift for making] tasty meals out of unpromising scraps. From that I got
the idea for a cookbook called From a
Monastery Kitchen; it was
intended to be much more than a cookbook]. We have all thought a lot about what
of monastic life can be shared in families.
There is food for spiritual nurture in the church year
seasons. Yet the outer garments of
celebration when taken over by the secular society prevent recognition of the
underlying spiritual reality. In my own
religious tradition of Quakerism the fear of participating in artificial
reconstruction led to a witness against all sacraments and all
celebrations. [While Quakers may have
lost the sense of the sacramental, they have made the valid point that] the
inward cycles of our souls do not correspond to the great cycles of the church.
[Hermitage]—During my summer of intense spiritual struggle I began
to plan what was to be a hermitage in the woods behind our family cabin in the Rockies ’ foothills. It was built with
the help of a young friend, his builder brother, and a great deal of love. The hermitage was ready on Thanksgiving Day. I came up that weekend to the first solitude
I had ever known in my life. That very
first day that I climbed the steps and entered alone, uncertainty fell away
and joy rushed in; a lifetime of longing had been fulfilled.
[During a disorienting 2 days following ear surgery] I
was given communion by a Catholic priest and good friend, even though I was not
a professed Catholic. Having felt the
Presence so totally in the eucharist at the monastery, I felt the need very
acutely in this crisis of the anchoring in Christ which communion gives. Although I expected to be called to profess
Catholicism, I learned that my obedience consists in remaining a Quaker. Johannes Tauler wrote: “Spiritually good
people, pure in heart, who long for the Blessed Sacrament but cannot go to
Communion at that time . . . may even receive the grace of Communion more than
those who receive sacramentally.”
Adolphe Tanquerey writes that given one’s talents, one’s situation in
life and its responsibilities, there are certain things one must do and other
things one may not be able to do.
If there was ever to be reintegration of my life
around my new understandings, it would take nothing less drastic than a year of
solitude for this to happen. [I
approached my year of solitude in the spirit of] “O Lord, my heart is not
proud/nor haughty my eyes./ I have not
gone after things too great nor marvels beyond me.
The wisdom of solitude is not easy to translate into
the world. It is my task this year to
learn to be present both to God and to the world, and yet stay shielded. I attend Meeting, and spend the day at
home. Periodically I stop at the office
to discuss work with my administrative assistant and friend, Dorothy Carson. A spiritual revolutionary has a hard time in
our society. Structures of violence and
habits of oppression must be destroyed, but by means that we do not yet
understand very well.
If much of my work in the future is done from the
hermitage, that will not be a denial of society, but an affirmation of what it
can become. Solitude is the most
beautiful condition of the human spirit.
It is in solitude that I am learning to truly remember what I have lived
forgetting. I hope to learn how to weave
the golden threads of solitude into the warp and woof of family and community
living. I know of no other way for us to
become what we are created to be.
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