Having been requested to talk about my concept of the Light, I wrote the following in a rather "quick"off the "top of my head" way. There is much that I could add or edit but decided to post this as is.
The Light
It is difficult for me to use language other than New Testament and Friends language since this is the language of my father who was my spiritual guide and mentor even though he really never acted or talked in any other way than a father to me. He was a pastor and I spent many Sundays listening to her sermons but they didn’t mean a great deal to me until my adult years when I would visit. Mostly I remember the care that he took everyday, all day to express love, not a noticeable evident love. I don’t remember hugs in our family but I do remember smiles and looks that carried a humble “pride” and inward joy. I especially noticed these when my father looked at his grandchildren. For me these smiles and looks carried love in a very powerful way. I learned that “God is Love” was not just a powerful metaphor but somehow carried some of the most powerful human aspirations and realities.
In addition, my father introduced me to the Bible, writings of early and modern Friends, and Christian thinkers. I came to believe that there was truth in the concept of the “Light that was enlightening everyone,” “Inward Light,” etc. I went through a period in which I found it difficult to talk openly about the Light as “Christian” when I struggled with Friends who stated that anyone who did not believe in the Bible and Jesus Christ as they knew him was condemned to Hell and were somehow unworthy of our love. This very exclusive belief emphasizing guilt and fear seemed very foreign to the Light of Faith, Hope, and Love with the greatest of these Love.
My vision of the Light envisions a concept/idea/reality that is accessible to all persons. The manifestation can be seen/heard/felt/believed by persons who have never heard the story of Jesus nor the name Christ. However, as humans we each tend to become self focused and strive to understand Right/Wrong from our own perspective without openness to others. This is for me one of the meanings of the Genesis stories in which Adam and Eve are described as wanting to have the knowledge of Good and Evil for themselves, prompting the question “Where are you?” Similarly, Cain in striving to have his interpretation of the “best” sacrifice being recognized even to the extreme of killing his brother seen as a rival is asked “Where is your brother?” These two stories demonstrate the building of barriers to the Light that we all are susceptible to. These barriers create “oceans of darkness,” but the darkness cannot put out the light only prevent its experience. As the barriers between each other are broken down we help build down barriers to the Light. As we work at, or probably more accurately, allow the work to occur, breaking the barriers to the Light itself overcomes the ocean of darkness.
For me the Gospels are the heart of my understanding of the Light, but find the illumination in many other writings from different religions and writings, from ancient right up to contemporary writings.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Friends Worship
Another writing from some time in the past. I am not sure I would use some of the same words now, or rather I would probably add some "qualifications" or explanations of some of the words, for example "his," "Redeemer," "creator". As one who continues to seek more openings, deeper understandings, and ever more "wisdom," I have found it hard to resist interminable editings, revisions, updatings, expansions, explanations, etc. However, at several times in the past I have tried to work hard at being more concise. I even tried using a very unorthodox form of Haiku. One of which is:
Writing is a form
Of capturing one's ideas
In a frozen trap
"The worship of God is not a form but an acting out of his will in relationship through justice and kindly love with people, our family, our neighbor, and all the people of the world. What Friends speak and believe they must do. The apex of the religious life and worship experience is found in the very Presence of God, felt and known without any intermediary, immanent, and known as Loving Redeemer and Creator sharing not mechanically in social order, but personally. The prophets declared that to know and worship God one is to look within and to look around.
It is not so much that we are against ceremony or rituals but that the real demands of God on humans are moral and spiritual and the proper worship of God is a life obedient to those demands. As beautiful and simple as it may sound, "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God," is far from a comfortable religion. Every prophetic spirit in every age will testify to the cost and continuous struggle in reaching for justice, mercy, and humility."
Writing is a form
Of capturing one's ideas
In a frozen trap
"The worship of God is not a form but an acting out of his will in relationship through justice and kindly love with people, our family, our neighbor, and all the people of the world. What Friends speak and believe they must do. The apex of the religious life and worship experience is found in the very Presence of God, felt and known without any intermediary, immanent, and known as Loving Redeemer and Creator sharing not mechanically in social order, but personally. The prophets declared that to know and worship God one is to look within and to look around.
It is not so much that we are against ceremony or rituals but that the real demands of God on humans are moral and spiritual and the proper worship of God is a life obedient to those demands. As beautiful and simple as it may sound, "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God," is far from a comfortable religion. Every prophetic spirit in every age will testify to the cost and continuous struggle in reaching for justice, mercy, and humility."
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Myth of Midwestern Quakerism
I have uncovered some older writings that I will post occasionally as a "track record" of my own search.
This was written and read in 1969, at the age of 25, when I was Clerk of West Branch Quarterly Meeting in Indiana Yearly Meeting. IYM was reorganizing from Quarterly to Regional Meetings and this was the last Meeting of West Branch QM. Most of my views are remarkably similar 40 years later. This also appeared in Quaker Life.
"As a young person, for I still consider myself young, who has been involved in many ways and at many levels in the phenomenon known as midwestern Quakerism, I would like to give some thoughts as to the past and the future of this organization, denomination, or movement, as the case may be.
It seems to me that with the reorganization we admitted that we are no longer a Society of Friends but rather just another Protestant denomination with almost no uniqueness except we still have the nerve to call ourselves Quakers. I do not fault the reorganization since it may serve Indiana Yearly Meeting faithfully and well, nor do I pretend to say that Quakerism should stagnate and not change. Nevertheless, I feel there are basic fundamentals of Quakerism which have been compromised. Among these is the belief that there can be no reliance on organization or structure to solve our problems or to serve Christ. This and other areas have been well stated in much better fashion by other students of Quakerism, but I will briefly suggest a few relevant examples.
One of the most important and valuable beliefs is in the priesthood of every believer coupled with the seeking of direct communication with God. Our meetings are pastoral meetings where the use of silent or individual worship of God has been said to have no place. The preacher often rushes through the program like clockwork so his sermon will not be disturbed. We do have clergy not just ministers. We rely on these preachers or priests to do most of our thinking and speaking for us rather than ones who are ministers among ministers with various gifts and thoughts. We also seem concerned about our church or chapel more as a place where we worship and show our religion rather than our meetinghouses only as the center where all members share experiences and guidance so they may follow the ONE teacher to go forth and do the works 9f Christ worshiping God in all places at all times.
Among the other fundamentals which we seem to have deserted is the belief in that of God in every man. If we truly believed this then we would treat each all people, the thief on the cross, the North Vietnamese and black power radicals. The peace testimony of Friends grew from this faith in the love of Christ which overcomes evil led him to die for all. We prize our Quaker name but try to refuse its use to those who attempt to follow Christ's command "do good to those who harm you." We treasure our Quaker heritage but know little of John Woolman who led the fight against slavery and discrimination yet our Yearly Meeting is among the most segregated groups anywhere.
We are amused by the old gray uniform of early Quakers, and well we should be, but as I
was so kindly eldered earlier this year we find only a small opposition to credit and borrowing money above our resources to meet demands for luxury. We have lost the concept of simplicity when we see unpaid debts and extras on our cars and in our homes. We have now taken on the uniform of our society and are dangerously close to reversing the command, "be ye not conformed to this world but be ye transformed." Those who insist that this is only spiritual and does not refer to the physical realm seem to neglect that it was the early Christians who were accused of "turning the world upside down" almost literally as well as figuratively. We are freed from commitment to this world by having no fear of what it can do to us but we are not freed to ignore it and live for the world to come, because Christ HAS COME and is here and is working among us now.
In considering these thoughts it would seem there are two choices before us, either continue, which may be the easiest route, but be honest enough to change our name, or accept the poor mournful, meek, hungry and thirsty, merciful, pure, peacemaking, reviled and persecuted by men existence of the prophets called for by Christ and George Fox.
This was written and read in 1969, at the age of 25, when I was Clerk of West Branch Quarterly Meeting in Indiana Yearly Meeting. IYM was reorganizing from Quarterly to Regional Meetings and this was the last Meeting of West Branch QM. Most of my views are remarkably similar 40 years later. This also appeared in Quaker Life.
"As a young person, for I still consider myself young, who has been involved in many ways and at many levels in the phenomenon known as midwestern Quakerism, I would like to give some thoughts as to the past and the future of this organization, denomination, or movement, as the case may be.
It seems to me that with the reorganization we admitted that we are no longer a Society of Friends but rather just another Protestant denomination with almost no uniqueness except we still have the nerve to call ourselves Quakers. I do not fault the reorganization since it may serve Indiana Yearly Meeting faithfully and well, nor do I pretend to say that Quakerism should stagnate and not change. Nevertheless, I feel there are basic fundamentals of Quakerism which have been compromised. Among these is the belief that there can be no reliance on organization or structure to solve our problems or to serve Christ. This and other areas have been well stated in much better fashion by other students of Quakerism, but I will briefly suggest a few relevant examples.
One of the most important and valuable beliefs is in the priesthood of every believer coupled with the seeking of direct communication with God. Our meetings are pastoral meetings where the use of silent or individual worship of God has been said to have no place. The preacher often rushes through the program like clockwork so his sermon will not be disturbed. We do have clergy not just ministers. We rely on these preachers or priests to do most of our thinking and speaking for us rather than ones who are ministers among ministers with various gifts and thoughts. We also seem concerned about our church or chapel more as a place where we worship and show our religion rather than our meetinghouses only as the center where all members share experiences and guidance so they may follow the ONE teacher to go forth and do the works 9f Christ worshiping God in all places at all times.
Among the other fundamentals which we seem to have deserted is the belief in that of God in every man. If we truly believed this then we would treat each all people, the thief on the cross, the North Vietnamese and black power radicals. The peace testimony of Friends grew from this faith in the love of Christ which overcomes evil led him to die for all. We prize our Quaker name but try to refuse its use to those who attempt to follow Christ's command "do good to those who harm you." We treasure our Quaker heritage but know little of John Woolman who led the fight against slavery and discrimination yet our Yearly Meeting is among the most segregated groups anywhere.
We are amused by the old gray uniform of early Quakers, and well we should be, but as I
was so kindly eldered earlier this year we find only a small opposition to credit and borrowing money above our resources to meet demands for luxury. We have lost the concept of simplicity when we see unpaid debts and extras on our cars and in our homes. We have now taken on the uniform of our society and are dangerously close to reversing the command, "be ye not conformed to this world but be ye transformed." Those who insist that this is only spiritual and does not refer to the physical realm seem to neglect that it was the early Christians who were accused of "turning the world upside down" almost literally as well as figuratively. We are freed from commitment to this world by having no fear of what it can do to us but we are not freed to ignore it and live for the world to come, because Christ HAS COME and is here and is working among us now.
In considering these thoughts it would seem there are two choices before us, either continue, which may be the easiest route, but be honest enough to change our name, or accept the poor mournful, meek, hungry and thirsty, merciful, pure, peacemaking, reviled and persecuted by men existence of the prophets called for by Christ and George Fox.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Life changes and renewal
Two major events are bringing a relatively major change in our (Judy and I) life this spring and renewal time. A three year old "ocean of darkness" has finally been lifted and we are moving from Barnesville, OH to Little Canada, (close in suburb of St Paul) MN.
After our move about May 1 and a little settling time, I hope to renew this blog which was stifled by others as part of the "ocean of darkness."
This will be a major change in Friends traditions from "Conservative" to liberal Friends. Though there is much I like about the "conservative" view, there has been a tendency to be exclusive and somewhat closed minded at times. It is my hope that some Friends in the Twin Cities area will provide challenge and opportunity to continue my Search and clarification of what I know experimentally/experientally.
After our move about May 1 and a little settling time, I hope to renew this blog which was stifled by others as part of the "ocean of darkness."
This will be a major change in Friends traditions from "Conservative" to liberal Friends. Though there is much I like about the "conservative" view, there has been a tendency to be exclusive and somewhat closed minded at times. It is my hope that some Friends in the Twin Cities area will provide challenge and opportunity to continue my Search and clarification of what I know experimentally/experientally.
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