Spirituality: Inner Light/ Children & Family
SPIRITUALITY: INNER LIGHT
384. The Mystery of Quaker Light (by Peter Bien; 2006)
About the Author—Peter Bien 1st came to Pendle Hill in 1952 to train for Quaker International Voluntary Service in Holland. He was a trustee off & on from 1977 to 2005, serving as clerk of the publications Committee. He taught modern British novel, comparative literature, and Nikos Kazantzakis at Dartmouth College. He & his wife mainly reside at Kendal in Hanover, having helped to “invent” it. This is his 4th Pendle Hill Pamphlet.
“The Light Within is the Divine power of creativity and reason that enters me without fragmenting its Oneness, enabling me to know and overcome my inadequacies, and to appreciate [the creation of Light and Word], the true Light that enlightens every person.” Peter Bien
I. Before Sun, Moon, & Stars—When a person in Quaker meeting is ill, bereaved, or otherwise troubled, someone typically advises the meeting, “Let’s hold this person in the Light.” The theological formula most often used is the “Inner Light.” Many of us are no longer familiar with the background that accounts for Light’s predominance in Quaker thought. The major elements in the evolution of the Light metaphor are Genesis, the prologue to John’s Gospel, the Jewish & Greek sources for logos, & how early Quakers & modern science use the term.
Natural light is pleasant, soothing, and safe; it makes us feel good. We cherish the creative power of sunlight, its source. [But in Genesis], God declared “Let there be light” before the sun had been created. In Taoist creation, pure light came out of chaos. The solar system and starry heavens are created by Light instead of being the source. Something unified created something non-unified—the multifarious reality in which we live.
II. The Prologue to John’s Gospel—Don Cupitt, tells us to favor whatever symbol unifies our feelings most productively. That is what the symbol of Light did for George Fox, Robert Barclay, William Penn, & other early Friends. The Eastern Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky wrote: “This light … can be defined as the visible quality of divinity, of energies or grace in which God makes God’s self known …It is immaterial and not apprehended by the senses …” A book on icon painting states: “A positive nothingness appeared in creation, the embryo, the beginning of a thing. Penetrated by light, it begins to assume shape.” Robert Grosseteste wrote: “[Light] has greater similarity than all bodies to the forms that exist apart from matter, namely the intelligences.”
John’s 1st 5 verses are difficult. Light is equivalent to life. Life is equivalent to the Word (logos). Logos is equivalent to God. In Goethe’s Faust, Logos is translated as Word, Sense, Force, & Deed. It was the Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus who introduced the concept of logos. His purpose was to overcome the disparity between a totally infinite God & a totally finite universe. He declared that God’s infinite will acts through an intermediary, the logos, the creative power that orders the world. Rabbinic Judaism had a secondary influence on [John’s Gospel]. The Wisdom of Solomon says, “For she [Wisdom] is a reflection of eternal light …”
John’s Greek stimulus was Neoplatonism, a Platonic mixture adding elements of Stoicism & also elements of the Corpus Hermeticum. Plotinus emphasizes unity & mind. God is the simple cause of existence that precedes the multiplicity of the created universe. “The One remains absolutely at rest, Intellect springs from it like light from the sun … [We] being soul, can find Intellect and the One within us.” [In the Greek myth of Apollo Pythius] Apollo slays the darkness, and dispenses light in the metaphor of the serpent Python.
Francis MacDonald Cornford writes: The culminating revelation occurs in a sudden blaze of light exempt from change and relativity.” Light is always linked with reason in Neoplatonic and Stoic philosophy. Dionysius the Areopagite declares: “Light comes from the Good, and Light is an image of this archetypal Good … The goodness of the transcendent God … gives Light to everything capable of receiving it; it creates them, keeps them alive, preserves & perfects them … It is the cause of the universe & its end.” From Genesis onward, Light is God’s energy, the force and deed that give form to the formless. [The Quakers’ “true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” refers to the divine energy that creates multiplicity and dwells therein.
In Attic & New Testament Greek, logos means oral expression, speech, and/or writing. Logos also means the unified cause—reason or mind—out of which these multiplicities of expression flow. Light came to serve as the principal metaphor for the energy of the logos. C. H. Dodd writes: “Logos, though it carries with it the associations of the Old Testament Word of the Lord, has also a meaning [given to it] by Stoicism, Philo, and the Wisdom idea used by other Jewish writers. It is the rational principle in the universe.” In Paradise Lost, John Milton said: “Hail holy Light … Before the sun,/ Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice/ Of God, as with a mantle didst invest/ The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite.”
III. The Light Within—Contemporary Quakers not only ask that folks in trouble be held in the Light, they also speak about their own Inner Light. [In describing it], some Friends may come close to “the quality of grace by which God makes God’s self known” (Symeon the New Theologian, 10th century). John Punshon writes: “[Light] operates at a personal level to redeem those who turn to it; but it would be a mistake to regard it as part of human nature … our bit of God. The light [that] is in all is the same light, not sparks from the eternal flame.”
John Milton writes of Light: “Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers/ Irradiate. There plant eyes, all mist from thence/ Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell/ Of things invisible to mortal sight.” Friends, if asked what, precisely, they mean by Inward Light, might say: “The Light Within is the Divine power of creativity and reason that enters me without fragmenting its Oneness, enabling me to know and overcome my inadequacies, and to appreciate [the creation of Light and Word], the true Light that enlightens every person.” Henry Vaughn compares Light with shadow: “I saw Eternity the other night/ Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,/ All calm, as it was bright,/ And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years/ Driven by the spheres/ Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world/ And all her train were hurled.”
IV. Light and the Founders of Quakerism—The founders of Quakerism were familiar with the long history of religious thought summarized above. [Besides the connection with creation, Fox insists that the] Light “is that Creative Power that draws all things upward into nobler states of being. It is also warm, living, and personal, forever pleading with us to give up our selfish doing and desiring, and to follow its Divine Leading.” The characteristics of light include: divinity; purity; resistible; ineffable.
Isaac Penington adds to this discussion: “The particular waiting upon God in his Holy Spirit, light and power … will discover what is disorderly, and unruly, and not of God in the particular, and lay a yoke upon it … The glory increaseth daily more and more, by the daily sight and feeling of the living virtue and power in Christ the Light, whereby the soul is continually transformed and changed … into the incorruptible … The spirit breathes infallibly, begets infallibly, leads infallibly, creates a new heart, a right spirit; which heart, which spirit, is of God’s infallible nature, like him, for that which is born of the spirit is spirit.”
William Penn writes: “For of light came sight, and of sight came sense and sorrow, and of sense and sorrow came amendment of life.” Margaret Fell writes: “The Eternal will deal plainly with you; it will rip you up, and lay you open … naked and bare before the Lord God, from whom you cannot hide yourself. Therefore give over the deceiving of your Souls.” [More recently] Rex Ambler writes: “It began to be clear to me that the light for them could be harsh, because it showed them everything, warts and all. In particular it highlighted their self-centeredness … No wonder they were distressed & ‘ripped up’ before they came to an experience of peace.”
Today, “convinced Friends” means “persuaded to join a Quaker meeting.” The older meaning of “convincement” is to expose & reprehend fault, to prove wrong, to convict. Light as “an invisible principle” emphasizes the eternal Christ [and is from the Greek influence\; light as pointing believers to their Savior & giving them “power over sin & temptation” emphasizes the incarnated Christ of history & [is from the Jewish influence]. We Quakers must conclude that perhaps the contradictory Hellenic and Hebraic backgrounds to theological Light are both necessary. Friends are generally able to practice the dual modes without difficulty. Protestants did not claim to have the power to walk in newness of life as a holy and sanctified people in the present world, but relied on the final judgment of Christ over the world. Howard Brinton writes: “Inward Light … is also the Inward Life. Our present challenge is to save as much life as possible: not only our own lives, but life in all its forms.”
V. Scientific Light—[Even though] we must not confuse the theological Light with natural light, how can we subtract the sun, moon, and stars? [The science of natural light has to do with wavelengths, light-scattering molecules and the mind’s interpretation of light hitting the retina]. We might understand natural light, too, as a metaphor. It may be just as mysterious as Quaker Light. Bas C. van Fraasen notes: “The problem of understanding light keeps recurring, each time in its appropriate new dress … Light is always the problem child of science … it is always escaping the conceptual box we try to put it in.”
In the early modern period, from roughly the 16th century onward, a materialistic view tended to prevail. Michael Faraday in 1846 argued that light isn’t a vibration of ether, & must consist not of substance, but of force. Clerk Maxwell labeled light as an electromagnetic disturbance in 1864. Plank proposed that atoms exchange energy in “quantums” in 1900. In 1905 Einstein predicted a fusion of the wave and quantum theories.
Arthur Zajonc declares: “If one conceives of the universe as matter or its movement, light is the exception that shatters that prejudice. The nature of light cannot be reduced to matter or its motion; it is its own thing … Are we led full circle back to light eternal and omnipresent, outside of space and time? … By now it should be evident that light possesses a nature unique to itself. Every natural assumption we make about it … leads to errors … Seeing light is a metaphor for seeing the invisible in the visible, for detecting the imaginal garment that holds our planet and all existence together.”
Let us appreciate the non-fragmented power of divine rationality implanted in us as the Light Within: that mysterious energy knitting the natural world’s myriad fragmentations into a harmony that despite every impediment, we sometimes feel in Quaker worship when we go inside to greet the Light. [Let us end with Dante’s description of] the Light that he is now vouchsafed to see: “O grace abounding & allowing me to dare/ To fix my gaze on the Eternal light,/ So deep my vision was consumed in it./ I saw how it contains within its depths./ All things bound in a single book by love/ Of which creation is the scattered leaves:/ How substance, accident, and their relation/ Were fused in such a way that what I now/ Describe is but a glimmer of that Light./
I know I saw the universal form,/ The fusion of all things, for I can feel,/ While speaking now, my heart leap up in joy.”
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209. PHILOSOPHY of the INNER LIGHT (by Michael Marsh; 1976)
About the Author—Michael Marsh was born in New York City on February 2, 1918. He became "glancingly acquainted with Quakerism" at Swarthmore College, at an American Friends Service Committee work camp; he did civilian public service during WWII. He joined Friends Meeting in Washington in 1952. He has been an economic researcher, a foreigner correspondent, and a labor lobbyist. Michael says: "This pamphlet grew out of my own experience. That included a good bit of thinking as well as feeling. The American intellectual establishment has a dogmatic disbelief in spiritual reality. This dogma intensifies human anguish."
[INTRODUCTION]/ HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT—This is the story of a seeking & a finding. It began in Friends meeting for worship. It went on to the study of various great philosophers in the Western tradition. What is the inner light, the "light within"? What is "that of God in every one"? Is it it true that the inward light is a seed of God in me? What is God? My goal wasn’t to chase words but to uncover the value of my life. What does it mean to be human? Those who discover some value in my account will be the doubters who seek, the unsatisfied humanists, the troubled skeptics, [those who see themselves as beyond insignificant].
I thought George Fox was the inventor of the inward light as an explanatory concept. But many Western philosophers, from Plato onwards, have written of the inner light as the foundation of our knowing. A partial listing includes: Philo Judaeus, John the Evangelist, Plotinus (3rd century), Augustine (4th & 5th century), Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Meister Eckhart (all 3 from the Middle Ages), Jakob Boehme (17th century), George Fox, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz. When Quakers speak of a light within, we are not dealing with some esoteric idea of our own. Some of the greatest minds in the history of the planet have shared it.
LIGHT AS A METAPHOR/ SEEING INWARDLY—Several philosophers stated explicitly that the term "inner light" is a metaphor. We are comparing what happens within us, in our minds, with what happens outside us, in a world lit by physical light. Both kinds of light function variably: sometimes bright, sometimes dim, sometimes leaving us in darkness. Like the sun, inward light both illumines and enables mind to grow. Neither the outer light nor the inner light need be visible in itself; the light makes visible. The inner light as a medium reveals to us ideas or relationships toward which we open our mind's eye.
Sitting in meeting for worship Sunday after Sunday, never once did I see anything like a light. After learning from philosophers that I need not see the light, I went back to meeting, and began to practice the presence of the light and found I could use it. Some people do at times see an intense and extraordinary spiritual light that they identify as divine, among them the apostle Paul, Augustine, and Pascal. What are we, who have not seen the inner light to make of the testimony of those who have?
Human experience discloses at least the 4 major perspectives of truth, love, moral rightness & beauty, in which the mind’s light seems to operate. Each perspective provides us with a meaning, often called an insight. The insight may be positive or negative, true or not-true, love or not-love, right or not-right, beautiful or not-beautiful. Each of us has a different measure of light available, whether from our differing endowments or differing skill in using the light. Many insights may come while we actively make, do, or create in the world.
PERSPECTIVE OF TRUTH/ PERSPECTIVE OF LOVE—In truth the simplest & most immediate insights are the relations of numbers or position for example, available in perception here & now. This kind of knowledge serves as the foundation of all we know about the world. A 2nd kind of truth is that laid bare by logical or mathematical proofs or demonstrations. A 3rd kind of truth that we see inwardly is explanations. To know the truth of events we haven't directly experienced we must picture these events somehow in our mind's eye. The Copernican insight explains the planetary motions as a whole more simply & harmoniously than our own direct experience does. Leibniz observed, "It is only with the eyes of understanding that we can place ourselves in a point of view which the eyes of the body don't & can't occupy." [Discernment of these explanations come, as] W. E. Hocking describes: "not as a gift from pre-arranged discernment, but through some intimate cooperation of thinker & objects, [which results in] the viable idea striving for birth." Without capacity for inward vision neither science nor art could exist. The inward vision must prove itself in the outer world. Its truth must be tested.
A 2nd perspective for inward vision is love, any attraction, any impulsion-toward. How cold that sounds, when one's veins seem touched by fire, the other person takes on a new light, & our own eyes must shine so bright they'll betray what's within. Any human love partakes of 3 levels of thinking: animal appetite; desire to possess; empathy with the other's inwardness. We seek our own sensual pleasure. [Lasting love must have meaning beyond this]. [However] not even the highest upward displacement of love—of God or in mystical union—can free itself utterly of the base appetite, so long as the lover remains human.
At the 2nd level of the love perspective is the desire to possess. Directed toward other persons this kind of love poses problems, as another person can never be property. This kind of love may be [deflected] onto work-objects, creative-objects, material possessions. A degree of detachment toward all possessions may serve us best. The 3rd level of love rises to empathy with inwardness of the other person. It treats the other as subject not object, not my possession but my other self. Here I develop the I-Thou relation. So long as I exist on this level (though often pulled below it to the 1st & 2nd levels of loving or to not-love), so long do I gain some access to my beloved's inner being, but never the full unity I yearn for. All human loves participate in sensual appetite, possessive desire for the love-object, & [uniting with the other's inwardness]. Some of us experience a 4th level in loving God. We may find ourselves in a holy, transcendent presence, or in an extraordinary mystical union with an undefined presence. In either version God may illumine us.
PERSPECTIVE OF RIGHTNESS/ PERSPECTIVE OF BEAUTY—In the perspective of rightness we also find a kind of light at work. Every normal person develops internalized guides which invoke the moral "ought." Sigmund Freud suggested the source is parental authority. Lawrence Kohlberg found successive stages of morality that he labeled pre-conventional, conventional, & post-conventional. Only a minority of people reach the post-conventional or highest stage. Certain maxims are very widespread, such as the Golden Rule & Augustine's propositions. The person who finally accepts the guide of rightness is said to "see the light." The inner light in its moral perspective amounts to a capacity within us to achieve that perspective. The more I can free myself from passion, desire & interest, & open myself to pure morality of the light, the higher it will pull me, possibly too high. Following one perspective exclusively will twist me out of shape.
In the perspective of beauty we view things with new eyes. We experience them as being valuable in themselves. The breadth and depth of an object's harmony is used to judge its beauty. The complexity of harmonic relations, and the variability of backgrounds and tastes that each brings to it, account for the wide variation in judgments of beauty. Anyone's judgment of beauty seems largely subjective. Viewed from within, beauty seems wholly out there. "Sinking my identity" into a work of art, as Bernard Berenson puts it, is a capacity made available by a certain aspect of the light within. [As to making art], Nietzsche wrote: "Something profoundly convulsive & disturbing suddenly becomes visible and audible with indescribable definiteness and exactness."
Or Picasso: "I divined it, I saw it, I made it, and yet next day I myself don't see what I've done." William Blake had his inner eye: "[Where one might see the sun as] a round disk of fire something like a gold piece ... I see an innumerable company of the Heavenly host ... I look through my bodily eye, [like a window], and not with it." Some philosophers have found in beauty the highest of values. Each perspective offers meaningful interpretations, drawing on our past experience but going beyond that experience. Each of these perspectives operates by means of a capacity that enlightens, that we may call an inner light.
USING THE INNER LIGHT/ NATURAL OR DIVINE—I began to see how I might use inner light to help with my problems. I could use it to open myself to light’s perspective on my own needs. I would bring to meeting a problem, perhaps with full awareness of it, perhaps only half aware. I don't begin by thinking about it. I need to distance it, to lay it quietly in the light. I 1st try to settle, taking a relaxed posture, absorbing the room & people; I begin to center down. [Stray] thoughts drift through me; I examine them & lay them aside. Then a wisp & if I am alert to it, & open, I find that more emerges. I've been give a new view of the problem I brought with me, often with a call to act. I still find this approach very helpful. But clearly I wasn't worshiping. I was making use of my own mental powers. [What I found when] I would center down was emptiness for a moment or two. Surely I'd need more evidence before identifying this emptiness as a seed of God. I was not at the end of my search but still in the midst of it. What is the inner light, not as a metaphor but in reality?
On the inner light question I discovered a deep division among philosophers and religious thinkers, [anywhere from a natural light of reason on one end, to an inner divine light on the other, to somewhere in the middle]. Why not simply believe? Too many people have been swayed by unjustified beliefs, even noble beliefs, into foolish or wicked acts. How many crimes have been committed in the name of religion? I could not simply believe, yet perpetual doubt seemed equally stupid. I can't escape choosing. John Locke wrote: "[The person who] will not give himself up to all the extravagances of delusion and error must bring this guide of his light within to the trial" [of reason]. Rufus Jones held that a sound spiritual religion should "supplement its more or less capricious and subjective, and always fragmentary mystical insights with the steady and unwavering testimony of Reason ... and with objective illumination of History."
TEST FOR TRUE BELIEF—5 tests of reason are widely used for testing the truth of any belief: ease of mind or absence of doubt; reputable authority; general consensus; correspondence with evidence; coherence. Do not accept any [belief or] spiritual leading or act, until your mind has weighed it well and is at ease with it. This alone can't lead me to a divinity within. Reputable authority may be a news-source, book, teacher, parent, wise friend, political leader, doctor, scientist, learned treatise. Locke, Fox, Rufus Jones and many others suggest the Bible for testing our own insights. With the spiritual authority of many who speak in it. They and others form the "illumination of History." Reliance on authority is what I now was seeking to avoid.
A large class of socially objective beliefs may be tested by the general consensus about them. [On the other hand], God's existence, whether within me or beyond me, depends not on social consensus but on the nature of reality. Correspondence with evidence is used most notably by scientists, also detectives, reporters, lawyers, & housewives. The experimental evidence from experiencing God is private, & it is hard to develop predictions from it. Does the belief fit coherently with the whole body of our knowledge, or with relevant specialized knowledge? I pose 2 questions: Is it plausible that all inner light's operations in the various perspectives are reducible to organic brain functioning? Is it plausible that the capacity for these operations is an aspect of God functioning in us?
BRAIN AND MIND—Clearly the brain is our body's central control center. It receives & processes information & monitors bodily functions. Does the brain do the whole job of our mind? [Let's relate brain function to] some aspects of the 4 perspectives discussed earlier. People have been seeing various math axioms & theorems in a similar way ever since Euclid. We feel a binding power from the ancient Golden Rule & other moral principles. Uniformity of these ideas can scarcely be explained in full as reactions in our so-different brains. Nor does it seem likely that a pattern for these ideas could be carried by the genetic code in our body cells.
The scientific insights of minds with extraordinary visions of nature have moved the race remarkably far toward the truth about how the universe works. How is it possible that some of our minds can get so well attuned to entities we can never handle, that we're able to formulate workable laws about how they function? Charles Peirce writes: "Modern science has been built after the model of Galileo, who founded it, on il lume naturale [i.e. "the natural understanding," the simpler, more natural of 2 hypotheses is best] ... Unless man have a natural bent in accordance with nature's, he has no chance of understanding nature at all ... it follows that man has some divinatory power, primary or derived." The power to leap toward truth, not by building on past ... thoughts but overthrowing them, can scarcely be reduced to the brain cells' movements.
HUMAN INNERNESS/ AN ASPECT OF GOD?—My experience of innerness, the most fundamental experience of human beings, corresponds to nothing observable in the physical realm, including the mini-realm of brain cells. William James writes: "between the mind's own changes being successive ... from 'not yet,' to [the now instant], to 'gone,' & knowing their own succession, lies as broad a chasm as between the object/ subject of any case of cognition." My brain cells provide me with no means to collect past experiences separated by time into an imagery-clustered sequence of memories, nor the means to collect future plans & fears & dreams into imagery that never before appeared this way. Missing too, from the brain is the subjective "I," that decides, that undergoes the experience of living, that remembers the highlights of life, not as neural traces but as sets of dim but evocative snapshots ranged in order of time. Uniform abstract ideas, divinatory power of nature-insight, & personal innerness don’t reduce to brain functioning alone. [The brain isn’t the pinnacle of the inner light process].
Is the inner light literally an aspect of God in us? Is there a God? What is God? The word 'God' has too many different meanings, too many overtones and undertones. I would deal instead with Ultimate Explanation, meaning by this the minimum nature of God. The principle that everything has an explanation is a basic postulate for understanding the world. The scientific explanation offered for many events is a formula based on the probability of event B following event A in Context C. We know only a part of the explanation for event B. In some cases we shall never know more than statistical laws. Even a quantum event has come explanation, though our instruments cannot reach it. As we strive to explain all that happens, we reach the foundations of the laws of nature, which is made up of principles of logic/mathematics and space or spacetime and temporality or inward existential time. [Besides the laws of nature and its ingredients, there is the foundation] of the universe's vast, creative evolving fund of energy.
ULTIMATE EXPLANATION—The laws of nature as we now formulate them are clearly not the complete & ultimate Laws of Nature that actually rule. Logic & Mathematics as we now know them aren't necessarily the Formal Structure in full reality. Space, Spacetime, inward time is only our [finite] experience of Immensity & the Eternal Now. The Ultimate Explanation lies behind what we now know of these things. It creates & sustains the universe & every component in it, including us. It seems likely that the inner light is God functioning in us. It is God as the Ultimate Knower & [uniter] of the [ultimate] Laws of Nature, Formal Structure, Immensity, Eternal Now, & Creativity, that touches us with the inner light, enabling us creatively to seek & find explanations. The logos of John's gospel & its beginning can also mean "explanation." In the beginning, then, was the ultimate explanation, & it was with God, & it was God; God knew it.
Gradually this belief took hold in me. I found myself surprisingly sustained. Inner light truly is God’s seed in me. The short deep emptiness that had seemed so trivial in my earlier experience with the light now took on a sweet warmth. A moment's dropping down is enough. It's always present & sustaining; I needn't worry. The inner self now feels free as never before, free from doubt & dread, free to love maturely, to seek truth & beauty, to weigh rightness in a new balance. I still have far to go. Jan Luykens writes: "I thought that Godhead made its home afar,/ Enthroned beyond the moon & every star,/ & often lifted up my eyes/ Thither with deep & heartfelt sighs.// But when it pleased thee to illuminate me,/ I saw no heavenly light descend to greet me;/ But at my spirit's deepest root,/ All was lovely, all was sweet./ / Thou cam'st from the depths and outward spread,/ & like [with] a well my thirsty soul was fed./ So it was God, that thee I found/ To be ground beneath my ground."
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295. Inward Light and the New Creation: A Theological meditation upon the Center and Circumference of Quakerism (by R. Melvin Keiser; 1991)
About the Author—R. Melvin Keiser is Professor of Religious Studies at Guilford College, Greensboro, NC. Born in Philadelphia, educated at Westtown School, Earlham College, Yale Divinity, Harvard, Duke University. He works in adult education in the NCYM. He has written essays on religion and schooling in various periodicals and several religious books. He is a member of Friendship Friends Meeting in Greensboro.
Introduction/ Nature of the New Creation—The center of Quakerism is the Inward Light, its circumference the New Creation. From this underlying center and circumference flows early Friends’ way of being in the world, the peculiar nature of their spirituality, theology, ethics. I want to share not only what I see, but also the perspective from which I am looking. The Inward Light and New Creation spirituality I see in early Friends can help with contemporary issues. That spirituality affirms that God and world are inseparable because we relate both to divine presence and to interrelations with the world with: radical individuality & radical relatedness; presence of God and urge to transform society; theological thought and ethical action.
To discover and open to the Light at our center is to dwell within the total world as originally created. “World” here is the created context of our being. James Nayler writes: “As man beholds the seed growing, so he comes to see the new creation, and what he lost in the [F]all, is restored by the power of the [W]ord, the son of God ... so comes man to be reconciled to his maker in the eternal unity ...” Beneath our surface life the world, the New Creation exists in our depths as originally created; it was obscured in the Fall, not obliterated. The Light opens us to our depths; we come in touch with the original matrix of our being.
Even though the New Creation wasn’t a watchword of early Quakers, its meaning permeates their experience & thought. [For George Fox, the significance of “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition” is revealed in his vision of returning to Eden through the angel’s flaming sword: “All things were new, & all creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness, innocency, & righteousness, being renewed into God’s image by Christ Jesus ... & the Lord showed me that such as were faithful to God in the power and light of Christ, should come up into that state in which Adam was before he fell, in which the admirable works of the creation, and virtues thereof, may be known ... Great things did the Lord lead me into, and wonderful depths were opened unto me ... People in subjection to the spirit of God ... may receive the Word of wisdom, that opens all things, and come to know the hidden unity in the Eternal Being.”
Fox is given a knowledge into the heart of the world, understanding the nature & virtues, power & excellence of all creatures. Fundamental to Fox’s spirituality then is this intimate indwelling of New Creation. New Creation is our present ordinary world but as experienced in depth, illumined by the divine Light. [We tend to fragment the world into self, world, spirit, nature, mind, body]. In the depths, the Light draws us down to dwell beyond these fragmenting dichotomies.
Spirituality of the New Creation—Our spirituality doesn’t come from our initiating but rather [from silence], from letting go of control. This silent descent into ripeness is an opening to the Light-centered New Creation. The manner of our spirituality of Light & New Creation is therefore neither proclamation of the Word nor celebration of Action, but is waiting. Quaker spirituality descends in silent waiting into the depths of the world. From there, from the divine mystery, arises the Spirit’s leading & our own spirit with a felt sense of divine presence. Spirit is not an abstraction from space and time, but is always experienced in the here and now, in this circumstance by this embodied self that I am. While returning ever-again to the [formless] source [of all forms], we are always being drawn forth by the Spirit to create the forms of our personal, communal, and cultural lives.
Young Fox moves from dichotomizing spirit and world, to reducing spirit to world, to affirming the spirituality of the world as divine creation. While outwardly the world is objects in space and time, inwardly it is evil, the corrupting and destructive forces in the self. In waiting he finds an affirmation emerging that the world is in truth the creation of God, the place in which our spirit may grow in relation to the divine Spirit within.
Theology of the New Creation—The spirituality of Light and the New Creation provides the foundation for early Friends’ theological expressions of creation, sin and redemption. Creation is the context of conversion; conversion is opening to the Light; reconciliation with God by opening to the Light in the depths brings us into unity with the depths of the totality of being, with the New Creation. Early Friends speak of convincement because they are brought to stillness where they can be awakened to what is already present.
The New Creation is neither past or future; it is the present context of our being. The stress falls on divine and human presence in the present. The Quaker doctrine of creation is based on a lived sensitivity to and unity with the world [deep inside us, a world filled with divine presence]. Sin is the barrier that veils our eyes from the depths of Light and New Creation. To “give up self to die by the Cross” is to open to the uncontrollable divine depths within self and world. The knowing of life in Eden is not head knowledge but a tasting, feeling, indwelling knowing of the divine presence in the original creation.
Early Friends are reviving the doctrine that there is still “original righteousness”; Fox believes it is only obscured. The redeemed, [righteous] life is to dwell in unity with God and world knowing the true nature of creatures through a felt unity with them in God, and to act in accord with that unity. There is a minor Christian tradition that speaks of the world being made unfinished; our responsibility is to complete it. Perfection is affirmed by Fox as he is brought up into the image of God in which Adam was originally created. This is a dynamic perfection involving growth. The measure of light we have may vary from time to time; perfection lies not in completeness but in the fittingness of our response to it.
Social Testimonies in the Matrix of the New Creation—Dwelling in the New Creation explains our radical communalism. The Light is the Creator Spirit connecting us one to another in deeply knit worship or group decision & bringing us into “unity with the creation.” Friends’ ethics are shaped by relation to God & by our relations to the matrix of being, the New Creation. “That life & power which takes away occasion for war” comes from living in the power of “the covenant of peace [of the original creation], before wars & strife [in the fall].”
Simplicity as a Quaker testimony also springs from these depths. Speech, dress, and comportment should manifest inwardness of the life of the Spirit rather than pride. So also with equality, which is established in the original creation. To deal justly and live simply is to dwell in and to exhibit the fitting relations of New Creation. Within his creation-based educational concern, Fox makes education available for all regardless of class or sex.
Women Speaking in the New Creation/ Quaker Spirituality: A Life Deepening—In 1666, Margaret Fell published Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved & Allowed by Scriptures, All such as Speak by Spirit & Lord Jesus’ Power. For her, thinking while connected to the Light & the matrix of being is rigorous, specific, complex, & comprehensive. Her argument is that sexual equality existed in the original creation & that when we open to the Light within, we are restored to living in New Creation. She argues from Genesis 1:27-29. She says, “Here God joyns [Man & Woman] together in God’s own image, & makes no such distinctions & differences as men do.” Not only did God not subordinate woman to man in creation, but has never done so. The Spirit has poured out upon women as well as men. Jesus confirms sexual equality in the original creation by quoting the above Genesis passage. Fell said: “The Church of Christ is a Woman ... Those that speak against the Lord’s power, & the Spirit of the Lord speaking in a Woman, simply by reason of her Sex ...such speak against Christ & his Church.”
She takes on St. Paul’s injunction for women not to speak in the church. She says we have misunderstood his intentions. Paul subordinates women to men where they live in a fallen condition as in the unruly Corinth church. Where people have opened to the Light they no longer live under the law in the fall but live in the Spirit, in Christ’s oneness—“Christ in the Male & in the Female is one.” In her thinking God is present in each historical period performing a distinct divine action. The periods are connected with each other through God’s presence.
Every moment offers the possibility of opening to the Light & being situated in the divine matrix of the world. [Every moment that has been or will be is present in every other moment]. The universal is present in every particular. Intellect and passion are inseparable. Theology and ethics are inseparable. The Protestantism that Fell and other early Friends attacked used exclusive thinking, excluding people before Jesus from salvation, excluding Christians from present righteousness. In her metaphoric inclusiveness, she embraces the adventure of the uncertain moment of encounter with the Light interwoven with creation.
Quaker spirituality, manifest in Margaret Fell’s theological-ethical argument for sexual equality in church leadership, is shaped by her & early Friends’ discovery of living from the Light & living in New Creation. Spiritual maturing in New Creation is learning a new language, a new form of life. It is learning to be at home in the silence of being & to speak its language of Light—of the depth & the love and the fullness of being in the world.
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255. Tending the Light (by Mary E. B. Feagins; 1984)
About the Author—Mary E. B. Feagins taught for many years in the Foreign Languages Department at Guilford College. She has served on the Friends World Committee, participated in AFSC activities in North Carolina and Southeast Asia, and visited Friends Meetings in Europe. This essay grew out of an article published in THE GUILFORD REVIEW (Spring 1980) after she led a discussion on the Inner Light for a group of seekers.
[At times I can easily] believe that Jesus knew God so totally and so obediently that his energy field merged with the Divine Life and encompassed all creation, changing, through his knowledge and his self-giving the psychic climate for all, making the Holy Spirit available to all as it had never been before. William Taber
[Developing Concept of Inner Light]—[As a teenager] the metaphor of Light took on a special meaning for me: it was the essence of Life. I adopted it and used it with a sense of its importance as an indispensable symbol in the sacred stories and holy scriptures of many world religions. Light was, and still is, articulated in the Word and its articulation constitutes the Act. The Light, the Word, or the Act is not only Alpha, but also Omega and all that flows between. Uncommitted acts bear fruit just as surely as committed acts. The radiance of the Light serves me as a measurement for evaluating my thoughts words, and actions. I have learned to appreciate the concept of Light as a unifying force for all religions and recognize the potential of Inner Light for the integration and direction of myself. Discovering and attending to this is what I mean by “tending the Light.”
[The Inner Light Insights of Blanshard, Barclay, Others, and My Own]—Has the changing psychic life of the human race’s history altered appreciably the reality of the Light as perceived in varying moods and seasons? The [increased] understanding concerning our psychic nature does not seem to have altered the picture of the psychic life, nor has it decreased the difficulty we have in attending or “tending” to the Light. [Sharing] unique perspectives may add to understanding while not changing the essence of the Light, but sharing is not accomplished without some confusion and conflict.
Brand Blanshard asks: Is the inner Light to be considered “continuous with our natural powers … of a piece with our normal intelligence, taste and feeling?” The answer to this question is not the same for all Quakers. Robert Barclay answers this question with: “we do not understand this principle to be any part of man’s nature … man may apprehend in his brain a knowledge of God and spiritual things; yet that not being the right organ … it cannot profit him towards salvation, but rather hindereth … We distinguish betwixt certain knowledge and uncertain … [Certain knowledge may be obtained] by no other way than the inward immediate manifestation and revelation of God’s spirit.”
Blanshard doesn’t accept this idea of a separate organ for religious insights “discontinuous with human faculties, & beyond corruption or amendment”; I agree with Blanshard. When I need to speak or act, I am moved either to express my insight regardless of the chance of hurting those who have different views or to refrain from forcing my [imperfect understanding] of my Inner Light experience on them. As well as I can remember & understand, my own experience of the Inner Light has reached my consciousness only through my natural faculties.
Blanshard says: “More & more is the spirit of man himself conceived as the Lord’s candle.” Light shines not only from above but also through the human spirit, & I’m not surprised that some smoke, soot, & smudges frequently accompany the candle’s burning. The way of the Light is now understood to be open to the whole person, not just a separate “holy” organ or conduit. The rays of Inner Light reveal the comparative value of our choices, lead us to act or not act with a consideration of consequences, & suggest the form which action may take.
Light is sparked both from outside body through senses & from inside body through memories, dreams, & introspections. Seeking is key. Inner quiet may be fostered by outer quiet. Those fortunate to have been exposed to Jesus’ Light have responsibility to share the effects of that experience, whatever tradition that may be. Inazo Nitobe comments: “The Cosmic sense is very much the same everywhere [around the world and throughout different traditions]. Nothing confirms the identity of the human race better than this spiritual expansion.”
There are fleeting moments in which I experience this “spiritual expansion” in the midst of a miscellaneous crowd of unrelated people, [a kind of all-one-ness (?)] What is there in the human condition that impels our search for the Inner Light? Faith in the Light’s accessibility and necessity for human existence. I am impelled to seek, or the Light seems to seek me. Present in this are an alertness and expectation of mind, then a feeling of contact, [like] light flooding a room; this is for me a form a prayer.
[Experiences of Inner Light]—I was 5 years old & was skipping barefoot up an alley behind our house. Suddenly I felt completely overwhelmed in a most wonderful way by the universe’s great expanse around me. I felt a friendly observer’s presence watching over me with approval & encouragement. There was only awareness of my totally free self & of a detached friendly spirit around. I couldn’t then have called this “Inner Light.” I keep finding ever new & enriched manifestations of this earliest remembered encounter with the Light.
Sometimes I seek Inner Light when I have a great problem or need that seems beyond my control but still belongs to me. Several answers may present themselves. One answer may bear the authority & clarity to compel its acceptance; oppressive feelings vanish. I am filled with well-being & a meaning that at the time lies beyond logical comprehension, an ability to rest in my conviction of the omnipresence of energy & sustaining Light. I connect the German word Heiterkeit, which means both “serenity” & “cheerfulness” with this experience.
I don’t need to seek the Inner Light alone, [but also in] a Meeting for Worship with Friends who are gathered to seek & worship together. I didn’t grow up in this kind of communal worship. My family belonged to Methodist & Presbyterian churches; I married a Baptist minister’s son. I attended Catholic masses as a college student in Germany & at home. Tayeko Yamanouchi writes: “As I silence myself, I become more sensitive to the sounds around me, & I don’t block them out … I regulate my breathing as taught to me by my Zen friends … I feel the flow of life in me … My heart overflows with a desire to give God something … I offer God my thought, word, and actions each day, and whisper, “Please take me as I am.”
[Centering]—Some worshipers may not be used to waiting for the Spirit’s leading to arise out of communal meditation. Lacking sensitivity for following Light’s leading, they hinder what Friends call a gathered meeting. In Meeting for Worship, there is looking inward for Inner Light, & a strong awareness of others involved in the same search in worshipful silence. Insofar as I am able to concentrate on the Common Object of our search & worship, I am experiencing what I suppose Friends mean by “centering.” The Center can’t be in myself alone, even though I am looking inward to find it. It is seeking together for Inner Light that makes the difference.
Worship experiences in other church gatherings [using liturgies] sometimes involve a process of centering not altogether unlike this. Ideally, there would be a perfect balance or a complete integration of aesthetic & religious experiences of the Light; it is often difficult for me to approach that balance. I remember & treasure all the artistic means that have been able to lead me to awareness & appreciation of the Light, or Source of all beauty.
The whole idea of “centering” in order to seek the Light before any meeting, for business as well as worship, is difficult to communicate to newcomers. Members of the Society of Friends form a relatively small percentage of the Guilford College faculty, so educating faculty has become a recurring necessity. [Group politics are also a problem even though] meetings for business are supposed to proceed in a spirit of worship. To arrive at consensus requires the same concentration of effort and patience as the search for Light, [which is a part of it].
The Clerk of Faculty allows time for everyone to speak to help determine the sense of the meeting. When no one still expresses grave reservations, the Clerk asks for general approval to move ahead; [this may not be unanimous]. [It is instead a] cooperative effort to attend leadings of the Light. [If someone has an] objection strong enough to keep that person from [agreeing with the sense of the meeting, that] delays action; [not all objections do delay]. It is as important to describe seeking the Inner Light in a business session as to describe what happens in Meetings for Worship. The seeking & finding of Light is the human being’s special calling [in all matters].
[Special Gatherings of the Light/ Balancing Contrasting Values]—A handful of weekly participants in a quiet Vietnam vigil were joined by people from around the world attending the 1967 Friends World Conference. Another time Elise Boulding led our large group into the imaging of a great network of persons around the world all imagining a “world without weapons.” Universality means that any person can turn to the Inner Light at any time. Even without prayers that turn to an “unseen Other” within and beyond themselves, some children may yet catch the Light in the loving care felt around them and glowing within them. It is very sad that this should be lacking in the lives of so many unfortunate children. Seeking the Light involves me as a human being in ensuing moral action, if I would also tend the Light.
One problem faced in tending the Light is sorting out complex values involved in choosing to act morally. My greatest questions & problems aren’t related to choosing good over evil, but to choosing from among values which conflict. My own experience has demonstrated that sharing the richness of other cultures & religions has affected deeply the purity (simplicity) of my native religion. I often have to choose between conflicting values, like “prudence” & “courage.” Jesus has presented me with some of my most challenging theological problems while giving me, at the same time, guidance & courage to act. I wait for a leading that speaks to the whole person
[Loren Eiseley & Unique Glimpses of Inner Light]—Loren Eiseley recognizes an eternally creative light that has mysteriously ignited to glow & to spread (from I would say earliest creation) to the present, manifesting itself as the human soul. “In its coming man had no part.” “It isn’t of today, but of the whole journey & may lead us to the end.” In the world there is nothing to explain the world.” “This light has made us & what we are without it remains meaningless.” [Science alone] isn’t enough for human beings. It alone doesn’t make us ethical.
I believe in the constancy, the omnipresence, and the purity of the Inner Light at the same time that I recognize the uniqueness of each glimpse of it. I like the freedom to choose my belief without feeling that the object of the belief is in any way limited to my current picture or understanding. I have resented any conscious attempt to [limit the sources of Light or access to it]. Somehow I have to pursue the value of the richness of experience while preserving the value of purity. I can use the richness of music and the purity of silence as an example of this. For me, in the silence there is always music waiting to be heard.
[The Power of Words, Concepts, and Humor]—Allah by name, sheer unprismed light the silence breaking/ [The poem mentions what Krishna, Confucius, Siddhartha, & Son of God shared & what we see as if through a prism] God assumes on earth new forms to serve new ages in distress … Each [follower] shares the prism’s scale; without each one, refracted light would pale.
I want to recognize the importance of [the logos,] the Word in my own life. I was torn between the tendency to accept on faith and naïve optimism the teachings of respected and beloved elders and the tendency to question anything I could not verify by my own experience and reason. For some time I believed [I would have been better off being] born as a “chosen” Jew and then “converted” to some form of Christianity reflecting the life and teachings of Jesus. My embarrassment at never being able to claim the “saving,” [“second birth”] type of conversion was coupled with a desire to bring about a [religious experience] like St. Paul’s or St. Joan’s.
All prayerful seeking for [instant] visions and voices brought only disappointment. I gradually realized that I was free to turn myself at any time to the Light, to seek my own inner visions and to listen for the voices uniquely meant for me. [Later in life], I had a vision accompanied by Allah’s voice. I believe in his conclusion that there is need to recognize among religions the varieties of human potential for reflecting the Light.
I sense the importance of humor in our communications. What is the place for humor in our attempts to tend and share the Light through the Word? We must be able to smile tolerantly at the foibles of others, and to laugh heartily at ourselves when our errors have done harm to no more than our own over-extended, sooty and smudged egos. Konrad Lorenz considers humor an ally of moral responsibility. Short of extreme frivolity, it is clearly of great importance in the promotion of good will and tolerance and so deserves cultivation.
[Changing Vocabulary]—I am aware that growing has meant for me constant re-definition and re-interpretation of my vocabulary. Every word, every concept has its context, its place in the spectrum. It’s about the importance of relating words & concepts to a growing context, to new [perspectives]. Familiarity with another language brings much light to bear on one’s own, even if it may often be glaring. When new words & concepts from another language & culture are added to our vocabulary, there is an initial reluctance to accept them, primarily because they throw new light, on long-cherished views. [There might be value in] careful study of distinctions between what Jung meant by the individual unconscious & what he meant by the collective unconscious, the latter being a more transcendental concept. (Without Dark, there would be neither flicker nor flash of Light).
Each of us has known from history and our own day, people who impress us with their special capacity for finding and channeling the Light through their words and deeds. I believe that the Light is continuously transmitted often in quiet ways, through the lives of all who seek it. Our experiences in East Germany, along with more easily accomplished visits with Quaker Meetings in the German Federal Republic, have brought home to us the possibility of serving as “candles” of the Light.
Experiences of the Light abiding in the division & isolation in the 2 Germanies make the arguments about North American issues [dividing Meetings seem pale in comparison]. The Light is refracted & reflected in unique ways, even though the way to seek & to find it is universal. The best results of seeking & worshipping is trans-forming & reforming my very self, needed for disciplined direction of my personal actions. When faced with the “unthinkable” dilemma of a “nuclear holocaust,” each of us has a call for disciplined actions supporting or implementing ideas that are thinkable for a surviving, enlightened humanity on a living planet.
[The following is an excerpt] of the constellation of words [that took place during a meeting]: There is a universe within that I may enter … I drift into a galaxy of light-in-darkness … I follow the feeling of presences … the footprints of [Quakers] from England to India …The Cambodians have little, I am reminded by that young presence sitting inside the temple collecting signatures for voluntary fasting … remembering Vietnam Vigils … and all the creation gave unto me another smell than before beyond what words can utter … a ripple in the silence … with hands from all sides to be shaken … as I return with the endless Presence … to time and the Act.
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101. TO THE REFRESHING OF THE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT (by Geoffrey F. Nuttall; 1959)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR—Geoffrey F. Nuttall is Lecturer in Church History at New College, University of London. During the Spring & Summer Terms of 1958 Dr. Nuttall was Pendle Hill’s visiting lecturer. Among his books are: “The Holy Spirit & Ourselves”; “The Reality of Heaven”; “Studies in Christian Enthusiasm” (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #41)
FOREWORD—For one who is not a member of the Society of Friends to put out something like an open Letter to the Society may seem presumptuous. I am an English Congregationalist minister who through association has learned to love Friends and to share many Quaker convictions. The purpose of these studies is to recall Friends to some things most surely believed to invite them to consider afresh certain issues near Quakerism’s heart. If anything here speaks home to them, I hope Friends will take it seriously; all else will they overlook?
“Whatever temptations, distractions, confusions the light doth make manifest and discover, do not look at these [worldly intrusions]; but look at the light which discovers them, and makes them manifest; with the same light you may feel over them, to receive power to stand against them.” George Fox
Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the most high; who though to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not, …neither can know him; our safest eloquence is our silence. Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity
CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT—The 1st Christians were so sure that in Jesus light had come to them and to all the world, that they could speak of one another as the children of light. The phrase is use in 4 distinct places in the New Testament (NT). It is a natural expression of Friends’ belief that in them primitive Christianity was being revived. For a time it seemed as if Friends were going to adopt it as their regular appellation. George Fox, London Friends, the Elders at Balby (Yorkshire), and Nottingham Friends wrote journal entries, published declarations, and wrote letters using the phrase. Other radical Puritans, such as John Goodwin, Gerrard Winstanley, Giles Randall, Sir Harry Vane, and Continental Anabaptists also used the phrase.
2 NT passages are in the Epistles, & 2 are in the Gospels. In Eph. 5:8f (“you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord; as children of light walk; have no part in fruitless things done in the dark …). Children of the light here are the saints, whose good deeds men see, & seeing give glory to God. In I Thes. 5:2f. (“You brethren aren't in darkness that the day should come upon you like a thief; for all you are children of light & day" …”), the reference is to the coming [“endtimes”]. The phrase ‘children of…” or “sons of…” is a common Hebraic idiom used frequently in the OT. Commonly it refers back to a source of inspiration. In the NT passage it is used to look forward. Those who received Christ have become God's & the light's children & in His light they will watch.
In Luke 16:8 (“His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”). [Here Jesus shows some impatience with the starry-eyed]. The ‘children of light’ are the same as the ‘children of the resurrection. In John 12:35f (“While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become children of light”), C.H. Dodd interprets “a grave warning that for a brief space they are in the Light's presence, [but] the Son of Man is to be “lifted”; the moment of opportunity to enter into the knowledge of God will [soon] pass.”
George Fox drew inspiration from the writer of 4th the Gospel. The ethical emphasis is there, as is George Fox’s principle of loving forbearance. “The Day of the Lord” is a phrase often on Fox’s lips. [In his words] Fox is reflecting the tension of the “now” & “not yet,” the “Thy kingdom come,” & “Thine is the kingdom,” which runs throughout the New Testament. Fox yearned so to speak, & so to live, in the light of Christ, that men might rightly respond & be set free from the shades of their prison-house. This, rather than an “an emphasis on inward life and personal experience” and rather than any equation of the Light with reason or conscience, is the context of faith and experience in which Friends’ use of the name “Children of Light” can best be understood. Light awakens, reveals, exposes, liberates, and enlivens. George Fox’s untutored seizing on the phrase “Children of Light as summing up much that is most essential to the tradition is another example of his genius. What is [prescribed] is a serious and purposeful approach to life, and the self-discipline that such an approach requires.”
FRIENDS & FORMS—In 1662, The Act of Uniformity came into force, by which all ministers in England and Wales were required to have been ordained by a bishop, and to have declared their unfeigned consent and assent to everything in the Prayer Book; Friends’ meetings for worship were made illegal. It was a long struggle, but conscience and courage won the day. Within Christian worship there is room for many forms.
Where things are done in right ordering, there will often be an element of formality; but in worship itself the less formality the better. To the Nonconformists, Prayer Book worship seemed too formal, too much a vain repetition of other’s prayers, with no place for prayer inspired by God’s Spirit. Friends refrain from any pre-arrangement of these forms of worship, other than in having silence as an all-inclusive context, out of which any form may issue and into which it will die away again. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of life and creativeness, unpredictable and uncontrollable. It is still a form of worship. There can be no conjoint worship without one.
All forms are dangerous; yet some form is necessary. Anyone who attempts to think knows that one must pay close attention to the forms of his thinking, his language and reasoning. We may have intuitions without the formal steps of logical argument, but to carry the conviction that what we have seen is true to others, we have to depend largely upon the normal forms of logical presentation. The forms in which we think & express ourselves are to a considerable extent shaped & controlled by the time in which we live & by the country to which we belong. The history of thought quickly reveals that there are no “absolute” thought-forms. Every artist, like every thinker, knows that, though he may discard the traditional forms, he must find, accept and attend to some form.
Friends will do well not to say that they have no form of worship but to study the forms of worship they have and how to keep their worship a living form of worship. Ulrich Zwingli proclaimed the non-necessity of any particular form. The Spirit of God is a free Spirit, able to reveal Himself without perceptible mediation and not confined to any form. [When men worship in a dead form, the Spirit creates new forms].
Universalism [of salvation] is as untrue to the facts of life as is uniformity. If everyone were born at the same time & place with the same opportunities, life would be fair; it isn't so. God has set all within many variations and limitations (i.e. history and personality). The Gospel is that God comes to meet us where we are, and as we are. The Gospel is that in fact God has done this. God is not tied to form, but of God’s own free love God deigns to use these forms. George Fox battled with the tendency of excessive repudiation of forms on several fronts at once. The type of person who would object to the divine revelation in the Bible of Jesus as limiting must be guarded against if the infant Society was not to break down into an unattached vague mysticism. Fox also helped provide the forms of discipline, self-government and mutual aid. If Friends will realize what they have gained through these forms, they may have a better understanding of the form’s place in religion.
JOY TO MAKE MENTION—The overflowing heart & mind are so evidently a mark of primitive Christianity that it would be strange if they didn't reappear in seeking after a “primitive Christianity revived.” The Christian overflow was in words that might bring others to share in the joy of what had happened. Jesus’ life-purpose was made up of seeking those being lost & saving those wasting themselves away. [Service has a central place in Christianity]. The commonest use of the word is to denote simply ministry in all its many forms. [Jesus also used words & asked others to do so]. Go home & tell them what great things the Lord hath done for thee, in having compassion on thee. Though commanded not to speak, the apostles ceased not to teach & to preach.
George Fox could be silent for 3 hours and could speak for 3 hours. It is unfortunate when Friends retain the experimental emphasis but not the reference to a higher control. George said to a priest: “Experience is one thing, but to go with a message and a word from the Lord, as the prophet and apostles had and did, …this was another thing.” Throughout the Bible, being sent with a word from the Lord is a prime and continuing element. Those who are to minister, to do service, do it not as unto men but unto the Lord.
For regular & sustained ministry only some are called & given the right gifts. The ministry of gifts degenerated into a ministry only of function, status or profession. [Friends sought to] depend once more on ministry genuinely & solely charismatic; it was, once again, part of “primitive Christianity revived.” “Recording” ministers bore witness to the Society’s belief in this form of ministry. The desire to distribute responsibility for vocal ministry as widely as possible betrays secular influence, or a misunderstanding of this ministry as God-given.
William Penn said: “The ministry needs to be held, preserved & continued. Nor is it enough that we have known the Divine gift, have reached to spirits in prison, & have been used to convince others, if we keep not as low & poor in ourselves, & as depending upon the Lord as ever.” Today it is laid upon all to come with minds as well as hearts prepared. Neave Bradshaw said: “Our way of worship & concept of ministry gives [us] no excuse from our prayer and love, our watchfulness and expectation being less than [a non-Quaker minister].” Caroline Stephens writes: “The result we look for is the fruit of a devout intelligence, 1st purified and then swayed, by the immediate action of Divine power.” Violet Holdsworth adds the idea that ministry, or the preparation for it, will cost something. There will not be water or wine, unless there are willing-hearted servants to draw it.
FRIENDS, THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH—[In the 2nd half of the 20th century], it is biblical religion, the biblical revelation of God, which attention is given, a living integrated complex of faith and experience; and it is a whole with Christ as the center, touchstone and key. Jesus’ message makes intelligible and gives authority and unity to the different parts of the Bible. The Church is seen today as an expression of the direct purpose of God, who calls men out of the world, to live together for His glory.
[It is best when] Bible and Church are held together; the Bible as the People of God’s book, and the Church as the company of those who live by biblical religion. We find God in Christ, and through Christ, come close to us and drawing out the best in us and damping down the worst or overcoming it. Christ’s authority alone gives Bible or Church any authority over our lives which they possess; but insofar as it is His, it is an authority which claims us. In the movement to use the new understanding of the Bible for the nourishment of the inner life, Friends should be taking a lead. George Fox wrote: “Men could not know the spiritual meaning of [anything in the Bible] or see through them into the Kingdom unless they had the Spirit and light of Jesus. [With the Spirit and Jesus] they read and understand the Scriptures with profit and great delight.”
Friends still say they believe in continuing revelation; to what purpose save as they believe in Christ’s revelation. [Many “Fox” passages] show that for Fox the Light Within was the Light of Christ, & the Christ whose Light shone within was one with Jesus of Nazareth, found in the NT. [As powerful as the Light is, it isn’t personal]; it doesn’t constrain; it doesn’t call to action, move our wills or evoke obedience. [For that St. Paul, George Fox, & James Naylor] heard a voice. [Friends need to show] utter, present commitment & devotion in the things of everyday to the Lord, & reverence to Scriptures & the Church for Christ’s Light & Voice to be found in them.
How can Friends make their distinctive contribution of Christian Pacifism within the World Church? Fox 1st directed men to the light of Christ, that men may “see their Savior Christ Jesus, their way to God.” [Friends gifts to Non- Friends include]: a strongly personal quality in Friends worship; Friends sensitivity to the Spirit’s movement; Friends seeking to answer that of God in every one; Friends discerning of others’ condition; Friends faith in finding a way of God in every situation.
Not one of those gifts is possible save as, besides being sensitive to the light of Christ, we are also obedient to His Voice. The 5th Query in the Christian Discipline of London Yearly Meeting is: Do you maintain a steadfast loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ? A Quaker poet wrote: “O Lord and Master of us all,/Whate’er our name or sign,/We own thy sway, we hear Thy call,/We test our lives by Thine. [For some] they are familiar; [for all] they are worth dwelling on.
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471. Living Fellowship Needs Fresh Forms (by Daphne Clement; 2021)
About the Author—Daphne Clement, doctor of ministry and board certified chaplain, is a member of Durham (ME) Meeting; she served as minister there (2011-2013). At Atlanta Friends Meeting, she founded a Spiritual Nurture Group and wrote PHP #373, Group Spiritual Nurture (GSN): The Wisdom of Spiritual Listening (by Daphne Clement; 2004). During Covid-19 she worshiped daily in a waiting worship group on Zoom, started at Allen’s Neck Friends’ Meeting, South Dartmouth (MA), 7:50-9:00am (EST). The lockdown became a life-sustaining spiritual retreat.
Truth cannot possibly be found in the conversation’s conclusion; … conclusions keep changing … We must find a way to live in the continuing conversation ... while [being guided by] our own inner teachers. Parker Palmer
William Braithwaite writes that a living faith born of continuing revelation always precedes organized institutions, and: “Organization is a good servant but a bad master … the Church must remain free to mold organization into fresh forms demanded by its own growth and changing … times. [Without freedom], the Church … and its service … becomes dwarfed or paralyzed.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed every-day conclusions about what’s important in daily life. The daily Zoom meeting [mentioned in the About the Author section] opened a path toward “living in Truth,” the continual conversation with Spirit, and being in touch with our inner teacher. While change like this can offer freedom, the loss of familiar, long-held tradition can be deeply disturbing.
I found a story about the “the New Lights” Friends of New Bedford; it illustrates the tension between tradition's authority and stability and continuing revelation’s freedom and change. Some rely on the Bible as guide; some rely on their inner guide and continuing revelation. I use the Greek myth of Narcissus to teach about how a community “living in Truth” can minister to those preoccupied with image instead of substance. Estrangement from essence deepens isolation and increases distances in all relationships. How can we heal the many divisions among us? How can we create communities that love one another? How can we learn to nurture Spirit, really care for each other, and build a wide and meaningful community in our country and the world?
A Fresh Form: Daily Worship on Zoom—The COVID lockdown changed everything, requiring us to turn inward. Allen’s Neck Meeting began a morning waiting worship on Zoom, 6 days a week. Eventually we met from 7:50 to 9:00 am; as many as 17 gathered, with 2 from the UK. How does this morning worship affect your day? There has been many very satisfying gatherings of all sorts through Zoom. We feel gathered and “fathoms deep” in our Zoom waiting worship.
On Zoom, it is the people who are the meetinghouse, and they take real spiritual sustenance from this morning worship. Daily worship opens one to listening and learning from the inner voice, and helps one stay in worship through the day.” One is more able to accept the world as it is. Our worship together has been the living fellowship and the organization we need to sustain practice. What “rules” do we tend to abide by in the group? We have no introductions, no announcements, and no coffee hour. We seem to lean toward each other in Spirit and get close in a deeper, truer way. Our Zoom community formed around worship and practice; There is often little or no vocal ministry. Friends have carried health concerns into worship, and have “held each other up with a tender hand.” Towards the end of worship we become more sensitive to each other, our souls are no longer shy, and distances between us are bridged; we hesitate to close and often go past 9. We have “bubbling ministry from a 1 ½-year old.” Zoom worship has restored community, and made us all more hopeful.
Queries—What will become of online worship when the world returns to normal? How can a Beloved [Zoom] Community, created in crisis, be sustained when things change? How will technology shape our communities going forward? What are the future possibilities for this sort of community among Friends? How might small groups of spiritually alive people make a difference in the world?
Tradition and Continuing Revelation—More than many faith groups, the Friend's society has the freedom and capacity to adapt to change. This may may still cause stress and division within the meeting community. [There are drawbacks to blindly clinging to tradition in the midst of change, and to mistakenly seeing continuing revelation in, for example a misguided, literal “imitation of Christ” [i.e. James Nayler’s ride into Bristol]]. It seems that meeting communities must balance, must hold in tension that which conserves tradition and that which liberates and wants to do new things. [Failure of larger groups of Friends to embrace this tension, has led to division into more and smaller groups of Friends].
The New Light Movement of New Bedford (1820’s)—When my family moved to New Bedford, my attention turned to New Bedford’s abolitionists, early Friends, and the New Light Movement. In the 1820’s, fresh forms were seeking an outlet in Quaker communities. The “Old Lights” and tradition resisted and constrained. Old Light practices included: strict pacifism; plain speech and dress; no music, dance, or amusements; strict reliance on the Bible; belief in the Devil.
The New Light Movement began with the ministry of Mary Newhall of Lynn, MA. The New Light, the Light within was the inner guide & teacher, the Living Christ’s Light & was to be relied on in all things. The Bible was allegory, metaphor, & not to be taken literally; “heaven & hell weren’t [places] ... but states of mind to be experienced …” Newhall’s “... heresy was denial of Jesus Christ’s full divinity & the efficacy of his atonement.” Much of the “history” available on any divisive subject is distilled into the “winning side’s” viewpoint. Little can be learned about the opposing view.
[The one-sided description] of New Bedford’s New Light Movement was of hysterical, disruptive, disorderly meetings and “frequenting places of public amusement." Mary Rotch and Elizabeth Rodman, central figures in the New Light Movement, were seated on the meeting elders' high bench until they were written out of meeting along with many others. The Old Lights of New Bedford Meeting "dissolved" rather than resolved the divisions in their meeting. New Lights attempted to meet outside of meeting, but without structure, discipline, authority and places of worship, the Movement could not long be sustained. New England New Lights aligned with Elias Hicks in the Hicksite & Orthodox divisions of 1824-26. One attended Unitarian church and became friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Continuing revelation can’t always be maintained; the Spirit’s movement can feel disruptive. We need institutions, yet institutions often have difficulty responding faithfully to the Spirit’s leadings. Both Old and New Lights may have glimpses of the same truth. Surely Old Lights hoped to continue dwelling together in God, while the New Lights’ prophetic burst hoped to bring into the Society of Friends a sort of resurrection and freshening of the community's spiritual life. Finding the tradition-continuing revelation balance can require more Light than many of us have the capacity to allow. We must seek to understand and love each other as we do ourselves.
Queries—Why is living in witness to the Light, the Living Christ's Light, so difficult? Why were New Lights unable to sustain cohesive community? What were the Old Lights afraid of? What is the right degree of discipline, and who is responsible for it? How can we balance tradition and continuing revelation in our meetings and institutions? What is keeping the Society of Friends divided? How can we better understand ourselves and each other? How can we grow together through conflict instead of splintering?
The Bible and Continuing Revelation—Different biblical interpretations and emphases continue to be a real cause of division among Friends. Some find history and metaphor for the spiritual life; some find continuing revelation right there in those pages; some rarely or never read the Bible at all. There are different messages in Bible [e.g. “I will do a new thing” (Isaiah 43: 19)” or Ezekiel’s vision of God separating the sheep (saved faithful) from the goats (unsaved unfaithful)]. How one reads the Bible colors ones views of who we are as a people; for many it is deeply and spiritually formative. Michael Birkel is a Christian Spirituality professor. He is impressed with how Hebrew writers did not seek to whitewash the text, while many of us strive to be good by denying much that is in our human nature.
Throughout Quaker history, there have been prophetic burst of Spirit. Friends will often be understood to be “continuing revelation” and be led toward new ways of understanding and acting on the needs of the time [e.g. abolition, women’s rights; testimonies against war; founding American Friends Service Committee]. We need to hold up the prophetic bursts of continuing revelation into the Light of our inward teacher and to test them in community, [to see how much is personal will, and how much is true leading. Today we place the human will first with God responding to us, when originally God’s will was the “action of God’s Love in the [waiting, responding] human heart.” We may hope that the fruits of our faith could produce within the Society of Friends a true appreciation of an “us” & “them,” rather than an “us or them” viewpoint.
What Divides Us?—There is considerable confusion between personal image and real essence. The division between soul and identity begins early in childhood and continues as vocational identities are formed. This division suggests that it is within ourselves we become divided. Living a divided Life, living apart from consistent awareness of the divine Light, leaves individuals feeling deeply alone. It can be difficult for the divided self to bear with different customs, cultures, races, and religions. We look outside the Self for sameness. “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” This dividedness in our culture today appears as a longing for even greater individual freedom.
Queries—Why have people and cultures tended to defend against all differences? How can we heal the divisions among us, especially the divisions that refuse to welcome the “other,” and God’s creative diversity? How do we avoid “outrunning the Guide,” or being too attached to a personal point of view to be available to understand others?
Identity and Loneliness as the Source of Division: The Narcissus Story Retold—The myth of Narcissus reveals the root of the narcissistic condition. This term comes from the Greek word meaning “numb-ness,” or “torpor.” Today this myth might describe the shy-soul numbness that Park Palmer suggests many people are now experiencing. [When Narcissus spurned the love of Echo, a nymph, Nemesis caused him to fall in love with his own reflection. Unable to grasp this image, Narcissus pined away and became a flower].
Narcissus sat by the pool, a safe place for inner reflection; the pool can be a symbol of the human soul, the depth of life, and the living water. He misjudges the pool’s depth, and becomes fascinated with his own image on the pool’s surface. What might Narcissus’ experience have been had he been sitting at the pool’s edge regularly with a community of wise and weighty Friends? In community, he might have had a more authentic and deeper experience of himself. I seek to emphasize Narcissus’ isolation, loneliness, numbness and torpor. [He settled for reflecting on his outer image and substance, rather than his inner teacher and essence.
The community's task is to recognize the living water’s depth without identifying with surface images, or clinging to familiar images and tradition, thereby narrowly excluding any new images, as the “Old Lights” of New Bedford did. In morning waiting worship during the pandemic, the shared presence we experience we share is beyond personal, individual and image; it is essential communion. It’s through image that we begin to express ourselves. The opportunity of going deeper has the potential of healing the many divisions both within the self and in the world.
Holding in the Light without Agenda/ A Hidden Wholeness (Resurrection) Every Day—How can we meet each other, soul to soul, when we can’t keep from having an agenda of our own for change? We can hold each other in the Light, so that they will be more attuned to God’s will & grace. What is needed is that same opening into the Light which Zoom morning worship Friends have come to experience. Hold all differences and agendas for change in the Light, first; then, follow its guidance. “The Light is with us always & everywhere.”
There is indeed a “hidden wholeness” here on earth. We have not understood the glory of all God’s creation or this wholeness, connectedness. In stead of spending the spring of 2020 in a Pendle Hill course, an inquiry in to the differences between Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity’s understanding of resurrection, I spent the year with experiential learning instead; daily worship has been my teacher. The experience of Zoom worship has been described as: “It’s like a beach on an island. Sitting to worship, I begin the day with grace. I have more capacity to accept [the difficult] ‘what is.’ I get to this beach on this island, and my life is grounded there.” How will our everyday Zoom worship endure [after the pandemic]? Because “fresh forms are demanded by the Church’s growth and the changing needs of the time,” other forms may come to be. We will just have to wait and see.
William Braithwaite writes that a living faith born of continuing revelation always precedes organized institutions, and: “Organization is a good servant but a bad master … the Church must remain free to mold organization into fresh forms demanded by its own growth and changing … times. [Without freedom], the Church … and its service … becomes dwarfed or paralyzed.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed every-day conclusions about what’s important in daily life. The daily Zoom meeting [mentioned in the About the Author section] opened a path toward “living in Truth,” the continual conversation with Spirit, and being in touch with our inner teacher. While change like this can offer freedom, the loss of familiar, long-held tradition can be deeply disturbing.
I found a story about the “the New Lights” Friends of New Bedford; it illustrates the tension between tradition's authority and stability and continuing revelation’s freedom and change. Some rely on the Bible as guide; some rely on their inner guide and continuing revelation. I use the Greek myth of Narcissus to teach about how a community “living in Truth” can minister to those preoccupied with image instead of substance. Estrangement from essence deepens isolation and increases distances in all relationships. How can we heal the many divisions among us? How can we create communities that love one another? How can we learn to nurture Spirit, really care for each other, and build a wide and meaningful community in our country and the world?
A Fresh Form: Daily Worship on Zoom—The COVID lockdown changed everything, requiring us to turn inward. Allen’s Neck Meeting began a morning waiting worship on Zoom, 6 days a week. Eventually we met from 7:50 to 9:00 am; as many as 17 gathered, with 2 from the UK. How does this morning worship affect your day? There has been many very satisfying gatherings of all sorts through Zoom. We feel gathered and “fathoms deep” in our Zoom waiting worship.
On Zoom, it is the people who are the meetinghouse, and they take real spiritual sustenance from this morning worship. Daily worship opens one to listening and learning from the inner voice, and helps one stay in worship through the day.” One is more able to accept the world as it is. Our worship together has been the living fellowship and the organization we need to sustain practice. What “rules” do we tend to abide by in the group? We have no introductions, no announcements, and no coffee hour. We seem to lean toward each other in Spirit and get close in a deeper, truer way. Our Zoom community formed around worship and practice; There is often little or no vocal ministry. Friends have carried health concerns into worship, and have “held each other up with a tender hand.” Towards the end of worship we become more sensitive to each other, our souls are no longer shy, and distances between us are bridged; we hesitate to close and often go past 9. We have “bubbling ministry from a 1 ½-year old.” Zoom worship has restored community, and made us all more hopeful.
Queries—What will become of online worship when the world returns to normal? How can a Beloved [Zoom] Community, created in crisis, be sustained when things change? How will technology shape our communities going forward? What are the future possibilities for this sort of community among Friends? How might small groups of spiritually alive people make a difference in the world?
Tradition and Continuing Revelation—More than many faith groups, the Friend's society has the freedom and capacity to adapt to change. This may may still cause stress and division within the meeting community. [There are drawbacks to blindly clinging to tradition in the midst of change, and to mistakenly seeing continuing revelation in, for example a misguided, literal “imitation of Christ” [i.e. James Nayler’s ride into Bristol]]. It seems that meeting communities must balance, must hold in tension that which conserves tradition and that which liberates and wants to do new things. [Failure of larger groups of Friends to embrace this tension, has led to division into more and smaller groups of Friends].
The New Light Movement of New Bedford (1820’s)—When my family moved to New Bedford, my attention turned to New Bedford’s abolitionists, early Friends, and the New Light Movement. In the 1820’s, fresh forms were seeking an outlet in Quaker communities. The “Old Lights” and tradition resisted and constrained. Old Light practices included: strict pacifism; plain speech and dress; no music, dance, or amusements; strict reliance on the Bible; belief in the Devil.
The New Light Movement began with the ministry of Mary Newhall of Lynn, MA. The New Light, the Light within was the inner guide & teacher, the Living Christ’s Light & was to be relied on in all things. The Bible was allegory, metaphor, & not to be taken literally; “heaven & hell weren’t [places] ... but states of mind to be experienced …” Newhall’s “... heresy was denial of Jesus Christ’s full divinity & the efficacy of his atonement.” Much of the “history” available on any divisive subject is distilled into the “winning side’s” viewpoint. Little can be learned about the opposing view.
[The one-sided description] of New Bedford’s New Light Movement was of hysterical, disruptive, disorderly meetings and “frequenting places of public amusement." Mary Rotch and Elizabeth Rodman, central figures in the New Light Movement, were seated on the meeting elders' high bench until they were written out of meeting along with many others. The Old Lights of New Bedford Meeting "dissolved" rather than resolved the divisions in their meeting. New Lights attempted to meet outside of meeting, but without structure, discipline, authority and places of worship, the Movement could not long be sustained. New England New Lights aligned with Elias Hicks in the Hicksite & Orthodox divisions of 1824-26. One attended Unitarian church and became friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Continuing revelation can’t always be maintained; the Spirit’s movement can feel disruptive. We need institutions, yet institutions often have difficulty responding faithfully to the Spirit’s leadings. Both Old and New Lights may have glimpses of the same truth. Surely Old Lights hoped to continue dwelling together in God, while the New Lights’ prophetic burst hoped to bring into the Society of Friends a sort of resurrection and freshening of the community's spiritual life. Finding the tradition-continuing revelation balance can require more Light than many of us have the capacity to allow. We must seek to understand and love each other as we do ourselves.
Queries—Why is living in witness to the Light, the Living Christ's Light, so difficult? Why were New Lights unable to sustain cohesive community? What were the Old Lights afraid of? What is the right degree of discipline, and who is responsible for it? How can we balance tradition and continuing revelation in our meetings and institutions? What is keeping the Society of Friends divided? How can we better understand ourselves and each other? How can we grow together through conflict instead of splintering?
The Bible and Continuing Revelation—Different biblical interpretations and emphases continue to be a real cause of division among Friends. Some find history and metaphor for the spiritual life; some find continuing revelation right there in those pages; some rarely or never read the Bible at all. There are different messages in Bible [e.g. “I will do a new thing” (Isaiah 43: 19)” or Ezekiel’s vision of God separating the sheep (saved faithful) from the goats (unsaved unfaithful)]. How one reads the Bible colors ones views of who we are as a people; for many it is deeply and spiritually formative. Michael Birkel is a Christian Spirituality professor. He is impressed with how Hebrew writers did not seek to whitewash the text, while many of us strive to be good by denying much that is in our human nature.
Throughout Quaker history, there have been prophetic burst of Spirit. Friends will often be understood to be “continuing revelation” and be led toward new ways of understanding and acting on the needs of the time [e.g. abolition, women’s rights; testimonies against war; founding American Friends Service Committee]. We need to hold up the prophetic bursts of continuing revelation into the Light of our inward teacher and to test them in community, [to see how much is personal will, and how much is true leading. Today we place the human will first with God responding to us, when originally God’s will was the “action of God’s Love in the [waiting, responding] human heart.” We may hope that the fruits of our faith could produce within the Society of Friends a true appreciation of an “us” & “them,” rather than an “us or them” viewpoint.
What Divides Us?—There is considerable confusion between personal image and real essence. The division between soul and identity begins early in childhood and continues as vocational identities are formed. This division suggests that it is within ourselves we become divided. Living a divided Life, living apart from consistent awareness of the divine Light, leaves individuals feeling deeply alone. It can be difficult for the divided self to bear with different customs, cultures, races, and religions. We look outside the Self for sameness. “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” This dividedness in our culture today appears as a longing for even greater individual freedom.
Queries—Why have people and cultures tended to defend against all differences? How can we heal the divisions among us, especially the divisions that refuse to welcome the “other,” and God’s creative diversity? How do we avoid “outrunning the Guide,” or being too attached to a personal point of view to be available to understand others?
Identity and Loneliness as the Source of Division: The Narcissus Story Retold—The myth of Narcissus reveals the root of the narcissistic condition. This term comes from the Greek word meaning “numb-ness,” or “torpor.” Today this myth might describe the shy-soul numbness that Park Palmer suggests many people are now experiencing. [When Narcissus spurned the love of Echo, a nymph, Nemesis caused him to fall in love with his own reflection. Unable to grasp this image, Narcissus pined away and became a flower].
Narcissus sat by the pool, a safe place for inner reflection; the pool can be a symbol of the human soul, the depth of life, and the living water. He misjudges the pool’s depth, and becomes fascinated with his own image on the pool’s surface. What might Narcissus’ experience have been had he been sitting at the pool’s edge regularly with a community of wise and weighty Friends? In community, he might have had a more authentic and deeper experience of himself. I seek to emphasize Narcissus’ isolation, loneliness, numbness and torpor. [He settled for reflecting on his outer image and substance, rather than his inner teacher and essence.
The community's task is to recognize the living water’s depth without identifying with surface images, or clinging to familiar images and tradition, thereby narrowly excluding any new images, as the “Old Lights” of New Bedford did. In morning waiting worship during the pandemic, the shared presence we experience we share is beyond personal, individual and image; it is essential communion. It’s through image that we begin to express ourselves. The opportunity of going deeper has the potential of healing the many divisions both within the self and in the world.
Holding in the Light without Agenda/ A Hidden Wholeness (Resurrection) Every Day—How can we meet each other, soul to soul, when we can’t keep from having an agenda of our own for change? We can hold each other in the Light, so that they will be more attuned to God’s will & grace. What is needed is that same opening into the Light which Zoom morning worship Friends have come to experience. Hold all differences and agendas for change in the Light, first; then, follow its guidance. “The Light is with us always & everywhere.”
There is indeed a “hidden wholeness” here on earth. We have not understood the glory of all God’s creation or this wholeness, connectedness. In stead of spending the spring of 2020 in a Pendle Hill course, an inquiry in to the differences between Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity’s understanding of resurrection, I spent the year with experiential learning instead; daily worship has been my teacher. The experience of Zoom worship has been described as: “It’s like a beach on an island. Sitting to worship, I begin the day with grace. I have more capacity to accept [the difficult] ‘what is.’ I get to this beach on this island, and my life is grounded there.” How will our everyday Zoom worship endure [after the pandemic]? Because “fresh forms are demanded by the Church’s growth and the changing needs of the time,” other forms may come to be. We will just have to wait and see.
See also 278. Education & Inward Teacher (by Paul A. Lacey; 1988); Web Address:
https://topicalquakerquickread.blogspot.com/2021/02/quaker-education.html
CHILDREN & FAMILY
315. Answering that of God in Children (by Harriet Heath; 1994)
About the Author/Foreword—Harriet Heath is the mother of 3 and grandmother of 8; she became a Quaker after graduating from college. Implementing Quaker values while living and working with children became part of her spiritual journey. As a psychologist, she works with parents and families through the counseling service of the Family Relations Committee and the Religious Education Committee. The recognition of the need for this pamphlet and its writing has evolved over several years. The author hopes that it will give insights as to how Quaker values can guide their daily lives with children, [and find that of God in them].
222. The family as a way into the future (by Elise Boulding; 1978)
315. Answering that of God in Children (by Harriet Heath; 1994)
About the Author/Foreword—Harriet Heath is the mother of 3 and grandmother of 8; she became a Quaker after graduating from college. Implementing Quaker values while living and working with children became part of her spiritual journey. As a psychologist, she works with parents and families through the counseling service of the Family Relations Committee and the Religious Education Committee. The recognition of the need for this pamphlet and its writing has evolved over several years. The author hopes that it will give insights as to how Quaker values can guide their daily lives with children, [and find that of God in them].
In What ways are our Quaker beliefs relevant to our lives with children? The Quaker belief in the Inner Light has given me values by which I wish to live and guide my children. [Psychology has] given me the “nitty gritty” information I need to be a parent.
The Query/ Answering to that of God in Every Person —As a Quaker, To what [of God] do I answer, that is in every person? At what age does the Light appear in children? How does its Presence in my children affect my task of guiding them? Parents see the Inner Light when their children are: asleep; intent on a creative project; dancing. Can we see the Inner Light when they [“being difficult”]? The Puritans believed in “spare the rod, spoil the child.” Is the child inherently good and can do no wrong? Harold Loukes wrote: “We friends start from an affirmation of the child’s humanity; not a naïve belief that he is born good, but a belief that he[/she] can grow into goodness.”
“Growing into” speaks of searching for truth, listening to the inner voice, the inner belief about what is right. The process of seeking and testing truth and choosing and doing good actions lie at the heart of Quaker belief. Quakers are wonderers. We wonder at: the beauty of nature and friendship; the reasons for the world’s condition; what we should be doing in life. Wonderings are an integral part of Quakerism. Marveling keeps us aware of the beauty and complexity of all that is around us and keeps us seeking; it provides a means for us to “grow into goodness.” “I wonder as I wander out under the sky/ the beauty and grandeur that around me doth lie;/ Will my soul find its calling/ [with the universal eye]?/ I wonder as I wander out under the sky.”
Believing people can grow into goodness led me to be able to articulate what is the Inner Light, that of God, to which I can & do answer. [To discover beauty & rightness in nature, in understanding a situation or person, in solving a problem], is that not also to grow into goodness? I cherish freedom to search that Quakerism provides & its deep belief in continuing revelation. Part of wondering is seeking as when we ask “What can I do? What is my role be? Though my child’s perceptions differ greatly from mine, the insights broaden my perspective. When I succeed in responding openly to another’s wonder, life gains meaning & richness for us both.
Answering that of God in Our Children—Wondering can be found in the youngest children. Even newborn infants can be involved in the wonder, the marvel, of this new world around them. Infants, seeking their role, learn it quickly if the people in their environment are cooperative. It is easy to miss infants’ wondering because their wondering content is elementary, simple, & basic. Their explorations are of their immediate physical world; our search is of the abstract spiritual one. Seeing my child as a wonderer with the potential of growing into goodness expands my understanding of that child & defines my role as parent or caregiver.
8-month old Lennen [learns the different properties of a banana peel and a wooden spoon: floppy vs. stiff; soft vs. hard; slippery vs. not slippery]. 10-month-old Sara is taught how to touch a younger baby. She is allowed to explore and a 10-minute walk to the mailbox takes 30 minutes. Susy and Mary, both 4 years old, were busy building a castle. Susy tells Mary to build the wall; Mary wants to build a tower. The teacher comes over and helps them explore their choices in building the castle; they agree on one.
8-year-old Tom is angry at black kids for wrecking a baseball game. His mother walks him through the events, & shows him that black kids were not sole cause when it was someone else who interrupted the game. Pat & her father discussed the “Give us this day our daily bread” phrase. Pat asked: “Why should God give us bread & not people in Somalia? Maybe they should have bread too. If we shared better, all would have bread.”
12-year-old Pam asked her Mom: “What would you say if I told you I was on crack?” Mom mentioned some of the consequences of using crack, for the user & those around the user. She had to think through what her response would be. They started talking about why people use drugs, & what some possible responses to situations involving drugs would be. Mom shared discussions her parents & grandparents had with her about alcohol.
Dan overheard his 14-year-old son think about “peeking at the girls” through a wall. Dan asked himself: When should boys begin to recognize women’s rights? Dan thought about it & shared the conversation with a camp counselor, who said: It is good to have such information. It can be woven in meaningfully into our discussions.” Ken, a junior in college, shared his interest in joining the Peace Corp rather than going right to graduate school. He demonstrated careful thought in how spending time in a developing nation would enhance his chosen field of environmentalist.
Lennen and Ben were about 2 years old and looked forward to seeing one another. [At the family-get-together, the wonder and awe each of us was radiating, I recognize now was an outward expression of the inner Light. Within an hour, the little guys were fighting over a red dump truck. [My 2 daughters realized that their sons’] understanding of ownership is to have the item in their hands. We started talking about the steps children need to go through to understand “sharing” and “ownership.”
I wonder as I wander with a child by my side;/His seeking, her searching, how can I be their guide?/ So much I don’t know; their questions spur mine/ To wonder as I wander with a child by my side. Harriet Heath.
Answering so that Children may Continue Wondering—Children from infancy onward grow into goodness by wondering. Viewing children as wonderers gives a different perspective, a different challenge. Seeing children as searching redirects efforts from ignoring a situation or imposing order to one of searching for ways of guiding them. [Child-raising queries include: What is my child trying to accomplish? What does my child understand? What does he/she need to know? How much can she understand now? What is my child able to do? What does she need to learn? What do I want my child to learn? [All parents given as examples] functioned as guides to their children as their children searched to learn about their world & how it works. The parents become searchers as they sought for ways of guiding their children into goodness. Challenge to create the right conditions for growth leaves much to the imagination & somewhat daunting in its magnitude.
Creating an Environment that Nurtures Wonder involves 10 factors: 1.Believing there is order in universe; 2. Working from a value system; 3. Recognizing Thou; 4. Considering developmental level of the child; 5. Loving them unconditionally; 6. Trusting our children; 7. Providing them with the accurate information and relevant skills; 8. Listening; 9. Giving them time; 10. Encouraging the searching and the seeking.
1.) Parents, as they conduct their own search, model for their children Quakers’ belief in the existence of a Way, that there is Truth to be found, at least in part. 2.) [I call the value system demonstrated in the examples given] “caring,” which means being concerned about the welfare of another, about the effects of behavior on others, concern about the outcome, wanting the outcome to be beneficial for whoever and whatever is involved.
3.) Viewing my child as one who is searching for answers and seeking her way leads me to see the “Thou” in my child, to accept my child as he or she is. The parents in each of the examples recognized the “Thou” in their child. They affirmed the seeking that their children were going through. In the ongoing living with children it is easy to lose this perspective. Trying to see the situation through the eyes of the child [is a lot of work]. Responding to children as seekers, recognizing the Thou in them, leads parents to view a situation from their children’s point-of-view. It guides parents to [form queries like the child-raising queries mentioned earlier].
4.) [Level of development] affects the level of the child’s searching. The infant & young child’s exploration is concrete dealing with how objects & people function. As they grow toward toddlerhood they add words to their explorations, putting names to everything & every action. Elementary school-aged children are still exploring, but their ability to understand complex relationships is limited. A 12-year-old can start process of thinking about what role drugs would take in her life. To do so she needed factual accurate information. They are all seekers, each at her or his own level. Recognizing the level of their search is important as we guide our children.
5 & 6. Accepting their actions as their efforts to understand, attempts to learn, frees me to go on loving unconditionally as I deal with the situation. Our trust in our children cannot be “blind.” Parents need to recognize the limits of the child’s understanding & control. I can teach infants to be careful with hot food, by using uncomfortably warm peas & saying, “hot, hot.” Parents must thoughtfully use the trust they have in their children to guide their behavior. Trusting that the child will make good decisions is scary when the decision involves drugs, becoming sexually active, & all those other issues our young people face today. My trust in my children is built partially from experiences with the child, knowing how the child thinks & the processes he or she uses to make decisions. Guiding children through age-appropriate experiences of making decisions has deepened my trust.
7-10. Children need skills like conflict resolution, and accurate information on things like sex and drugs. Part of the challenge is recognizing the information and skills needed; [if we don’t have the information, it is time for outside help]. Some call it profound listening; it may involve watching behavior as well as taking in their words, and it gives children a sense of being heard. It takes time to marvel at the beauty of the world or to reflect on the kindness of another. It is so hard to give our children this time.
Encourage taking time, and the searching and seeking by allowing it, modeling it, and teaching it in age-appropriate ways. [The parents used here as examples], recognized all 3 components of wondering: marveling; searching for understanding; and seeking to find the path for them They set up right conditions in the children’s environments for their children’s growing into goodness. Quaker discipline emphasizes helping the child understand rather than just passively accepting the whys of a situation.
And the Wondering Comes Full Circle—Parents, creating environments that nurture find themselves wondering. The parents searched to understand their children; meaning and purpose to life grow out of this search to understand our children. Seeking to find the right conditions for our children in time and space in which we live gives me a sense of continuity to that which has gone before and that which is now. [With my own mother], our looking together at issues, our searching to understand, and our seeking for solutions continued into my adult life and motherhood until her too early death.
And now I see my daughters. They do not nurture their children as I did. They nurture them as I would were I to start over. When a child develops a problem behavior in daycare, my daughter & I began to think about what the child had been trying to accomplish & what behavioral alternatives he had. Together we were searching to understand & seeking to find a way. And I feel certain that this searching to understand & seeking to find our way while daring to marvel that it is so is the Inner Light visible within us all, young and old alike. By responding and relating to the Inner Light in the other as best we can we are answering to that of God in every person.
Queries—How do you see that of God in people of any age? How could young children’s exploration of their environment encourage them to question and help them to develop the skills to search for answers to spiritual questions? How do you view children? How does your view of children define your role as a parent? How do your Quaker beliefs influence how you live with and nurture your children? How has your parental role changed as your children have grown older? How have your Quaker beliefs and understanding changed as you have parented and as your children have grown older?
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419. Nurturing Children's Spiritual Well-Being (by Margaret Compton)
About the Author—Margaret Compton has been a Quaker since 1979. She and her husband were Britain YM Friends-in-Residence at Pendle Hill in the Fall of 2010. She is a writer, editor, lecturer, and consultant with particular interest in developing attention to children's spiritual well-being in education, social, and healthcare. She is experienced in work with children and families, and interested in Quaker images of and attitudes towards children from the 17th century to the present.
Introduction—For some years I've been developing ideas and practice about children's spiritual well-being in social, medical, healthcare and education. I've been led to wonder how Friends attitudes and behavior towards children relate to our testimonies to equality, truth, simplicity, and peace. Spiritual experience in no way depends on membership in a religious organization, or on status, gender, nationality, or age. For Quakers, focused presence, being here now, may lead to the experience of a covered or gathered meeting, which may itself enable a sense of Presence. Most of the experiences here are my own or drawn from friends. Some are from published accounts by people I regard as trustworthy.
The Query/ Answering to that of God in Every Person —As a Quaker, To what [of God] do I answer, that is in every person? At what age does the Light appear in children? How does its Presence in my children affect my task of guiding them? Parents see the Inner Light when their children are: asleep; intent on a creative project; dancing. Can we see the Inner Light when they [“being difficult”]? The Puritans believed in “spare the rod, spoil the child.” Is the child inherently good and can do no wrong? Harold Loukes wrote: “We friends start from an affirmation of the child’s humanity; not a naïve belief that he is born good, but a belief that he[/she] can grow into goodness.”
“Growing into” speaks of searching for truth, listening to the inner voice, the inner belief about what is right. The process of seeking and testing truth and choosing and doing good actions lie at the heart of Quaker belief. Quakers are wonderers. We wonder at: the beauty of nature and friendship; the reasons for the world’s condition; what we should be doing in life. Wonderings are an integral part of Quakerism. Marveling keeps us aware of the beauty and complexity of all that is around us and keeps us seeking; it provides a means for us to “grow into goodness.” “I wonder as I wander out under the sky/ the beauty and grandeur that around me doth lie;/ Will my soul find its calling/ [with the universal eye]?/ I wonder as I wander out under the sky.”
Believing people can grow into goodness led me to be able to articulate what is the Inner Light, that of God, to which I can & do answer. [To discover beauty & rightness in nature, in understanding a situation or person, in solving a problem], is that not also to grow into goodness? I cherish freedom to search that Quakerism provides & its deep belief in continuing revelation. Part of wondering is seeking as when we ask “What can I do? What is my role be? Though my child’s perceptions differ greatly from mine, the insights broaden my perspective. When I succeed in responding openly to another’s wonder, life gains meaning & richness for us both.
Answering that of God in Our Children—Wondering can be found in the youngest children. Even newborn infants can be involved in the wonder, the marvel, of this new world around them. Infants, seeking their role, learn it quickly if the people in their environment are cooperative. It is easy to miss infants’ wondering because their wondering content is elementary, simple, & basic. Their explorations are of their immediate physical world; our search is of the abstract spiritual one. Seeing my child as a wonderer with the potential of growing into goodness expands my understanding of that child & defines my role as parent or caregiver.
8-month old Lennen [learns the different properties of a banana peel and a wooden spoon: floppy vs. stiff; soft vs. hard; slippery vs. not slippery]. 10-month-old Sara is taught how to touch a younger baby. She is allowed to explore and a 10-minute walk to the mailbox takes 30 minutes. Susy and Mary, both 4 years old, were busy building a castle. Susy tells Mary to build the wall; Mary wants to build a tower. The teacher comes over and helps them explore their choices in building the castle; they agree on one.
8-year-old Tom is angry at black kids for wrecking a baseball game. His mother walks him through the events, & shows him that black kids were not sole cause when it was someone else who interrupted the game. Pat & her father discussed the “Give us this day our daily bread” phrase. Pat asked: “Why should God give us bread & not people in Somalia? Maybe they should have bread too. If we shared better, all would have bread.”
12-year-old Pam asked her Mom: “What would you say if I told you I was on crack?” Mom mentioned some of the consequences of using crack, for the user & those around the user. She had to think through what her response would be. They started talking about why people use drugs, & what some possible responses to situations involving drugs would be. Mom shared discussions her parents & grandparents had with her about alcohol.
Dan overheard his 14-year-old son think about “peeking at the girls” through a wall. Dan asked himself: When should boys begin to recognize women’s rights? Dan thought about it & shared the conversation with a camp counselor, who said: It is good to have such information. It can be woven in meaningfully into our discussions.” Ken, a junior in college, shared his interest in joining the Peace Corp rather than going right to graduate school. He demonstrated careful thought in how spending time in a developing nation would enhance his chosen field of environmentalist.
Lennen and Ben were about 2 years old and looked forward to seeing one another. [At the family-get-together, the wonder and awe each of us was radiating, I recognize now was an outward expression of the inner Light. Within an hour, the little guys were fighting over a red dump truck. [My 2 daughters realized that their sons’] understanding of ownership is to have the item in their hands. We started talking about the steps children need to go through to understand “sharing” and “ownership.”
I wonder as I wander with a child by my side;/His seeking, her searching, how can I be their guide?/ So much I don’t know; their questions spur mine/ To wonder as I wander with a child by my side. Harriet Heath.
Answering so that Children may Continue Wondering—Children from infancy onward grow into goodness by wondering. Viewing children as wonderers gives a different perspective, a different challenge. Seeing children as searching redirects efforts from ignoring a situation or imposing order to one of searching for ways of guiding them. [Child-raising queries include: What is my child trying to accomplish? What does my child understand? What does he/she need to know? How much can she understand now? What is my child able to do? What does she need to learn? What do I want my child to learn? [All parents given as examples] functioned as guides to their children as their children searched to learn about their world & how it works. The parents become searchers as they sought for ways of guiding their children into goodness. Challenge to create the right conditions for growth leaves much to the imagination & somewhat daunting in its magnitude.
Creating an Environment that Nurtures Wonder involves 10 factors: 1.Believing there is order in universe; 2. Working from a value system; 3. Recognizing Thou; 4. Considering developmental level of the child; 5. Loving them unconditionally; 6. Trusting our children; 7. Providing them with the accurate information and relevant skills; 8. Listening; 9. Giving them time; 10. Encouraging the searching and the seeking.
1.) Parents, as they conduct their own search, model for their children Quakers’ belief in the existence of a Way, that there is Truth to be found, at least in part. 2.) [I call the value system demonstrated in the examples given] “caring,” which means being concerned about the welfare of another, about the effects of behavior on others, concern about the outcome, wanting the outcome to be beneficial for whoever and whatever is involved.
3.) Viewing my child as one who is searching for answers and seeking her way leads me to see the “Thou” in my child, to accept my child as he or she is. The parents in each of the examples recognized the “Thou” in their child. They affirmed the seeking that their children were going through. In the ongoing living with children it is easy to lose this perspective. Trying to see the situation through the eyes of the child [is a lot of work]. Responding to children as seekers, recognizing the Thou in them, leads parents to view a situation from their children’s point-of-view. It guides parents to [form queries like the child-raising queries mentioned earlier].
4.) [Level of development] affects the level of the child’s searching. The infant & young child’s exploration is concrete dealing with how objects & people function. As they grow toward toddlerhood they add words to their explorations, putting names to everything & every action. Elementary school-aged children are still exploring, but their ability to understand complex relationships is limited. A 12-year-old can start process of thinking about what role drugs would take in her life. To do so she needed factual accurate information. They are all seekers, each at her or his own level. Recognizing the level of their search is important as we guide our children.
5 & 6. Accepting their actions as their efforts to understand, attempts to learn, frees me to go on loving unconditionally as I deal with the situation. Our trust in our children cannot be “blind.” Parents need to recognize the limits of the child’s understanding & control. I can teach infants to be careful with hot food, by using uncomfortably warm peas & saying, “hot, hot.” Parents must thoughtfully use the trust they have in their children to guide their behavior. Trusting that the child will make good decisions is scary when the decision involves drugs, becoming sexually active, & all those other issues our young people face today. My trust in my children is built partially from experiences with the child, knowing how the child thinks & the processes he or she uses to make decisions. Guiding children through age-appropriate experiences of making decisions has deepened my trust.
7-10. Children need skills like conflict resolution, and accurate information on things like sex and drugs. Part of the challenge is recognizing the information and skills needed; [if we don’t have the information, it is time for outside help]. Some call it profound listening; it may involve watching behavior as well as taking in their words, and it gives children a sense of being heard. It takes time to marvel at the beauty of the world or to reflect on the kindness of another. It is so hard to give our children this time.
Encourage taking time, and the searching and seeking by allowing it, modeling it, and teaching it in age-appropriate ways. [The parents used here as examples], recognized all 3 components of wondering: marveling; searching for understanding; and seeking to find the path for them They set up right conditions in the children’s environments for their children’s growing into goodness. Quaker discipline emphasizes helping the child understand rather than just passively accepting the whys of a situation.
And the Wondering Comes Full Circle—Parents, creating environments that nurture find themselves wondering. The parents searched to understand their children; meaning and purpose to life grow out of this search to understand our children. Seeking to find the right conditions for our children in time and space in which we live gives me a sense of continuity to that which has gone before and that which is now. [With my own mother], our looking together at issues, our searching to understand, and our seeking for solutions continued into my adult life and motherhood until her too early death.
And now I see my daughters. They do not nurture their children as I did. They nurture them as I would were I to start over. When a child develops a problem behavior in daycare, my daughter & I began to think about what the child had been trying to accomplish & what behavioral alternatives he had. Together we were searching to understand & seeking to find a way. And I feel certain that this searching to understand & seeking to find our way while daring to marvel that it is so is the Inner Light visible within us all, young and old alike. By responding and relating to the Inner Light in the other as best we can we are answering to that of God in every person.
Queries—How do you see that of God in people of any age? How could young children’s exploration of their environment encourage them to question and help them to develop the skills to search for answers to spiritual questions? How do you view children? How does your view of children define your role as a parent? How do your Quaker beliefs influence how you live with and nurture your children? How has your parental role changed as your children have grown older? How have your Quaker beliefs and understanding changed as you have parented and as your children have grown older?
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419. Nurturing Children's Spiritual Well-Being (by Margaret Compton)
About the Author—Margaret Compton has been a Quaker since 1979. She and her husband were Britain YM Friends-in-Residence at Pendle Hill in the Fall of 2010. She is a writer, editor, lecturer, and consultant with particular interest in developing attention to children's spiritual well-being in education, social, and healthcare. She is experienced in work with children and families, and interested in Quaker images of and attitudes towards children from the 17th century to the present.
Introduction—For some years I've been developing ideas and practice about children's spiritual well-being in social, medical, healthcare and education. I've been led to wonder how Friends attitudes and behavior towards children relate to our testimonies to equality, truth, simplicity, and peace. Spiritual experience in no way depends on membership in a religious organization, or on status, gender, nationality, or age. For Quakers, focused presence, being here now, may lead to the experience of a covered or gathered meeting, which may itself enable a sense of Presence. Most of the experiences here are my own or drawn from friends. Some are from published accounts by people I regard as trustworthy.
Spiritual nurture means offering protected time, space & attention to other person so you can be fully present together. Nurture spiritual well-being of children you know. Understand your gifts & limitations.
Justine & I are separated by a half-century but difference in age doesn't prevent communication. Feeling shy causes some adults to be inhibited in company with children & young people. Recognizing, understanding, respecting, & nurturing children's spiritual well-being is fundamental to Quaker faith & practice. Our ministry to children equally implies receiving ministry from children. My approach to spiritual well-being is holistic, identifying spirit as integral & essential, an every-minute presence in everyday life. My model of spiritual well-being that underlies my approach focuses on: inner experience; relationships based on attention to & care for other people; involvement with community, & concern about its issues, e.g. peace-building, poverty, & the environment. It celebrates experience & expression of Spirit, Presence in every aspect, and moment of everyday life.
There is no special virtue in being "good with children," & no shame in feeling called to other kinds of service instead. Experiences in childhood (or our ever-changing memories of experiences) powerfully and constantly influence every aspect of life. In order to be fully present with a child, we need to be aware of our own feelings and memories [that still affect our behavior]. It is essential to understand such feelings & to recognize that every child encounters unique experiences. I hope these ideas will encourage Friends to explore their own feelings and experiences in order to be [fully] present with children.
Justine & I are separated by a half-century but difference in age doesn't prevent communication. Feeling shy causes some adults to be inhibited in company with children & young people. Recognizing, understanding, respecting, & nurturing children's spiritual well-being is fundamental to Quaker faith & practice. Our ministry to children equally implies receiving ministry from children. My approach to spiritual well-being is holistic, identifying spirit as integral & essential, an every-minute presence in everyday life. My model of spiritual well-being that underlies my approach focuses on: inner experience; relationships based on attention to & care for other people; involvement with community, & concern about its issues, e.g. peace-building, poverty, & the environment. It celebrates experience & expression of Spirit, Presence in every aspect, and moment of everyday life.
There is no special virtue in being "good with children," & no shame in feeling called to other kinds of service instead. Experiences in childhood (or our ever-changing memories of experiences) powerfully and constantly influence every aspect of life. In order to be fully present with a child, we need to be aware of our own feelings and memories [that still affect our behavior]. It is essential to understand such feelings & to recognize that every child encounters unique experiences. I hope these ideas will encourage Friends to explore their own feelings and experiences in order to be [fully] present with children.
Equality—Take all children seriously, respecting their inherent wisdom & dignity. Wait for every child—watching, listening, and learning in stillness. Protect, don't suffocate; enable exploration while ensuring safety.
Equality requires respect. Respect requires attention---listening to, learning from, being fully present throughout every encounter. The equality testimony implies that there are no qualifications of age, [sex], status, or belief, and no exclusions. Are children spiritually equal? Helen Bayes suggests that children have not been accepted as spiritually equal because Quakers have considered spiritual wisdom to be gained through "years of seeking and experience" rather than the divine seed of truth planted in us all. Appreciating the value of children's contributions enhances not only the experience of the individual child but also the vitality of the meeting. Sue Collins writes: "In very many Meetings children and young people have become a minority group and their feeling of isolation, and persecution and low worth is as real to them as it is to any other disadvantaged group ... Our belief in the inner light seems only to 'switch on' with adulthood." In order to discern ways of nurturing children's spiritual well-being, we need to identify our attitudes towards children and the implications of equality. Harriet Heath writes: "the Inner Light ... means revealing the wondering in each child in its different forms ... They are searching to understand and seeking to find the way as much as we adults."
To be trustworthy is a basic qualification for any adult with a child. It is equally important that adults trust children. Trusting children can lead to anxiety & the urge to over-protect. Yet healthy development depends on experiencing the combination of being trusted to explore, with the security of a trustworthy adult. [That trust will be tested, sometimes severely. It is important to keep faith with the child seeking your trust]. "Follow the child's lead but always be ahead" means being alert to protect from possible harm, while recognizing the child's need to explore, to be creative, & to take initiatives.
In trusting children, we enact & embody our testimony. They can be engaged as equal members of the meeting, yet adult Friends may ignore opportunities to develop equality & trust. Essentially, there is one meeting for worship, in however many rooms this takes place. The covered meeting is neither divided by walls nor distinguished by such attributes as age. Anne Hosking recalls a family weekend when about 24 children held a meeting that not only "went on for over a quarter of an hour & was very deep," but continued in silence after the elders (themselves children) shook hands. [2 adults] failed to show the courtesy of waiting to be certain that the 40-minute silent meeting had ended. Anne "realized that children do minister." [Adults also fail] to respect the dignity of the children, and to recognize the Presence.
There are many reasons for experiencing difficulty in responding to children. Anxiety about being in children's company can be hard to admit to oneself, and may lead to avoiding contact, or adopting "false" approaches. Adults may be anxious that they will be ignored or rejected by children, or judged as not being "good enough." Other anxieties include the fear of looking silly, losing control of the children, messing up adult's clothes, [not being able to engage the children], not knowing what to say or do. Adults may resent giving up precious silent meeting time to look after children.
Concern for children's well-being implies equal concern for parents & other adults. Eileen Flanagan writes: "I suspect that I'm not the only parent who is grateful for 45 minutes of childfree worship per week. I know other Quaker parents who ... stayed home while their children were young because it was less stressful than being pressured to take responsibility in 1st Day school room." Parents may convey disapproval, even jealousy, when adults who aren't themselves parents develop fruitful relationships & communicate easily with their children, or fear being "shown up," or feeling inadequate. Relationships between parents & other adult Friends is important consideration for meetings. Sometimes parents feel jealous that children are receiving attention that they haven't themselves experienced. [When a parent interrupted recitation of a nursery rhyme to correct & recite rhyme herself, I realized that she had probably never experience attention & praise; I applauded her recitation.
Equality requires respect. Respect requires attention---listening to, learning from, being fully present throughout every encounter. The equality testimony implies that there are no qualifications of age, [sex], status, or belief, and no exclusions. Are children spiritually equal? Helen Bayes suggests that children have not been accepted as spiritually equal because Quakers have considered spiritual wisdom to be gained through "years of seeking and experience" rather than the divine seed of truth planted in us all. Appreciating the value of children's contributions enhances not only the experience of the individual child but also the vitality of the meeting. Sue Collins writes: "In very many Meetings children and young people have become a minority group and their feeling of isolation, and persecution and low worth is as real to them as it is to any other disadvantaged group ... Our belief in the inner light seems only to 'switch on' with adulthood." In order to discern ways of nurturing children's spiritual well-being, we need to identify our attitudes towards children and the implications of equality. Harriet Heath writes: "the Inner Light ... means revealing the wondering in each child in its different forms ... They are searching to understand and seeking to find the way as much as we adults."
To be trustworthy is a basic qualification for any adult with a child. It is equally important that adults trust children. Trusting children can lead to anxiety & the urge to over-protect. Yet healthy development depends on experiencing the combination of being trusted to explore, with the security of a trustworthy adult. [That trust will be tested, sometimes severely. It is important to keep faith with the child seeking your trust]. "Follow the child's lead but always be ahead" means being alert to protect from possible harm, while recognizing the child's need to explore, to be creative, & to take initiatives.
In trusting children, we enact & embody our testimony. They can be engaged as equal members of the meeting, yet adult Friends may ignore opportunities to develop equality & trust. Essentially, there is one meeting for worship, in however many rooms this takes place. The covered meeting is neither divided by walls nor distinguished by such attributes as age. Anne Hosking recalls a family weekend when about 24 children held a meeting that not only "went on for over a quarter of an hour & was very deep," but continued in silence after the elders (themselves children) shook hands. [2 adults] failed to show the courtesy of waiting to be certain that the 40-minute silent meeting had ended. Anne "realized that children do minister." [Adults also fail] to respect the dignity of the children, and to recognize the Presence.
There are many reasons for experiencing difficulty in responding to children. Anxiety about being in children's company can be hard to admit to oneself, and may lead to avoiding contact, or adopting "false" approaches. Adults may be anxious that they will be ignored or rejected by children, or judged as not being "good enough." Other anxieties include the fear of looking silly, losing control of the children, messing up adult's clothes, [not being able to engage the children], not knowing what to say or do. Adults may resent giving up precious silent meeting time to look after children.
Concern for children's well-being implies equal concern for parents & other adults. Eileen Flanagan writes: "I suspect that I'm not the only parent who is grateful for 45 minutes of childfree worship per week. I know other Quaker parents who ... stayed home while their children were young because it was less stressful than being pressured to take responsibility in 1st Day school room." Parents may convey disapproval, even jealousy, when adults who aren't themselves parents develop fruitful relationships & communicate easily with their children, or fear being "shown up," or feeling inadequate. Relationships between parents & other adult Friends is important consideration for meetings. Sometimes parents feel jealous that children are receiving attention that they haven't themselves experienced. [When a parent interrupted recitation of a nursery rhyme to correct & recite rhyme herself, I realized that she had probably never experience attention & praise; I applauded her recitation.
Simplicity—Approach children with simple, authentic intention, free from self-regard and elaboration. Be clear about how you regard the main purpose of 1st Day school, and how this is understood by the children.
How does the simplicity testimony inform faith & practice with regard to children's spiritual well-being? Adults need to bring their whole selves to the encounter with a child. Friends who aren't clear why children come to meeting on Sundays may be confused & discouraged. Some Friends don't understand why children think they should attend meeting for worship. Some intentions for 1st Day schools include: contact with adults other than the children's own parents; creative & imaginative activities; discovering silence & stillness; exploring Quaker beliefs & traditions; being kept safe, quiet & occupied. In order to discern children's perceptions & expectation of meeting for worship, adults need to pay attention.
[An adult unfamiliar with a class may be confused with how the class learns, how they interact with each other or the teacher, what they consider play, how they feel about silence and joining the adults].The confusion experienced by both children and adults arose from their differing expectations and interests. Energy is needed for being present together, focusing on expression, creativity, and imagination. It should not be spent on anxiety about expensive or elaborate materials. Excellent imaginative and creative experience is achieved by transforming simple found materials. Sometimes adults complicate their relationships with children, by seeking too much attention & affection, or exercising too much power & control.
How does the simplicity testimony inform faith & practice with regard to children's spiritual well-being? Adults need to bring their whole selves to the encounter with a child. Friends who aren't clear why children come to meeting on Sundays may be confused & discouraged. Some Friends don't understand why children think they should attend meeting for worship. Some intentions for 1st Day schools include: contact with adults other than the children's own parents; creative & imaginative activities; discovering silence & stillness; exploring Quaker beliefs & traditions; being kept safe, quiet & occupied. In order to discern children's perceptions & expectation of meeting for worship, adults need to pay attention.
[An adult unfamiliar with a class may be confused with how the class learns, how they interact with each other or the teacher, what they consider play, how they feel about silence and joining the adults].The confusion experienced by both children and adults arose from their differing expectations and interests. Energy is needed for being present together, focusing on expression, creativity, and imagination. It should not be spent on anxiety about expensive or elaborate materials. Excellent imaginative and creative experience is achieved by transforming simple found materials. Sometimes adults complicate their relationships with children, by seeking too much attention & affection, or exercising too much power & control.
Truth—Be truth-full & trustworthy in all your interactions with children, even if you feel for example, distressed or embarrassed. Be aware of children's responses, which may be hidden or unexpected.
All Quaker communication should be grounded in truth testimony. Honesty implies responding to questions plainly & maybe admitting to not knowing answers. It may be difficult, even painful, for adults to receive truth from children. Sometimes well-intentioned adults ignore or don't notice unexpected responses. [Well-intentioned Bible teachings may terrify or cause anxiety rather than comfort children]. Adults may be distracted from children's responses by their expectations about beliefs & religious traditions. Don't say anything unless you're prepared to listen to truth behind both words & silence, truth of child as well as the truth of your own intention.
After experiencing it herself as a child, Beth realized that "one form of spiritual abuse is to impose on children ... by custom and teaching what some exceptional individuals have been able to rise to by grace." [What one] child perceived as a message about threat and unprotecting parents who could risk their children's safety for the sake of principle. In contrast, these same stories influenced another to want to be courageous, providing a basis for Quaker witness as an adult. Adults have many strategies for avoiding truth, and many reasons for doing so. Anxiety about looking foolish, or apparently losing authority, can lead to manipulation of truth, even lying. When a method is supposed to stimulate imagination, [adults must be careful not to impose an adult's script on a children's exercise in imagination]. [If we ask a child to take charge of a process, we need to pay proper respect and attention to that authority we have given, and not take away that authority abruptly and without explanation].
Adults sometimes feel nervous about what children might tell them, good or bad news. Showing concern and giving attention, being present together with the other person is stronger than words. [Having a calm, respectful reaction to statements contrary to Quaker beliefs, and finding a response to a crisis that is long past and went unnoticed are important scenarios to consider. Occasionally adults receive information about alleged abuse or assault on children. It is essential for Friends meetings to have clear predetermined lines of communication and accountability. Adults are sometimes discouraged from engaging with children because they fear that they themselves might be accused of abusive behavior. Such anxiety inhibits the development of the wise trust, equality, truth, and peace that are essential for spiritual well-being.
All Quaker communication should be grounded in truth testimony. Honesty implies responding to questions plainly & maybe admitting to not knowing answers. It may be difficult, even painful, for adults to receive truth from children. Sometimes well-intentioned adults ignore or don't notice unexpected responses. [Well-intentioned Bible teachings may terrify or cause anxiety rather than comfort children]. Adults may be distracted from children's responses by their expectations about beliefs & religious traditions. Don't say anything unless you're prepared to listen to truth behind both words & silence, truth of child as well as the truth of your own intention.
After experiencing it herself as a child, Beth realized that "one form of spiritual abuse is to impose on children ... by custom and teaching what some exceptional individuals have been able to rise to by grace." [What one] child perceived as a message about threat and unprotecting parents who could risk their children's safety for the sake of principle. In contrast, these same stories influenced another to want to be courageous, providing a basis for Quaker witness as an adult. Adults have many strategies for avoiding truth, and many reasons for doing so. Anxiety about looking foolish, or apparently losing authority, can lead to manipulation of truth, even lying. When a method is supposed to stimulate imagination, [adults must be careful not to impose an adult's script on a children's exercise in imagination]. [If we ask a child to take charge of a process, we need to pay proper respect and attention to that authority we have given, and not take away that authority abruptly and without explanation].
Adults sometimes feel nervous about what children might tell them, good or bad news. Showing concern and giving attention, being present together with the other person is stronger than words. [Having a calm, respectful reaction to statements contrary to Quaker beliefs, and finding a response to a crisis that is long past and went unnoticed are important scenarios to consider. Occasionally adults receive information about alleged abuse or assault on children. It is essential for Friends meetings to have clear predetermined lines of communication and accountability. Adults are sometimes discouraged from engaging with children because they fear that they themselves might be accused of abusive behavior. Such anxiety inhibits the development of the wise trust, equality, truth, and peace that are essential for spiritual well-being.
Peace/ Child of Spirit—Be peace-full in all your intentions and encounters. Create an environment in which children can be peace-full, and discover stillness, silence, Presence.
Peace is served by, and contributes to equality, simplicity, and truth. Being present with children requires adults to be peace-full. Peacefulness is demonstrated by adults' attitudes and behavior, their voice, vocabulary, body language, from which children can learn peace-building. It is essential to establish and observe ground rules, limits, and acceptable behavior. Failing to pay attention to the well-being of everyone involved in an encounter—children, young people and adults—demonstrates lack of respect and can cause harm.
In contrast, I experienced peace being together at Pendle Hill with an Quaker from Bhopal, India & 2 young people, one Japanese, one North American Catholic. Our diverse group enjoy enthusiasm, meaningful sharing, & even play with a 2-year old. Here focus & boundaries were clear. The students were well prepared by their accompanying teacher. The students were self-aware, asking penetrating questions & offering opinions. We respected & trusted each other to behave appropriately, understanding the need to accept different roles in order to fulfill our shared task. We explored ideas about belief the divine; we shared work & play & were completely present together; we engaged in service to the community.
Concern for another, an essential element of peace, is often expressed quietly, a ministry that may not be noticed or recognized. It might come out in a one-on-one with a child wanting to show concern, & be demonstrated by a vase of colored leaves; it might come out in 1st day school class, & be demonstrated by a handmade card to a ill Friend, signed by the class. It might be a 1st-day school performance based on an imaginary world and music they created for it. The last instance was a perfect improvised ministry. Yet few of the adults showed interest when the children spontaneously created worship. On another Sunday, a child Friend noticed the picture The Presence in the Midst and gently copied the position of Jesus' hands. Her involvement with the picture silently ministered to the meeting, drawing attention to an otherwise overly familiar image image.
The reluctance of some children to join adults in silent meeting was not inability to be quiet and concentrated, as was demonstrated when they were together and focused. The issues related to timing and preparation. Stillness may be a mere absence of noise or it may active vital, and creative. Silence may convey compassion or anger, listening or inattention. Rufus Jones' childhood experience included times when "a real spiritual wave would go over the meeting in these silent times, which made me feel very solemn, and carried me ... down into something which was deeper than my own thoughts, and gave me a momentary sense of Spirit ..." Evelyn Jadin writes: "When we sat [down late in meeting], we were infolded by the silence and brought into deep communion with those around us and the Spirit. Throughout the worship I felt the presence of others around me and a greater presence standing over and around us all ... I felt the Presence of the Living Christ." Through a friendship with a 6 year-old friend, we both experienced equality simplicity, truth and peace. We were always present together and thus lived in the Presence and the clear love of the Spirit.
Child Protection Provisions in Quaker Meetings (USA/UK)—Child sexual abuse is illegal under United States federal law and in every state. Abuse prevention policies in effect among Friends in the United States comply with federal and state laws and are usually written and implemented at the yearly, and occasionally monthly meeting levels. Friends United Meeting does not currently have a general abuse prevention policy; they do require adult supervision of a minor who is a member of a work team.
Friends General Conference has an extensive abuse prevention policy & takes all reasonable precautions to insure safety of children & youth at their gatherings & conferences, including requiring professional references. All workers who have supervisory roles, including hired babysitters, will consent in writing to a criminal &/ or child abuse background check. Background checks are repeated periodically. In the UK, organizations are required to implement safeguarding provision that include enhanced clearance by the Criminal Records Bureau. Quaker meetings ensure at least 2 Friends with clearance are present with children. Area Quaker Meetings appoint Safeguarding Officers.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
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362. Bringing God Home: Exploring Family Spirituality (by Mary Kay Rehard; 2002)
About the Author—Mary Kay Rehard is mother of 2 children, ages 10 and 7. She teaches them at home and teaches part-time at a community technical college. She serves the youth on the advisory committee for Richmond Young Friends and on a Children's Worship team. She brings the songs and prayers of the Taizé community to Earlham College and local youth groups. The pamphlet begins with her family's visit to the Taizé in 2000. In 2002 she & Patrick will share the work of principal at Friends Theological College in Kaimosi, Kenya.
[Introduction]—Friends agree that children are important & that God dwells in them. Friends are reticent & lack clarity about children 's spiritual nurture. How do we allow children to experiment, gain mastery & put their mark on the world, especially in prayer? If we wanted to continue to pray [in the daytime], our prayer life had to include, engage, & occupy them, nurture their spirituality; we must be patterns & partners. I could see that my children needed more than silence & stillness & different ways of learning about God. How do we bring together family life & spirituality, parenting and prayer? What are contemporary Quaker parents to do? I sought connection to an ancient tradition. Monastic life flows from a vocation or calling. It seeks to balance work and prayer, is noted for hospitality and study, and provides a model of domestic life centered on God.
[Taizé & L'Arche]—Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy, France, founded in 1940 by Brother Roger, with a ministry of simplicity, reconciliation & hospitality grounded in the Beatitudes' Spirit. [All kinds of] Christians can worship & share about how to deepen one's spirituality in one's daily life. The brothers' short, simple refrains are used worldwide; each is sung many times to lead to a Quaker-like silent meditation. Through Taizé prayers I experienced Christ's gentle promptings & leadings, & felt his life 's power within me.
L'Arche or Ark is a worldwide, ecumenical federation of communities, founded in 1964 in Trosly, France, by Jean Vanier & Fr. Thomas Phillipe, O.P. People with mental disabilities live with assistants here. L'Arche seeks to foster spirituality & gifts in each individual, by breaking down barriers between "helper" & "disabled," creating homes & families around them. From sharing life & friendship with disabled people, Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier learned a slower, simpler way of life filled with joy, trust, & hope. L'Arche thinks carefully about what it means to be a family & how to create a safe loving, spiritually refreshing home. [Both these communities give encouragement] & shed significant light on family spirituality, & provide rich resources for families.
I. God, the Center of Home and Family Life—God is ever present and available to us. This essay is less about "bringing God home" and more about bringing our homes to center on God who dwells with us. How do we make room in busy family lives to devote regular time & attention to God? What do I have to pass on to my children & generations that follow? What kind of home environment am I creating for my children? Why did you entrust these children to me, God? Am I good enough? How do we include children in prayers, keeping God at the center: guiding, healing, & strengthening our family life?
To nurture spirituality in my children, I need to have a rich, vital spiritual life myself. To be renewing and sustaining, a family's spirituality will grow out of real need & be grounded in regular prayer. [After having children, I gave attention to prayer in a way that hadn't seemed as important or possible before. It was out of darkness and great need that I turned to God as creator and healer. Prayer has now become very natural, part of every day, a joyful necessity [while living] "in the simplicity of a love which finds all things in God."
Learning to Pray/ Solitude & Community—Prayer can be much more than reciting words or asking for things. Prayer is any intentional openness & listening to God, or pouring out one's heart to God believing that God listens & cares. Psalms & Lord's Prayer are good places to begin to learn to pray. Gradually, the Psalms began to search & pray in me. Nuns & monks would pray through a cycle of Psalms called Divine Office. There is Swallow's Nest, a translation of Psalms that uses feminine language & includes readings from women mystics.
Entire books have been written, elaborating the meaning of the Lord's Prayer's every phrase. Here, Jesus shows his disciples that our prayers can be simple and direct, as a child to a parent. Another starting point can be the Prayer of St. Francis. We begin to pray with a text when we refrain from analyzing it, simply reflecting on it in our hearts and discussing its meaning for our lives with others.
Even parents of small children can grab a few minutes of solitude, if we think of it more as an attitude than a physical reality. [My husband found solitude & inward conversations with God while washing the dishes. I find solitude late at night or on morning walks or runs]. George and Jesus were often alone. We can find a little time each day to turn our hearts and minds to God in "relative solitude," giving God our loving attention.
Community, complementing solitude, is an essential ingredient in spirituality. Parents above all, in our age of dislocation and mobility, need community for practical and spiritual nurture. Children need and enjoy community among their age-mates, and they are enriched by intergenerational exchanges, planned or unplanned. I believe it is possible and valuable to share around any challenges of parents discussing their family's prayer life with other parents, to be vulnerable and receive real help, and to provide sustenance & nurture to others. A family needs to look beyond its own resources to God, to sustain and renew itself. In solitude and community, we create space for God to illuminate and teach us, to guide and comfort us directly and through others.
Parenting is Vocation/ Parents are Primary Religious Educators/ Family is a Laboratory of God's Love—Vocation is work God calls us to do, [like parenting]. Webster's vocation is a "summons or strong inclination to a course of action, especially to religious life." Parenting can be sacramental, relationship where we encounter God. God illumines our daily lives & makes our work a real, palpable sign of God's love. The lay Little Brothers & Sisters pattern their common life upon the "hidden life of Jesus," when he did manual labor. Thomas Merton says: "It is by living one's life that the [monastic] finds God, not by adding something God hasn't put there." It follows that "wisdom is the parent's very life in the family." God reveals essential lessons through our children.
When do we invite children to participate in prayer and worship? We are placing unreasonable expectations upon the 1st Day School teachers if we leave all the responsibility with them. Do we approach our children's religious education in confidence that they have a rich inner life and contributions to make to our spirituality? There is no better place than the home, in a safe place of trust, for children to share from the heart.
The family is a place of experimentation and creative exploration in love. People we expect to help are in fact one's best teachers, [especially children]. In L'Arche, Jean Vanier has watched countless times as people with handicaps discover belonging and unconditional love as a path to healing and freedom. We are all going to mess up. Christ reaches out to the best in each of us and calls us to do the same with one another. And when we get it right at home, our whole family gets a glimpse of the eternal: God's love and Kingdom.
II. A Spirituality for Families—Thomas Merton explains that the desert is where the Hebrews learned to love God: "This then is our desert: to live facing despair, but not to consent. To trample it down under hope in the Cross." To witness for hope in the world is the radical work of God for families; it is how we meet Christ. What was it about Jesus, what is it about Christ that made the fishermen trust enough to leave their livelihood & become "fishers of men"? Jean Vanier writes: "(L'Arche) is a work of God which has sometimes been achieved in spite of me ... Had I a clear plan, I might have been less ready to welcome God's plan."
[How much room to we make in our lives for God's plans?] How much room do we make in our lives for our children's plans? In order for Christ to lead us into life, into change and growth, we need to be receptive, teachable, filled with gratitude and Joy. Christ calls us to contentment and mindfulness, gratitude for all we have, and awareness of God's presence. Attentiveness enables us to see and hear our children with the eyes and ears of Christ, with tenderness and compassion.
Christ Dwells in Smallness & Weakness—Sometimes I'm annoyed by my children's needs, when they interfere with my plans or desires. In their need, children are prophetic; they call us to act with Christ's tenderness & compassion. Jesus said: "Unless you change & become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Do we recognize our children as bearers of Christ's presence,[each as a Christ-child]? Being a parent can at times mean hosting an honored guest.
Christ tells us we can encounter him in the small and weak if we'll notice and open our hearts. Lacking inhibitions, children can not care what people think and not ["keep up appearances"]; they know they are loved and free. Lacking inhibitions, they can also be difficult, self-centered, stubborn, impulsive. The Taizé brothers write: "[Jesus] does not speak of [the children's] strong points, but rather about their powerlessness. It is in our weakness that God wishes to welcome us ... How can we know that in spite of our contradictions, we are already "children of God?" Jean Vanier writes: "I had to accept my own difficulties and poverty, and look for help ... I was hiding my poverty ... I had to accept myself without any illusions. I had to discover how to forgive and my own need for forgiveness."
Peace is served by, and contributes to equality, simplicity, and truth. Being present with children requires adults to be peace-full. Peacefulness is demonstrated by adults' attitudes and behavior, their voice, vocabulary, body language, from which children can learn peace-building. It is essential to establish and observe ground rules, limits, and acceptable behavior. Failing to pay attention to the well-being of everyone involved in an encounter—children, young people and adults—demonstrates lack of respect and can cause harm.
In contrast, I experienced peace being together at Pendle Hill with an Quaker from Bhopal, India & 2 young people, one Japanese, one North American Catholic. Our diverse group enjoy enthusiasm, meaningful sharing, & even play with a 2-year old. Here focus & boundaries were clear. The students were well prepared by their accompanying teacher. The students were self-aware, asking penetrating questions & offering opinions. We respected & trusted each other to behave appropriately, understanding the need to accept different roles in order to fulfill our shared task. We explored ideas about belief the divine; we shared work & play & were completely present together; we engaged in service to the community.
Concern for another, an essential element of peace, is often expressed quietly, a ministry that may not be noticed or recognized. It might come out in a one-on-one with a child wanting to show concern, & be demonstrated by a vase of colored leaves; it might come out in 1st day school class, & be demonstrated by a handmade card to a ill Friend, signed by the class. It might be a 1st-day school performance based on an imaginary world and music they created for it. The last instance was a perfect improvised ministry. Yet few of the adults showed interest when the children spontaneously created worship. On another Sunday, a child Friend noticed the picture The Presence in the Midst and gently copied the position of Jesus' hands. Her involvement with the picture silently ministered to the meeting, drawing attention to an otherwise overly familiar image image.
The reluctance of some children to join adults in silent meeting was not inability to be quiet and concentrated, as was demonstrated when they were together and focused. The issues related to timing and preparation. Stillness may be a mere absence of noise or it may active vital, and creative. Silence may convey compassion or anger, listening or inattention. Rufus Jones' childhood experience included times when "a real spiritual wave would go over the meeting in these silent times, which made me feel very solemn, and carried me ... down into something which was deeper than my own thoughts, and gave me a momentary sense of Spirit ..." Evelyn Jadin writes: "When we sat [down late in meeting], we were infolded by the silence and brought into deep communion with those around us and the Spirit. Throughout the worship I felt the presence of others around me and a greater presence standing over and around us all ... I felt the Presence of the Living Christ." Through a friendship with a 6 year-old friend, we both experienced equality simplicity, truth and peace. We were always present together and thus lived in the Presence and the clear love of the Spirit.
Child Protection Provisions in Quaker Meetings (USA/UK)—Child sexual abuse is illegal under United States federal law and in every state. Abuse prevention policies in effect among Friends in the United States comply with federal and state laws and are usually written and implemented at the yearly, and occasionally monthly meeting levels. Friends United Meeting does not currently have a general abuse prevention policy; they do require adult supervision of a minor who is a member of a work team.
Friends General Conference has an extensive abuse prevention policy & takes all reasonable precautions to insure safety of children & youth at their gatherings & conferences, including requiring professional references. All workers who have supervisory roles, including hired babysitters, will consent in writing to a criminal &/ or child abuse background check. Background checks are repeated periodically. In the UK, organizations are required to implement safeguarding provision that include enhanced clearance by the Criminal Records Bureau. Quaker meetings ensure at least 2 Friends with clearance are present with children. Area Quaker Meetings appoint Safeguarding Officers.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
362. Bringing God Home: Exploring Family Spirituality (by Mary Kay Rehard; 2002)
About the Author—Mary Kay Rehard is mother of 2 children, ages 10 and 7. She teaches them at home and teaches part-time at a community technical college. She serves the youth on the advisory committee for Richmond Young Friends and on a Children's Worship team. She brings the songs and prayers of the Taizé community to Earlham College and local youth groups. The pamphlet begins with her family's visit to the Taizé in 2000. In 2002 she & Patrick will share the work of principal at Friends Theological College in Kaimosi, Kenya.
[Introduction]—Friends agree that children are important & that God dwells in them. Friends are reticent & lack clarity about children 's spiritual nurture. How do we allow children to experiment, gain mastery & put their mark on the world, especially in prayer? If we wanted to continue to pray [in the daytime], our prayer life had to include, engage, & occupy them, nurture their spirituality; we must be patterns & partners. I could see that my children needed more than silence & stillness & different ways of learning about God. How do we bring together family life & spirituality, parenting and prayer? What are contemporary Quaker parents to do? I sought connection to an ancient tradition. Monastic life flows from a vocation or calling. It seeks to balance work and prayer, is noted for hospitality and study, and provides a model of domestic life centered on God.
[Taizé & L'Arche]—Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy, France, founded in 1940 by Brother Roger, with a ministry of simplicity, reconciliation & hospitality grounded in the Beatitudes' Spirit. [All kinds of] Christians can worship & share about how to deepen one's spirituality in one's daily life. The brothers' short, simple refrains are used worldwide; each is sung many times to lead to a Quaker-like silent meditation. Through Taizé prayers I experienced Christ's gentle promptings & leadings, & felt his life 's power within me.
L'Arche or Ark is a worldwide, ecumenical federation of communities, founded in 1964 in Trosly, France, by Jean Vanier & Fr. Thomas Phillipe, O.P. People with mental disabilities live with assistants here. L'Arche seeks to foster spirituality & gifts in each individual, by breaking down barriers between "helper" & "disabled," creating homes & families around them. From sharing life & friendship with disabled people, Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier learned a slower, simpler way of life filled with joy, trust, & hope. L'Arche thinks carefully about what it means to be a family & how to create a safe loving, spiritually refreshing home. [Both these communities give encouragement] & shed significant light on family spirituality, & provide rich resources for families.
I. God, the Center of Home and Family Life—God is ever present and available to us. This essay is less about "bringing God home" and more about bringing our homes to center on God who dwells with us. How do we make room in busy family lives to devote regular time & attention to God? What do I have to pass on to my children & generations that follow? What kind of home environment am I creating for my children? Why did you entrust these children to me, God? Am I good enough? How do we include children in prayers, keeping God at the center: guiding, healing, & strengthening our family life?
To nurture spirituality in my children, I need to have a rich, vital spiritual life myself. To be renewing and sustaining, a family's spirituality will grow out of real need & be grounded in regular prayer. [After having children, I gave attention to prayer in a way that hadn't seemed as important or possible before. It was out of darkness and great need that I turned to God as creator and healer. Prayer has now become very natural, part of every day, a joyful necessity [while living] "in the simplicity of a love which finds all things in God."
Learning to Pray/ Solitude & Community—Prayer can be much more than reciting words or asking for things. Prayer is any intentional openness & listening to God, or pouring out one's heart to God believing that God listens & cares. Psalms & Lord's Prayer are good places to begin to learn to pray. Gradually, the Psalms began to search & pray in me. Nuns & monks would pray through a cycle of Psalms called Divine Office. There is Swallow's Nest, a translation of Psalms that uses feminine language & includes readings from women mystics.
Entire books have been written, elaborating the meaning of the Lord's Prayer's every phrase. Here, Jesus shows his disciples that our prayers can be simple and direct, as a child to a parent. Another starting point can be the Prayer of St. Francis. We begin to pray with a text when we refrain from analyzing it, simply reflecting on it in our hearts and discussing its meaning for our lives with others.
Even parents of small children can grab a few minutes of solitude, if we think of it more as an attitude than a physical reality. [My husband found solitude & inward conversations with God while washing the dishes. I find solitude late at night or on morning walks or runs]. George and Jesus were often alone. We can find a little time each day to turn our hearts and minds to God in "relative solitude," giving God our loving attention.
Community, complementing solitude, is an essential ingredient in spirituality. Parents above all, in our age of dislocation and mobility, need community for practical and spiritual nurture. Children need and enjoy community among their age-mates, and they are enriched by intergenerational exchanges, planned or unplanned. I believe it is possible and valuable to share around any challenges of parents discussing their family's prayer life with other parents, to be vulnerable and receive real help, and to provide sustenance & nurture to others. A family needs to look beyond its own resources to God, to sustain and renew itself. In solitude and community, we create space for God to illuminate and teach us, to guide and comfort us directly and through others.
Parenting is Vocation/ Parents are Primary Religious Educators/ Family is a Laboratory of God's Love—Vocation is work God calls us to do, [like parenting]. Webster's vocation is a "summons or strong inclination to a course of action, especially to religious life." Parenting can be sacramental, relationship where we encounter God. God illumines our daily lives & makes our work a real, palpable sign of God's love. The lay Little Brothers & Sisters pattern their common life upon the "hidden life of Jesus," when he did manual labor. Thomas Merton says: "It is by living one's life that the [monastic] finds God, not by adding something God hasn't put there." It follows that "wisdom is the parent's very life in the family." God reveals essential lessons through our children.
When do we invite children to participate in prayer and worship? We are placing unreasonable expectations upon the 1st Day School teachers if we leave all the responsibility with them. Do we approach our children's religious education in confidence that they have a rich inner life and contributions to make to our spirituality? There is no better place than the home, in a safe place of trust, for children to share from the heart.
The family is a place of experimentation and creative exploration in love. People we expect to help are in fact one's best teachers, [especially children]. In L'Arche, Jean Vanier has watched countless times as people with handicaps discover belonging and unconditional love as a path to healing and freedom. We are all going to mess up. Christ reaches out to the best in each of us and calls us to do the same with one another. And when we get it right at home, our whole family gets a glimpse of the eternal: God's love and Kingdom.
II. A Spirituality for Families—Thomas Merton explains that the desert is where the Hebrews learned to love God: "This then is our desert: to live facing despair, but not to consent. To trample it down under hope in the Cross." To witness for hope in the world is the radical work of God for families; it is how we meet Christ. What was it about Jesus, what is it about Christ that made the fishermen trust enough to leave their livelihood & become "fishers of men"? Jean Vanier writes: "(L'Arche) is a work of God which has sometimes been achieved in spite of me ... Had I a clear plan, I might have been less ready to welcome God's plan."
[How much room to we make in our lives for God's plans?] How much room do we make in our lives for our children's plans? In order for Christ to lead us into life, into change and growth, we need to be receptive, teachable, filled with gratitude and Joy. Christ calls us to contentment and mindfulness, gratitude for all we have, and awareness of God's presence. Attentiveness enables us to see and hear our children with the eyes and ears of Christ, with tenderness and compassion.
Christ Dwells in Smallness & Weakness—Sometimes I'm annoyed by my children's needs, when they interfere with my plans or desires. In their need, children are prophetic; they call us to act with Christ's tenderness & compassion. Jesus said: "Unless you change & become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Do we recognize our children as bearers of Christ's presence,[each as a Christ-child]? Being a parent can at times mean hosting an honored guest.
Christ tells us we can encounter him in the small and weak if we'll notice and open our hearts. Lacking inhibitions, children can not care what people think and not ["keep up appearances"]; they know they are loved and free. Lacking inhibitions, they can also be difficult, self-centered, stubborn, impulsive. The Taizé brothers write: "[Jesus] does not speak of [the children's] strong points, but rather about their powerlessness. It is in our weakness that God wishes to welcome us ... How can we know that in spite of our contradictions, we are already "children of God?" Jean Vanier writes: "I had to accept my own difficulties and poverty, and look for help ... I was hiding my poverty ... I had to accept myself without any illusions. I had to discover how to forgive and my own need for forgiveness."
Parenting revealed to me all the stubborn wounds stemming from my own childhood, reopened with little provocation: insecurity, inadequacy, unworthiness, my disabilities. Vanier says: "We have to create situations where our hearts can be fortified & nourished, so that we can be sensitive to others' needs, cries, inner pain, tenderness, and gifts of love ... the heart frees others." Discovering Christ dwelling in the smallness and weakness within ourselves and our children enables families to grow in freedom toward God.
Christ Invites us into Communion in Simplicity—When we as parents live in radical refusal to the idols of comfort & luxury, we identify & shed excess. We have tried to live below our limits. Richard A. Swenson writes: "On the unsaturated side of our limits, we can be open & expansive." He is concerned that living without margin causes pain & can kill us. [I volunteered too much], I had pain I wasn't even conscious of feeling, & I was taking it out on loved ones. Jean Vanier describes: "When I was tired or preoccupied, my inner pain & anguish rose more quickly to the surface. In difficult times, it was hard to be open, welcoming & patient."
People asked me: "Do you want to be a "human doing" or a "human being"? When our schedules fill up, or we are otherwise stressed, someone becomes ill and we find ourselves back in the old patterns of behavior. Vanier says: "In order to accept other people's disabilities and to help them to grow, it was fundamental for me to accept my own." Slowing down leaves room for God to work in us, causing us to change and grow in new directions. Swenson's prescription for living with margin [below limits] includes: Move less often; own fewer things; eliminate and avoid debt; slow down; limit time at work. Do we ever [as a family] engage in activity that is not goal-oriented or focused on an outcome or product? When we live with margin for ourselves it's good; when we model that for our children, it's excellent. Christ invites us into communion as a family, and with margin, we have time and space to respond to that call.
Christ Enters our Home through Hospitality—God asks us to share [the communion we've known] with others through hospitality. During WW II, the Taizé in their beginning, "prepared a poor welcome with very little." Jean Vanier started under similar circumstances. Neither of them waited until they had enough time, money, or resources. Jean Vanier writes: "If each of us ... opens our hearts to a few people who are different and become their friend, receive life from them, our societies would change. When grounded in Gospel, Prayer and Contemplation impel us to live for the good of God.
Christ enters our homes through hospitality. Sometimes what I have to offer seems a very "poor welcome" indeed. What really matters is the sharing that can occur around the table and in worship after meal. The challenge for us is to not only to help those in need, but to enter into relationships with them and to be changed by them. Through them God can renew and refresh, heal and unify us all.
III. Praying at Home with Children—How do we lead children to a quiet place & teach them attentiveness to the inward life? Family devotions in the mornings were common among Friends for many generations. Prayer is a time to let light flow into our lives, to "enlighten" each day. Prayer is a space to "re-read the day, listen to hope's voice calling us back to love's essentials, be centered in love, & let what is deepest in us surface." Prayer is more about changing ourselves than changing God; "more about listening than talking."
Prayer and Worship with Children—We can offer our whole life to God as prayer. If prayer is about listening, its important to stop our work and devote all our energy to tuning into God. Prayer isn't limited for our family, but by setting aside time and space for it regularly, we all feel more natural worshiping together. God rejoices with us when we pray using our whole bodies. Every religion observes seasons and festivals, and rich traditions appealing to all the senses mark each one. We decided to proceed with caution and explore these rich traditions. We did not want to become slave to them, but to see what light they may bring to our family's life [e.g. Santa Lucia, La Befana, La Posada]. Our daughters have been fascinated by making a menorah and lighting the candles at Chanukah, celebrating Feast of tabernacles, Shabbat, and Passover. We respect their feelings when they don't wish to participate. Now, the children lead us, choosing the songs, guiding us in worship.
Our meeting formed a small ministry team devoted to children's worship & spiritual nurture. The strengthening of families feeds the wider Society of Friends. My husband & I are in a spiritual formation group with 2 other couples to explore vocation & discipleship. How is God working in our lives? What is God calling us to do? What does it mean to follow Christ here & now? These couples have grown close to our children, praying for & with them as well. Prayer has deepened our communion with one another & with God. God has reached in & is using us in new ways, calling us to work we hadn't imagine. God embraces our deep longings, & when we open ourselves to them in prayer, God's own deep longings can flow through us into the world. [In our case, it is into living] for a time among Quakers in East Africa, to learn the sources of their faith, & to share ours.
Even the Desire for God Pleases God/ A Worship Experience for Family Prayer Time—We must approach prayer in the family as we approach all of life, as experimental. [Children's attitudes will vary]. If we offer the children a role to play, they are much more likely to enjoy family prayer. For children, worship at its best goes to the heart of God, with an experience of love, joy and belonging, and a glimpse of God's vision for the earth and its people. Even if they don't grasp the full meaning of the words, children can be fully engaged. Some fundamental attitudes of prayer to include in home worship are: thanksgiving; confession; intercession; listening; praise. Intercession is holding people in the Light; listening means holding in the Light your own special needs and listen for God's answers. Taizé has offered our family music that lifts up each of these forms of prayer. Songs of Taizé or the Friends hymnal Worship in Song are good resources.
Taizé-style worship has marvelous appeal and accessibility for all ages. It's wonderful if you can begin praying regularly when your children are small. It's not too late if they are teens. Then, books such as Listening with the Heart can be used in group reflection The 3 books mentioned above are available from the Pendle Hill bookstore. At home, you might have one or more candles, and perhaps a cross, an icon of something from nature to focus the attention—flowers, shell, or stone. Allow a few moments of silence between elements of prayer. The silent period following the readings should be brief. [example of order of worship given] Experiment and keep searching. Have courage and join together with other families in your meeting or wider community to share ideas, spirituality, and prayer together, trusting that "even the desire for God pleases God."
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
396. God Raising us: Parenting as a Spiritual Practice (by Eileen Flanagan; 2008)
About the Author—Eileen Flanagan has taught the class “Discerning Our Calls” for the Pendle Hill Resident Study Program and offers weekend workshops. She is the author of Listen with Your Heart: Seeking the Sacred in Romantic Love. She lives in Philadelphia with her spouse and 2 children.
[Introduction]/ New Openings—[Foster parents of an 18-year old deflected the praise they received]: “Everyone is talking like we raised this boy or something. But really God filled him with love and, through this kid, God raised us.” That is as good a description of parenthood as I have heard. My children have helped me find God, not just in silence and solitude, but in the midst of chaos and crying. Parenting is a spiritual practice.
Recognizing this could benefit the Religious Society of Friends as a whole. Nurturing parents’ connection to the Divine will help them in the many ways they serve, especially in kindling their children’s spiritual growth. We have much to offer seeking parents, but if we are insensitive, we risk losing 2 generations at once.
Deciding to become a parent is one of the most consequential matters of discernment that most of us will ever face. For some, way opens quickly and easily for others, only after years of waiting, effort and sometimes loss. I believe Quakers could do more to share with each other how we have felt God’s guidance in these intimate experiences; [that is what I seek to do here]. I had been writing a book for 2 years. I had a dream of a 2-year old and a red-haired infant, in which I let go of the 2-year old. By letting go of the book and reaching for the baby, I was letting go of one phase of my life and reaching for a new one.
I said: “Let’s stop trying not to get pregnant.” I felt we weren’t planning a pregnancy so much as opening to a possibility. I soon became pregnant. Pregnancy taught me to pay attention to my body as discerning instrument. [I refrained from taking herbs to deliver “on time.”] 2 weeks past my due date, I had a strong inner sense that God’s guidance was shifting. [I 1st tried natural inducers, & then agreed to be induced by my doctor]. The 1st pregnancy changed the way I experience God’s guidance teaching me to pay attention to my body & dreams. [My 2nd pregnancy was ecotopic [i.e. in my Fallopian tube] & had to be terminated]. When I got pregnant a 3rd time, I had a profound sense of being dependent on God, groping for the path God wanted me to follow.
An Interconnected Self—Parenthood changed the way I experience my connection to the Divine. As a parent, I started to experience God more through my connections to other people. Nursing felt like a prayer, a give and take that connected me to all life. Sometimes, holding my baby for hours on end made me feel tired rather than transcendent. Having a baby took away daily silent worship. I did feel led to continue writing in the cracks of time when my daughter napped or sometimes when her father was with her. [I prayed for and a few weeks later met a novelist-mother with a daughter my age who shared a childrearing philosophy with me]. She was a devout atheist who screamed laughing when she heard she was the answer to a prayer. Worshipping with older mothers, who remembered the stage I was in and had survived it, was reassuring.
The biggest shift in my consciousness was the realization that I was no longer an isolated I who could just think about what I wanted and how to get it. I was part of a we and needed to discern what would work best for our family as a whole. I worked through Julia Cameron’s bestseller, The Artist’s Way, [which assumed an autonomy that I no longer had]. I wished for a sequel called The Artistic Mother’s Way to explain how to nurture one’s creative life while also nurturing a child. The Deep connection I felt with my daughter and son made me feel as vulnerable as they were by association, [and I worried for their safety].
Fear and Trust—How hard should parents try to protect their children? I refuse to say, “Never talk to strangers,” still I know some strangers abduct children, so I am teaching my children to listen to their intuitions. If any adult or situation makes them feel unsafe, I tell them, “Walk away and find an adult you trust.” It is a tricky balance, trying to be a responsible educated parent without becoming an obsessed maniac. A neonatologist explained that he was willing to overtreat many babies if it meant saving the lives of a few.
Before children I took risks on my adventures, did without health insurance and life insurance. While parenthood was making me more assertive about planning for the future, it was also teaching me to let go of my daily agenda in the present. My children were so good at living in the present moment that they slowly taught me how to be present myself. It has been through little trials—the missed party, the nap I could not take when I was sick—that I learned to trust that my deepest needs will always be met, if not always my every desire.
The fear of losing ourselves to parenthood is common especially among stay-at-home parents. This common human struggle with sacrifice & surrender is compounded by legitimate concerns about gender roles & the equality testimony. For me, it was sometimes difficult to know if I was more afraid of falling into the stereotypical female role simply out of social conditioning or of fully surrendering to my calling. There are many ways God leads people to love and raise their children. I was at home with my baby because that was what I felt God was leading me to do. I acknowledged my fears and discussed them with other mothers, older Quaker women, who understood that sometimes we need to stand up for ourselves, and sometimes we need to surrender.
Stripping the Mask—One [discernment] aid is to notice our fears as well as anger & sadness that can guide us unconsciously if we aren’t aware of them. Thomas Merton wrote that masking our emotions was a way to hide from our true selves, while stripping away our masks was a way to connect to God. My family’s model was Jackie Kennedy, dignified & private, even in the face of death. [That model was used in facing my father’s dying & death]. It was only years after my father’s death that I learned to acknowledge emotions like grief and anger.
By the time my daughter was born, I was convinced that knowing oneself & valuing one’s emotions were important components of discernment & spiritual growth. Even after postpartum passed, I found myself crying much more often than I ever had before, as if identifying with a baby had made it impossible not to identify with other people too. There were moments when the rawness of my emotions did feel like a discernment tool. [2 jobs not in keeping with other leadings left me sobbing, while] teaching opportunities didn’t provoke this reaction.
At other moments my emotions' rawness felt like an obstacle to discernment. [My daughter’s moments of violent jealousy toward her younger brother] were disturbing. My reaction to her also being violent shocked & shamed me. [Sometimes acts of violence offer an opportunity to befriend the target of our violence, & to see] the remarkable change which friendship brings about. After my own violent episodes, I also felt humility & compassion. I could no longer call other parents monsters, or disdain people in foreign countries who used violence when they felt their families threatened. If I could lose my [nonviolent] principles in a rage, what would I be capable of in war? [After my experiences with my daughter, I better understood &] appreciated spiritual practices like [chastity &] fasting, which are intended to help strip us of our selfishness & teach us self-control. [I eventually] heard a voice within me whisper, “Stop trying to change her. Just change yourself … Pray.”
Daily Practice—Surely I knew enough to ask for guidance. But I had gotten out of the habit of asking for things, even from God. I found it especially difficult to hear the Inner Guide over the crying & whining. It is hard to listen to the Inner Guide when we are trying to be efficient, especially when we are focused on other people’s requests. I needed a spiritual guide to tell me how to hear my inner voice when kids were whining in my ears. Quaker women’s journals hadn't described their lives with children as thoroughly as their public ministries.
I have always tried to carve out a little quiet. At each phase of their growth, I had to figure out different ways to find quiet, which gradually became easier as they grew. “Thank you” is my most frequent prayer. I especially needed meeting for worship during the years when silence was scarce. Tom & I began giving each other overnight retreats for Christmas and other occasions to nurture each others spiritual lives, and so the children would see that making time to listen to God was something we valued more than gadgets or new clothes.
Sometimes the children’s prayers sounded [routine]; over the years they got more profound. It was my Catholic husband who added extended silence to our evening routine during Advent & Lent. The children settled into a deeper place than on Sunday morning when they are peeking at my watch to see when 15 minutes were up. These family worship times are much deeper for me than the time in meeting for worship; it feels like wholeness. [I have to work at practicing] simplicity, peace & equality testimonies, [especially on school mornings].
Last spring I felt led to make baseball a spiritual practice. I think baseball is boring, but I [soon] realized how beautiful the baseball field is in spring; how funny one of the other mothers is; how exciting it can be to watch children try something difficult and run with joy when they succeed. Baseball may be an apt metaphor for parenting. I can coach them, but increasingly they have to step up to bat on their own while I sit back and cheer. Like the children, I move out and return to base to wait until it is my turn to move out again. There is no one [base] path for this journey, no one way to be a Quaker parent.
Supporting the Spiritual Lives of Parents—Parents need opportunities to deepen their own spiritual lives without cutting themselves off from their children. The challenge is for Friends to find ways of replicating the feeling of FGC Gathering, with its multi-generational worship & age-specific programs, more often, closer to home & at less expense. I have been blessed to be part of a meeting that does this movement well. The absence [of a good 1st Day School program] strains parents who may need worship more than those who can find quiet spaces throughout the week. The commitment of non-parents is part of the reason our 1st Day school thrives.
A community that wants to welcome parents & children has to be a little tolerant [of the inevitable noises of multi-generational worship]. Quaker gatherings outside of monthly meetings can also provide lifelines to parents, though here the structures for childcare or programs may be less well organized. I appreciate the mystical tradition of going off to the desert to find God. But I can't make it to the desert and be home for dinner.
I have found parents have much to say on finding God in our everyday lives. Even less frequent are opportunities to share across generational lines. I have found the support of older Friends similarly helpful, not because they have all the answers, but because they can say, “I’ve been there, I know.” I began to wonder if holding each other in prayer might be a way parents could support each other without adding another meeting to our schedules. The language of early Quakers speaks powerfully to the image of God raising us through the love of other people. As our children help raise us closer to God, so are we called to raise one another to wholeness.
Queries: How have you grown spiritually through your interactions with children? How have dreams helped you discern God’s guidance for your life? How did an experience of losing control over your life change you? How have you experienced God through other people? What are the risks of becoming part of a “We”? How has experiencing your own capacity for violence in your life affected you? How has the presence or absence of children affected the character of your worship community? How have Friends meetings been supportive of families with young children?
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
Christ Invites us into Communion in Simplicity—When we as parents live in radical refusal to the idols of comfort & luxury, we identify & shed excess. We have tried to live below our limits. Richard A. Swenson writes: "On the unsaturated side of our limits, we can be open & expansive." He is concerned that living without margin causes pain & can kill us. [I volunteered too much], I had pain I wasn't even conscious of feeling, & I was taking it out on loved ones. Jean Vanier describes: "When I was tired or preoccupied, my inner pain & anguish rose more quickly to the surface. In difficult times, it was hard to be open, welcoming & patient."
People asked me: "Do you want to be a "human doing" or a "human being"? When our schedules fill up, or we are otherwise stressed, someone becomes ill and we find ourselves back in the old patterns of behavior. Vanier says: "In order to accept other people's disabilities and to help them to grow, it was fundamental for me to accept my own." Slowing down leaves room for God to work in us, causing us to change and grow in new directions. Swenson's prescription for living with margin [below limits] includes: Move less often; own fewer things; eliminate and avoid debt; slow down; limit time at work. Do we ever [as a family] engage in activity that is not goal-oriented or focused on an outcome or product? When we live with margin for ourselves it's good; when we model that for our children, it's excellent. Christ invites us into communion as a family, and with margin, we have time and space to respond to that call.
Christ Enters our Home through Hospitality—God asks us to share [the communion we've known] with others through hospitality. During WW II, the Taizé in their beginning, "prepared a poor welcome with very little." Jean Vanier started under similar circumstances. Neither of them waited until they had enough time, money, or resources. Jean Vanier writes: "If each of us ... opens our hearts to a few people who are different and become their friend, receive life from them, our societies would change. When grounded in Gospel, Prayer and Contemplation impel us to live for the good of God.
Christ enters our homes through hospitality. Sometimes what I have to offer seems a very "poor welcome" indeed. What really matters is the sharing that can occur around the table and in worship after meal. The challenge for us is to not only to help those in need, but to enter into relationships with them and to be changed by them. Through them God can renew and refresh, heal and unify us all.
III. Praying at Home with Children—How do we lead children to a quiet place & teach them attentiveness to the inward life? Family devotions in the mornings were common among Friends for many generations. Prayer is a time to let light flow into our lives, to "enlighten" each day. Prayer is a space to "re-read the day, listen to hope's voice calling us back to love's essentials, be centered in love, & let what is deepest in us surface." Prayer is more about changing ourselves than changing God; "more about listening than talking."
Prayer and Worship with Children—We can offer our whole life to God as prayer. If prayer is about listening, its important to stop our work and devote all our energy to tuning into God. Prayer isn't limited for our family, but by setting aside time and space for it regularly, we all feel more natural worshiping together. God rejoices with us when we pray using our whole bodies. Every religion observes seasons and festivals, and rich traditions appealing to all the senses mark each one. We decided to proceed with caution and explore these rich traditions. We did not want to become slave to them, but to see what light they may bring to our family's life [e.g. Santa Lucia, La Befana, La Posada]. Our daughters have been fascinated by making a menorah and lighting the candles at Chanukah, celebrating Feast of tabernacles, Shabbat, and Passover. We respect their feelings when they don't wish to participate. Now, the children lead us, choosing the songs, guiding us in worship.
Our meeting formed a small ministry team devoted to children's worship & spiritual nurture. The strengthening of families feeds the wider Society of Friends. My husband & I are in a spiritual formation group with 2 other couples to explore vocation & discipleship. How is God working in our lives? What is God calling us to do? What does it mean to follow Christ here & now? These couples have grown close to our children, praying for & with them as well. Prayer has deepened our communion with one another & with God. God has reached in & is using us in new ways, calling us to work we hadn't imagine. God embraces our deep longings, & when we open ourselves to them in prayer, God's own deep longings can flow through us into the world. [In our case, it is into living] for a time among Quakers in East Africa, to learn the sources of their faith, & to share ours.
Even the Desire for God Pleases God/ A Worship Experience for Family Prayer Time—We must approach prayer in the family as we approach all of life, as experimental. [Children's attitudes will vary]. If we offer the children a role to play, they are much more likely to enjoy family prayer. For children, worship at its best goes to the heart of God, with an experience of love, joy and belonging, and a glimpse of God's vision for the earth and its people. Even if they don't grasp the full meaning of the words, children can be fully engaged. Some fundamental attitudes of prayer to include in home worship are: thanksgiving; confession; intercession; listening; praise. Intercession is holding people in the Light; listening means holding in the Light your own special needs and listen for God's answers. Taizé has offered our family music that lifts up each of these forms of prayer. Songs of Taizé or the Friends hymnal Worship in Song are good resources.
Taizé-style worship has marvelous appeal and accessibility for all ages. It's wonderful if you can begin praying regularly when your children are small. It's not too late if they are teens. Then, books such as Listening with the Heart can be used in group reflection The 3 books mentioned above are available from the Pendle Hill bookstore. At home, you might have one or more candles, and perhaps a cross, an icon of something from nature to focus the attention—flowers, shell, or stone. Allow a few moments of silence between elements of prayer. The silent period following the readings should be brief. [example of order of worship given] Experiment and keep searching. Have courage and join together with other families in your meeting or wider community to share ideas, spirituality, and prayer together, trusting that "even the desire for God pleases God."
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
396. God Raising us: Parenting as a Spiritual Practice (by Eileen Flanagan; 2008)
About the Author—Eileen Flanagan has taught the class “Discerning Our Calls” for the Pendle Hill Resident Study Program and offers weekend workshops. She is the author of Listen with Your Heart: Seeking the Sacred in Romantic Love. She lives in Philadelphia with her spouse and 2 children.
[Introduction]/ New Openings—[Foster parents of an 18-year old deflected the praise they received]: “Everyone is talking like we raised this boy or something. But really God filled him with love and, through this kid, God raised us.” That is as good a description of parenthood as I have heard. My children have helped me find God, not just in silence and solitude, but in the midst of chaos and crying. Parenting is a spiritual practice.
Recognizing this could benefit the Religious Society of Friends as a whole. Nurturing parents’ connection to the Divine will help them in the many ways they serve, especially in kindling their children’s spiritual growth. We have much to offer seeking parents, but if we are insensitive, we risk losing 2 generations at once.
Deciding to become a parent is one of the most consequential matters of discernment that most of us will ever face. For some, way opens quickly and easily for others, only after years of waiting, effort and sometimes loss. I believe Quakers could do more to share with each other how we have felt God’s guidance in these intimate experiences; [that is what I seek to do here]. I had been writing a book for 2 years. I had a dream of a 2-year old and a red-haired infant, in which I let go of the 2-year old. By letting go of the book and reaching for the baby, I was letting go of one phase of my life and reaching for a new one.
I said: “Let’s stop trying not to get pregnant.” I felt we weren’t planning a pregnancy so much as opening to a possibility. I soon became pregnant. Pregnancy taught me to pay attention to my body as discerning instrument. [I refrained from taking herbs to deliver “on time.”] 2 weeks past my due date, I had a strong inner sense that God’s guidance was shifting. [I 1st tried natural inducers, & then agreed to be induced by my doctor]. The 1st pregnancy changed the way I experience God’s guidance teaching me to pay attention to my body & dreams. [My 2nd pregnancy was ecotopic [i.e. in my Fallopian tube] & had to be terminated]. When I got pregnant a 3rd time, I had a profound sense of being dependent on God, groping for the path God wanted me to follow.
An Interconnected Self—Parenthood changed the way I experience my connection to the Divine. As a parent, I started to experience God more through my connections to other people. Nursing felt like a prayer, a give and take that connected me to all life. Sometimes, holding my baby for hours on end made me feel tired rather than transcendent. Having a baby took away daily silent worship. I did feel led to continue writing in the cracks of time when my daughter napped or sometimes when her father was with her. [I prayed for and a few weeks later met a novelist-mother with a daughter my age who shared a childrearing philosophy with me]. She was a devout atheist who screamed laughing when she heard she was the answer to a prayer. Worshipping with older mothers, who remembered the stage I was in and had survived it, was reassuring.
The biggest shift in my consciousness was the realization that I was no longer an isolated I who could just think about what I wanted and how to get it. I was part of a we and needed to discern what would work best for our family as a whole. I worked through Julia Cameron’s bestseller, The Artist’s Way, [which assumed an autonomy that I no longer had]. I wished for a sequel called The Artistic Mother’s Way to explain how to nurture one’s creative life while also nurturing a child. The Deep connection I felt with my daughter and son made me feel as vulnerable as they were by association, [and I worried for their safety].
Fear and Trust—How hard should parents try to protect their children? I refuse to say, “Never talk to strangers,” still I know some strangers abduct children, so I am teaching my children to listen to their intuitions. If any adult or situation makes them feel unsafe, I tell them, “Walk away and find an adult you trust.” It is a tricky balance, trying to be a responsible educated parent without becoming an obsessed maniac. A neonatologist explained that he was willing to overtreat many babies if it meant saving the lives of a few.
Before children I took risks on my adventures, did without health insurance and life insurance. While parenthood was making me more assertive about planning for the future, it was also teaching me to let go of my daily agenda in the present. My children were so good at living in the present moment that they slowly taught me how to be present myself. It has been through little trials—the missed party, the nap I could not take when I was sick—that I learned to trust that my deepest needs will always be met, if not always my every desire.
The fear of losing ourselves to parenthood is common especially among stay-at-home parents. This common human struggle with sacrifice & surrender is compounded by legitimate concerns about gender roles & the equality testimony. For me, it was sometimes difficult to know if I was more afraid of falling into the stereotypical female role simply out of social conditioning or of fully surrendering to my calling. There are many ways God leads people to love and raise their children. I was at home with my baby because that was what I felt God was leading me to do. I acknowledged my fears and discussed them with other mothers, older Quaker women, who understood that sometimes we need to stand up for ourselves, and sometimes we need to surrender.
Stripping the Mask—One [discernment] aid is to notice our fears as well as anger & sadness that can guide us unconsciously if we aren’t aware of them. Thomas Merton wrote that masking our emotions was a way to hide from our true selves, while stripping away our masks was a way to connect to God. My family’s model was Jackie Kennedy, dignified & private, even in the face of death. [That model was used in facing my father’s dying & death]. It was only years after my father’s death that I learned to acknowledge emotions like grief and anger.
By the time my daughter was born, I was convinced that knowing oneself & valuing one’s emotions were important components of discernment & spiritual growth. Even after postpartum passed, I found myself crying much more often than I ever had before, as if identifying with a baby had made it impossible not to identify with other people too. There were moments when the rawness of my emotions did feel like a discernment tool. [2 jobs not in keeping with other leadings left me sobbing, while] teaching opportunities didn’t provoke this reaction.
At other moments my emotions' rawness felt like an obstacle to discernment. [My daughter’s moments of violent jealousy toward her younger brother] were disturbing. My reaction to her also being violent shocked & shamed me. [Sometimes acts of violence offer an opportunity to befriend the target of our violence, & to see] the remarkable change which friendship brings about. After my own violent episodes, I also felt humility & compassion. I could no longer call other parents monsters, or disdain people in foreign countries who used violence when they felt their families threatened. If I could lose my [nonviolent] principles in a rage, what would I be capable of in war? [After my experiences with my daughter, I better understood &] appreciated spiritual practices like [chastity &] fasting, which are intended to help strip us of our selfishness & teach us self-control. [I eventually] heard a voice within me whisper, “Stop trying to change her. Just change yourself … Pray.”
Daily Practice—Surely I knew enough to ask for guidance. But I had gotten out of the habit of asking for things, even from God. I found it especially difficult to hear the Inner Guide over the crying & whining. It is hard to listen to the Inner Guide when we are trying to be efficient, especially when we are focused on other people’s requests. I needed a spiritual guide to tell me how to hear my inner voice when kids were whining in my ears. Quaker women’s journals hadn't described their lives with children as thoroughly as their public ministries.
I have always tried to carve out a little quiet. At each phase of their growth, I had to figure out different ways to find quiet, which gradually became easier as they grew. “Thank you” is my most frequent prayer. I especially needed meeting for worship during the years when silence was scarce. Tom & I began giving each other overnight retreats for Christmas and other occasions to nurture each others spiritual lives, and so the children would see that making time to listen to God was something we valued more than gadgets or new clothes.
Sometimes the children’s prayers sounded [routine]; over the years they got more profound. It was my Catholic husband who added extended silence to our evening routine during Advent & Lent. The children settled into a deeper place than on Sunday morning when they are peeking at my watch to see when 15 minutes were up. These family worship times are much deeper for me than the time in meeting for worship; it feels like wholeness. [I have to work at practicing] simplicity, peace & equality testimonies, [especially on school mornings].
Last spring I felt led to make baseball a spiritual practice. I think baseball is boring, but I [soon] realized how beautiful the baseball field is in spring; how funny one of the other mothers is; how exciting it can be to watch children try something difficult and run with joy when they succeed. Baseball may be an apt metaphor for parenting. I can coach them, but increasingly they have to step up to bat on their own while I sit back and cheer. Like the children, I move out and return to base to wait until it is my turn to move out again. There is no one [base] path for this journey, no one way to be a Quaker parent.
Supporting the Spiritual Lives of Parents—Parents need opportunities to deepen their own spiritual lives without cutting themselves off from their children. The challenge is for Friends to find ways of replicating the feeling of FGC Gathering, with its multi-generational worship & age-specific programs, more often, closer to home & at less expense. I have been blessed to be part of a meeting that does this movement well. The absence [of a good 1st Day School program] strains parents who may need worship more than those who can find quiet spaces throughout the week. The commitment of non-parents is part of the reason our 1st Day school thrives.
A community that wants to welcome parents & children has to be a little tolerant [of the inevitable noises of multi-generational worship]. Quaker gatherings outside of monthly meetings can also provide lifelines to parents, though here the structures for childcare or programs may be less well organized. I appreciate the mystical tradition of going off to the desert to find God. But I can't make it to the desert and be home for dinner.
I have found parents have much to say on finding God in our everyday lives. Even less frequent are opportunities to share across generational lines. I have found the support of older Friends similarly helpful, not because they have all the answers, but because they can say, “I’ve been there, I know.” I began to wonder if holding each other in prayer might be a way parents could support each other without adding another meeting to our schedules. The language of early Quakers speaks powerfully to the image of God raising us through the love of other people. As our children help raise us closer to God, so are we called to raise one another to wholeness.
Queries: How have you grown spiritually through your interactions with children? How have dreams helped you discern God’s guidance for your life? How did an experience of losing control over your life change you? How have you experienced God through other people? What are the risks of becoming part of a “We”? How has experiencing your own capacity for violence in your life affected you? How has the presence or absence of children affected the character of your worship community? How have Friends meetings been supportive of families with young children?
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
222. The family as a way into the future (by Elise Boulding; 1978)
About the Author—Elise Boulding was born in Oslo, Norway, and came to America when still a small child. [She has degrees in English and sociology]. A sociologist with a global view, she is particularly interested in conflict and peace, family life, and women in society. Her publications include: History: A View of Women through Time; Children’s Rights and the Wheel of Life; The Social System of the Planet Earth (as a co-author).
Mostly, family dance is just choreography of the reserved life, of the left-over inexpressibles from hours of duty out there in the social web. Always it is the Tao, the mirroring of the divine order, however imperfectly, as we teeter back and forth between the created and uncreated in the task of family growth. Elise Boulding
[The Tao of Family]—The future of the family is a subject often approached with great anxiety in these times. I have long been convinced that families are the primary agents of social change in any society. I have come to find the phrase “the Tao of family” meaningful, because it reflects the special nature of family as directioned movement. [There is] ambivalence about whether the family is basically a good institution for human beings. The truth lies somewhere between [“families are all devotion” and “families are all pain].” Is there some better set of arrangements than the family almost within sight that will produce better human beings, more economic justice, and peace instead of war?
The art of social design is at least 10,000 years old, but social designs always misses the individual’s uniqueness. We push at the edges of custom daily by performing our various roles in our special way. The family is an ancient social invention that provides support for the individuation process [& shelter from the harshness of social prescription]. In times of rapid social change, the shelters don't function very well. [People feeling trapped in families or the social web experiment in creating] new family forms or the modification of existing ones.
The commune is an alternative family form that has been invented over and over again. The history of these experiments puts the experiments of our own times into proper perspective. A commune is even more demanding than a “kinship” family in terms of skill in social relations. They must be exhaustingly re-created each day, and most people are not prepared for that kind of effort.
[Household Patterning]—Even in more settled times, there have been many variations of household patterning. While a certain portion of any population lives in households which are standard for the society, demographic analysis is showing that fewer people lived in these standard households than had been thought. It is hard for true individuality to flourish [where there are no] others who can mirror back the growth of one’s individuality over time; [families provide that mirroring].
We worry far too much about the form of the family, as if there should be one optimum pattern answering the human condition. There have always been widows, widowers, and unmarried women rearing children. What is new is that the concepts of neighborhood have been weakened. The 2-parent family is also being inventive, moving away from a cramping “woman-in-the-home only” image. The personhood of the young and the old have also had to be redefined as we gain a better understanding of human capacity and social needs.
Is it all over with the family, or is it still a significant human enterprise? Here I will be referring to any household grouping which involves adults & children in continuing commitment to each other over time. There may any number of adults; they may be heterosexual, gay or celibate. What makes the household a family is that each member cares about each other member & be available in time of need. A single-person household can be a “family” if there is an active network of non-resident friends & relatives in a long-term commitment.
Family life is continuous creation of human beings & of the society in which they live. It is a reflection of the divine order & a uniquely individual act. [The Tao I speak of] is: the divine order & a way; non-action and action; God the Created & Uncreated. Quaker families are rich in traditions on silent waiting. In a spiritually alive community there is seepage of the spirit from individual to family to Meeting & back again.
The Dance of Growth—For the dance of growth to go on, each member must be daily attuned to the different body signals of each other member. Part of the humor is dancing as if everyone were yesterday’s person & making belated adjustments to today’s person. The magic of the dance still creates its own understandings.
There are many forcible intrusions on the family ballet, but for the most part, this person-creating family dance goes on. Each creates the other in the family ballet. All movement is dance, if we but recognize it [as such; we may have more joy in the process of recognizing it]. Mostly the family dance is just the choreography of the reserved life, of all the left-over inexpressibles from hours of duty out there in the social web. Always it is the Tao, the mirroring of the divine order, however imperfectly, as we teeter back and forth between the created and uncreated in the task of family growth.
Time-Binding/Family Healing—For a child, a parent is tomorrow, a grandparent is day-after tomorrow. For a parent, a child is yesterday & tomorrow. Each of us relearns all of a life-span’s roles each day. In the family we can't ignore the different memory stocks of each member. When life spaces are shared, when I-remember & I-hope enter into dialogue, each person gains a sense of social process. Without storytelling, there is no time-binding, no coherence between past & future. Meeting death with a loved one, we travel both ways. Family acts of healing are also time-binding. We expect parents to nurture children, but forget that children also nurture parents. Confidence in one’s ability to heal in the family is confidence in one’s capacity for social healing.
Conflict Maturing—Maturing in the capacity to handle conflict is one of the most discussed and least understood aspects of family life. While conflict avoidance, conflict management, “fighting” skills, and communicating skills are all very important and legitimate approaches to family conflict, they must not substitute for an understanding of the basic process of conflict maturing. The more the love, the more intolerable can differences appear precisely because we have been used to seeing things in the same way in the past.
I use the analogy of 2 young trees planted close together. [They share a space and yet branches and roots reach out in different directions] A family is a small grove of trees planted close together; the newer young trees experience this mingling of roots and branches, and the separateness of new growth away from the center. The more we are faithful to both our togetherness and our separateness, the more pain we feel. The maturing of conflict means letting each element of the conflict take its own shape, and then stepping back to see this impossible, warring configuration as an embodiment of creation. While we must acknowledge and face contradictions, we do not have to flagellate ourselves with them. The “remember-when” session of family reunions are like what we do daily in the family, evoking the familiar to smooth over the unfamiliar.
The capacity for conflict maturing between adults, and between adults and children is as necessary an ingredient for family well being as is the capacity to love. When the family functions as I have been suggesting here, the dance permits each person to grow without trimming the edges [as one has to do to fit each social situation]. In family interaction, we must move in all kinds of ways that are not spontaneous to us. We have so much tension and tightness in the family, yet the spaces to pass through are there if we know how to find them. The key to envisioning the good, and our not producing enough goodness to change our social course to nonviolence, must lie as much in the family as in our capacity for social design.
The Peaceable Kingdom—We love one another beyond reason & beyond design, at the far side of hurt & anger, because there is an order of loving in creation which the Peaceable Kingdom passage (Isaiah 11:6-9) describes. It is a parable of family life, as well as a parable of nations. [As a family], we are bonded at another level. We are bonded in the knowledge of God, which is also the love of God. The teaching of love has always involved a paradoxical yoking of the cosmic & the particular. To the extent that the family is faithful to its nature & task, it is alive with love. With God’s help, the family is the best practice-ground for love we have. From our 1st experience of co-creation with God & each other in the family, we stumble out into neighborhood & community, & practice co-creation there. How are we to create viable new local community structures to replace the frayed structures of industrial centralism, in a dynamic context of world neighborhood, world need, world service? That is what we must do, & it is the high calling of family life to prepare us for this co-creation.
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