The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here makes them strangers. This world is a form; our bodies are forms; and no visible acts of devotion can be without forms. But yet the less form in religion the better, since God is a Spirit; for the more mental our worship, the more adequate to the nature of God; the more silent, the more suitable to the language of a Spirit.
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Author Archives ⇒ Martin Kelley
The Seed as Quaker metaphor
March 28, 2018
From Jnana Hodson’s blog, a look at “The Seed” as a Quaker metaphor:
Considering today’s emphasis on individuality, plurality, and personal psychology, I believe that returning to the metaphor of the Seed holds the most potential for fertile spiritual development and guidance in our own era.
I find the evolution of Quaker metaphors fascinating. Early Quaker sermons and epistles were packed with biblical allusions. I grew up relatively unchurched but I’ve tried to make up for it over the years. I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover using the One Year Bible plan (like a lot of people I suspect, it took me a little over two years) and have been part of different denominational Bible study groups. I try to look up references. But even with that I don’t catch half the references early sermons packed in.
John Woolman lived a couple of generations after the first Friends. We Quaker remember his Journal for ministry of its anti-slavery sentiments, finally becoming a consensus among Friends by the time of its publication in 1774. But other religious folks have read it for its literary value. Open a random page and Woolman will have up to half a dozen metaphors for the Divine. It’s packed and rich and accessible. I find a kind of particular Quaker spiritual truth in Woolman’s rotation of metaphors: it implies that divinity is more than any specific words we try to stuff it into.
Lately Quaker metaphors have tended to become more sterile. I think we’re still worried about specifics but instead of expanding our language we contract it into a kind of impenetrable code. The “Light of Christ” becomes the “Inward Christ” then the “Inward Light” then “the Light” or “Spirit.” We’re still echoing the Light metaphors packed into the Book of John but doing so in such a way that seems particularly parochial to Friends and non-obvious to newcomers. A major New Testament theme is reduced to Quaker lingo.
Jnana Hodson’s problem with “the seed” as metaphor is interesting: “ ‘seed,’ as such, has far fewer Biblical citations than the corresponding complementary ‘light’ or ‘true’ and ‘truth’ do.” I’m not sure I ever noticed that. I like the seed, with its organic connotations and promise of future growth. But apparently the few biblical allusions were rather sexist (spoiler: it often meant semen) and lacking in biological awareness. It feels like Friends are searching for neutral metaphors like “the seed” these days; we also have a lot of gatherings around “weaving.” I certainly don’t think we should be limited to first century images of divinity but I also don’t think we’ve quite figured out how we can talk about the guidance we receive from the Inward Teacher.
The Seed, initially, is the most problematic of the three central Quaker metaphors
March 28, 2018
When we say we are holding someone in the Light, it is wise to remember that holding is an action verb. Sometimes I confuse intercession prayer with placing a short order to a Spirit I treat as a personal complaint department. “You didn’t get my order right, God…she’s even sicker than before!” I love the way Quaker teachings humble me and help me work with love while waiting expectantly for God’s will to be done.
— Bonnie S. in a recent comment
Hope in the Middle East
March 27, 2018
As the March Friends Journal theme of Quakers and the Holy Land comes to a close, this week’s featured article is one with hope. Sandy Rea shares stories of teaching in various parts of the Middle East with his wife Stephanie Judson:
I fell in love with Lebanon: with the people, the sound of the language, the tastes of the food, and smells of the spices. Views to the Lebanon mountains from Beirut’s seaside boulevards and rooftops are enticing. Mountain villages have preserved their charm by keeping older homes with the blonde stone and red tile roofs. The hard-working and earnest teachers and the smart, business-minded shop owners are always glad to see foreigners. There is an industriousness, resilience, and pride in the Lebanese that contribute to the repeated risings from so many destructions of the city.
Sandy also gives us histories of times in which Christians, Muslims, and Jews have lived together in peace. It is possible. Today Sandy is clerk of the Middle East Collaborative of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which is working on reconciliation in the region.
March 27, 2018
I do not believe there has ever been any possible way of salvation but that of a birth of divinity in man.
— SCOTT
Ask Me Anything: Do Quakers celebrate Easter and if so, how?
March 26, 2018
A question From Jessica F about Friends and Easter.
On the face of it, this is an easy question. Early Friends were loath to recognize any liturgical practices and they were lower‑p puritanical about anything that smacked of paganism. Famously, they didn’t use the common names of the week or months because many of them referred to non-Christian deities, like Thor and Janus.
They were especially grumpy about anything that smacked of latter-day syncretism. Many of the church holidays were seen as pagan festivals with a superficial Christian overlay. I’ll be the first to admit they could get kind of obnoxious this way. Wikipedia explains some of this attitude:
Other Protestant groups took a different attitude, with most Anabaptists, Quakers, Congregationalists and Presbyterian Puritans regarding such festivals as an abomination. The Puritan rejection of Easter traditions was (and is) based partly upon their interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14 – 16 and partly upon a more general belief that, if a religious practice or celebration is not actually written in the Christian Bible, then that practice/celebration must be a later development and cannot be considered an authentic part of Christian practice or belief — so at best simply unnecessary, at worst actually sinful.
In Latin, Easter is called Pascha, a reference to the Jewish Passover festival. But in England, Pascha took place in the month the old English called Ēostre after a goddess whose festival was celebrated in that month. This made it doubly hard for English Protestant groups that wanted to cleanse Christianity of “popish” or “pagan” influences. So for right or wrong, they ignored it like they did the day the world calls Christmas.
Symbolically, Quakers love the idea of Easter. One of George Fox’s most key openings was that“Christ has come to teach the people himself!” The idea that Jesus rose again and is with us is pretty central to traditional Quaker beliefs.
These days Easter is largely celebrated by Friends standing up on Sunday to break the silence of worship with nostalgic stories of Easters in their pre-Quaker youth. Sometimes they’ll admit to having attended a Easter service at another church before coming to meeting that morning. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get ministry about flowers or hats.
Hitler jokes and Quaker schools
March 26, 2018
The case of a beloved Quaker Jewish teacher being fired from a NYC Friends School for making a Nazi salute as a joke is bringing us some interesting commentary. Mark Oppenheimer writes in Tablet:
One might call this whole episode the triumph of Waspy good intentions over Jewish common sense… But of course Quaker schools — and Quaker camps, like the one I once attended, and Quaker meetinghouses — are, these days, pretty Jewish places. The Times article has a burlesque feel, with a bunch of Jewish students and alumni performing in Quaker-face.
He also makes interesting points about the cultures of Jewish humor (“We Jews survive because of Hitler jokes”) and that of Friends:
The Quaker practice of silent worship can disposes its practitioners against the loud, bawdy, contentious discourse that infuses Jewish culture. I’m not making claims about individual Quakers — I can introduce you to perfectly hilarious Quakers, some of whom interrupt even more than I do — but at their institutions, the values that come to the fore are Gene Sharp not Gene Wilder. In their earnestness, Quaker schools are David Brooks not Mel Brooks. You get the idea.
I’m always a bit unsure how seriously to take cultural Quaker stereotypes as motivating forces in pieces like these. I wonder how many Friends actually work or study at a Manhattan Quaker school. A more generic headmaster fear-of-conflict seems as likely a cause as anything to do with silent worship. Then too, we don’t know what other issues might be at play below the surface of privacy and confidentiality. But the Friends Seminary incident seems as good a marker as anything else of the complicated dynamics within Friends schools today.
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/258394/jewish-teacher-fired-from-quaker-school-for-making-nazi-joke
March 26, 2018
Oh! thus keeping silence before the Lord and thus drawing near to him in a true silent frame of Spirit.
— WHITEHEAD