by Margery Post Abbott
Originally published in 2011 by Western Friend / Friends Bulletin Corporation. If you would like to have a hard copy of this book, please order it from Western Friend here.
Table of contents
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- Introduction
- Waiting and Attending
1. Waiting and Attending
2. The Consuming Fire
3. Sifting Through Fears
4. Salvation
5. Breaking Down the Walls
6. The Nature of God
7. The Light of Christ
8. That of God in Everyone
9. The Light That is in Us All
10. Spiritual Maturity
11. Being Present to Others
12. Taking Up the Cross Daily
13. Atonement
14. Fleeing the Cross
15. Suffering
16. The City of God
17. Justice
18. Responding to Violence
19. The Wholeness of the Earth
20. Solitude
21. Communion
22. The Hard Work of Retirement
23. Be Gentle with Yourself
24. Brokenness and Tenderness
25. “Something Broken Got Fixed”
26. Breaking the Fear of Death
27. That Which Must Be Broken
28. God’s Way and Human Will
29. Being a Friend
Study Guides
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Publishing & Copyright Information
About the Author
Introduction
These days, when I want to describe someone I would like as a mentor, or a healthy, vibrant Quaker Meeting, I tend to use the words “broken and tender.” A broken, tender community contains many individuals who have found that place in themselves where they can be still: a place where love has broken apart the bounds of the ego. Such people are transparent: compassion is visible in their movements and intent. They are formed by the Meeting even as they shape it. With even a few such people present, community is more tender in its care for one another and more passionate in its concern for the well-being of the world.
A broken, tender person or Meeting is far from flawless. People still bump up against each other roughly and do foolish things. People still hurt each other even when the intention is not there. But there is space for seeing to the heart of the matter and coming to know what was meant. There is space for mending what was broken and coming to forgiveness.
This book articulates the way I see God at work in the hearts of individuals so that they are tender to the pain of the world and the selfish power of the ego is broken apart. Here, I also name some of the ways Friends’ practice and faith help form strong individuals able to challenge the destructive values and institutions of the world around them.
This narrative is informed by my own story of being broken open by God’s love and tenderly re-formed within such a community. As I learned more about the faith I was raised in and have claimed as an adult, I found extra layers of meaning underlying various of our practices and testimonies which have been important in my growth both personally and as part of a Meeting. Part of my calling is to share what I have learned with others.
A Transforming Way
Many of us experience a point in our lives when it is time to take stock, to review where we are going, and to move forward on a path which reflects our values and our hopes. This hiatus may be voluntary, or it may come without warning. Upon my father’s death in 1991, I found myself suddenly confronted with the reality of the Eternal Presence in the world. Until then, I defined my faith in terms of action: what Friends call the testimonies of peace, simplicity, equality, community and integrity. Mysticism was an abstract concept. Theology seemed irrelevant.
Early Friends rejected academic theology and church-imposed creeds. They saw both as dry and devoid of life. While George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, and others wrote much that can be called “theology,” their sole purpose was to point others to the living reality of Christ present. Yet the letters of Margaret Fell, Isaac Penington and others offered spiritual guidance and encouragement to individuals, theological and practical instruction to Meetings, and warnings to persecutors of the danger to their souls. These Friends also wrote many tracts defending their faith in a time when blasphemy, and even worshiping outside the established church were grounds for imprisonment and fines. Thus, when I speak of “theology” I follow their practice of referring to what they personally knew of God, not some academic exercise or what I’ve heard from other people. But I also hope that what I write will help others to find their way and to articulate what unites Friends as a body, as well as what gives life to us as individuals.
The intensity of that mystical opening in 1991 sent me into the Quaker journals which spoke of such encounters with Christ Jesus. Theology – the way we speak of the nature of God and all that is holy — began to make sense and allowed me to integrate this new inner life with a life of activism. It gave my head and heart a place to meet and helped me articulate my experience of spiritual growth and discernment. As I named the Eternal at work in me, contrasts sharpened and my soul and brain became less at odds. The Light exposed traps which had too long held me in a place of fear, and highlighted the ways in which worship reshapes social justice actions. One thread running quietly through the book is Friends’ commitment to peace and the multiple ways this might shape us even in our failures to live into it. The peace testimony asks for nonviolence at many levels, as well as removing the seeds of war. In it I find a commitment to engage without rancor people whose beliefs seem in sharp contrast to mine. I have lived this out among Quakers who are deeply divided across the theological and political spectrum. I have had to deal with my own prejudices and fears in order to be faithful to this testimony. My work benefits from the pressure of evangelical Friends to articulate and examine my own beliefs.
I have questions about what underlies the work of bridging divides, directly or indirectly: How does a person of faith who is not at all certain about Christianity (especially as that term gets battered about in 21st-century America) speak about that hope which grounds her work and life? Is everything up for grabs? How does community inform individual spirituality and growth? Is Christianity hopelessly bankrupt, the tool of those who want to press just one version of morality? As the world grows smaller, how can Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and all the myriad of others learn to cooperate so that all might enjoy this earth? As a Friend, I am part of a faith community which nourishes my longing for answers to these questions and supports me when I am raw from the rubbing. I am part of a faith community which links back well over 300 years, then back thousands more, yet has fragmented itself again and again and forgotten much of its way. I am part of a faith community that as it links forward in hope for unseeable generations needs to lift the weight of prejudice and disdain for other members of that community today. I am part of a faith community which seeks to stand with all who are oppressed, speak for justice and integrity, and follow the path of nonviolence.
My answers to such queries are inexorably linked to a faith grounded in Christ which simultaneously affirms that Truth is present in many forms. This Truth is not uniquely bound to any creed but can be recognized by actions made visible in any life filled with the mercy, justice and humility which flow from Life and Love offering hope to the world.
A Bit of Historical Context
George Fox, Margaret Fell, James Nayler, Edward Burrough, Elizabeth Houghton, William Penn, Robert Barclay, Mary Dyer. These early Friends are only a few of the individuals who shook English society and roused the fury of the established church. They suffered imprisonment and even death because of their direct knowledge that Christ was come to lead his people himself. The immediacy of this experience shaped their actions and words. The Sermon on the Mount was not an abstraction. It described the way of being which seemed natural to individuals who knew the Seed formed within, and sank down into holy reliance on the Light of Christ as the measure of life.
These people were audacious enough to call themselves “Friends”: Friends of Truth, the Truth, the Way, the Life that is Jesus. They were called “Quakers” by others deriding their shaking as they worshiped. Both names stuck. They rejected the conventional wisdom of the Christian church that humanity is waiting for some distant time when Jesus will reappear and the kingdom of God will be realized. They said that Christ’s Light is here now to guide all who are open to the Truth. The Truth of God also searches the human heart and shows all that is contrary to this absolute love – much of what is considered the convention in human cultures – and prunes it away. This Light of Christ leads away from materialism, from flattery, from stepping on others to gain prestige or advantage, from pride, from hatred, from frittering away life, from destroying the earth, from violence. The Light of Christ leads to respect for each person, a way of life which takes away even the occasion for war, complete honesty, a way of being attentive to divine leading and the sacredness which is part of all creation so that all things take their rightful place, and a transparency so complete that divine love is visible in all relationships.
This community, now called the Religious Society of Friends, is widely scattered around the world. Some individuals among us still live out of that power and certainty, acting with quiet conviction in a way which ripples through society, but as a body, we have lost the clarity of vision which once unified us and made us a threat to the established order. Our failures are the failings of our humanity, not of the vision or the way. Many of the questions which push us apart are questions which all humanity faces: Is the Way, the Truth and the Life available to all humanity or only those who profess Christ Jesus as their personal Savior? When is the use of violence acceptable? What constitutes loving relationships?
My faith calls me to encourage all people to wait and to attend on the still, small voice which transforms the heart. In the silence of our soul and in gathered worship, we encounter the Seed, the Holy Light that guides and admonishes us. Through this Light, we learn to take up the cross to self-will and enter into the suffering of the world with compassion. Our lives can show others something of what it means to live in what I think of as the City of God, which honors at its center the waters of Life and the tree for the healing of the nations. Ever again we are called into times of waiting when we step back from the pressures of the world so that we might attend to God’s way, becoming broken and tender in the process.
If we can live as a broken, tender community which calls us forth away from fear, we can be transparent to the Light in a way which makes visible to the world the spaciousness of God’s love for all people. We can count ourselves among those who make visible the City of God.
This Volume
I wish I could say this book provides the ultimate Quaker answer to achieving all this, or solid answers to these questions. Rather, it is a picture of my struggle to be open to the Way. I have seen glimpses of that original power in others’ lives and moments when it flows certain in my veins. I have been given a measure of Light and offer it in its incompleteness. The answers I come to for myself are sometimes like koans – those paradoxical Buddhist sayings — for I find that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, but that Way is present in all true faiths, even those without organized churches. I am a pacifist, but can accept that with proper constraints, the state must at times step in forcefully to stop violence. While I am more patient than many in my Meeting with those who object to same-gender marriage, I affirm the rightness of loving, respectful relationships between equals no matter their gender. I believe in the sacredness of life: executions clearly harm the souls of those who carry them out as well ending a life. I am not so clear when life begins — when does the transition happen between being a few cells with the potential for life and having a soul – but am not ready to leave that decision to the state.
In order to express some of the complexity of the changes I experienced, at times my writing is meditative and invites the reader to share in a sense of God present among us. At times I wrestle with the historical theology of Quakerism and concepts which prod me off any sense of self-satisfaction or settling for an easy way. At yet other times the pragmatic dimension of my work among Friends is visible as I reflect on practices which connect me to the larger whole. The study guide included at the end of this volume is intended as a way for individuals or small groups to engage more deeply with the theology and concepts presented in each chapter.
I find my spiritual home among Quakers who are accepting of a wide range of beliefs and who worship in unprogrammed Meetings (I use “liberal Quakers” as a shorthand for this.) Friends have our own language for much of what we do as well as our own understanding of the Gospel, traced from the early years of Quakerism. I aim at making this language transparent without losing its flavor or getting distracted by definitions, and so I have included a brief glossary. I have capitalized words like “Life,” “Spirit” and “Way” when I use them to refer to divine rather than human aspects. All biblical quotations are New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted. The “we” of this book is often those of us in liberal, unprogrammed Quaker Meetings, but it can broaden to include anyone who feels connected with the words I write. I use it to invite you into the conversation.