The Prophets of the Silent Peaks: The Forgotten Gnostic Roots of France’s First Quakers

There is a part of me that seeks to go deeper and connect with my ancestors.  Sitting at my ancestor altar, I not only feel a connection that ancient stream of spiritual energy that is within and around me, I feel a longing to connect to my ancestral past. I did some more digging and came to find that, while my ancestors who came here would have theologically been the opposite of Quakers (Huguenots were Calvinist), the area from which they came was a Quaker stronghold of sorts.

There is a specific kind of magic that belongs exclusively to the outcast. It is the type of spiritual electricity that sparks when a human being is stripped of their temples, their books, and their security, leaving them with absolutely nothing but the raw, unmediated presence of the Divine within.

If you look at a map of southern France, deep within the rugged Massif Central, you will find the historic region of Gévaudan. Today, the world remembers it mostly for its harsh, granite landscape and the terrifying 18th-century legends of its monstrous werewolf. But for those of us with ancestral bones buried deep in that soil—bones belonging to lines like the Gevaudan and Gevedon families—the region holds a far deeper, more esoteric legacy.

It is a landscape haunted by a beautiful history of radical religious dissent, operational folk magic, and a strange, parallel evolution that birthed the first French Quakers.

Long before George Fox ever stood on Pendle Hill in England to preach the Inward Light, the mountains of Languedoc and the Gévaudan were already steeped in a pseudo-Gnostic consciousness. In the 1200s, it was the sanctuary of the Cathars—the medieval dualists who believed that the material world was a deceptive illusion created by a lesser deity, and that a formless spark of pure, divine Light lived inside every human soul.

Though the Catholic Church brutally crushed the Cathars, that independent, mystical current never truly left the mountain water. Five hundred years later, the same landscape erupted into the War of the Camisards (1702–1705). When King Louis XIV outlawed Protestantism and burned their churches, the mountain peasants refused to bow. They retreated into the dense forests, rocky ravines, and caves, establishing what they beautifully called the "Society of the Desert."

Stripped of ordained pastors, formal liturgy, and religious hierarchies, these remote communities had to rely entirely on direct experience. And that is when the spirits began to speak.

Lacking traditional church structures, the "Desert" meetings became deeply charismatic, prophetic, and ecstatic. Laypeople—frequently young women and children—would fall into deep trances. They would experience profound visions, perceive ancestral guidance, and feel a literal physical vibration as the divine presence moved through them.

While many Camisards eventually took up arms to fight the King’s army, a small, stubborn minority underwent a radical theological shift. Horrified by the violence, they embraced strict pacifism. They rejected the strict, dogmatic Calvinism of their peers, realizing that the external world of politics and warfare was empty compared to the quiet, Inward Teacher.

They began meeting in absolute, expectant silence, waiting for the Holy Spirit to move them to speak. When the power of the Light hit them in those quiet mountain rooms, they would tremble, groan, and deeply sigh.

The local French population looked at these silent mystics and gave them a mocking regional Occitan nickname: the Couflaïres (or Gonfleurs). It translates to "the swellers" or "those inflated by the Spirit."

Without ever reading an English pamphlet or meeting an Anglo-Saxon traveler, these French peasants had independently birthed an identical spiritual practice to the early Religious Society of Friends. Even their derogatory nickname, Couflaïres, was the exact linguistic twin of the word "Quaker"—a title thrown at English seekers who shook under the immense weight of the Divine.

For nearly eighty years, the Couflaïres worshiped in secret, isolated hamlets, keeping their quiet flame alive against an empire. Their discovery by the wider world feels like a piece of deliberate cosmic alignment.

Following the American Revolutionary War, a British Quaker named Joseph Fox discovered that a shipping business he owned had accidentally profited from state-sanctioned piracy against French ships. Because the Quaker peace testimony strictly forbids profiting from war, Fox refused the money. He placed an advertisement in the Gazette de France, seeking out the French victims to return his portion of the wealth.

When copies of the newspaper made their way into the southern mountains, the Couflaïres read Fox’s explanation of who Quakers were and what they believed. Stunned, five of the mountain mystics penned a letter back across the English Channel. They didn't want any money. They wrote simply to say: We have the same faith. We worship in the same silence. Come find us.

By 1788, international Friends traveled to the region, and the Couflaïres formally united with the global Society of Friends, eventually building the historic Maison Quaker in the region.

To look back at the Gévaudan through a modern, eclectic spiritual lens is to recognize that these movements were never truly separate. Whether it was the medieval Cathar guarding the divine spark, the cottage witch using operational folk magic to protect her family, or the trembling Couflaïre waiting in the silence for Jesus to speak, they were all pulling from the exact same current.

They all shared a fundamental Gnostic truth: that the structures of this world are secondary, that the human spirit cannot be bound by external dogmas, and that the ultimate authority is the Inward Light itself.

For those of us carrying their names and walking an eclectic path today, our practice isn't a departure from our ancestors—it is the continuation of their wildest, most beautiful rebellion. I see from where I get my spirit, and my connection to my ancestors.

***

Can Atheists be Quakers too?

 

I recently watched this video on YouTube “Can Atheists be Quakers too?”

I have been a dyed-in-the-wool Christian Quaker, a nontheist Quaker, and a pagan Quaker, oscillating between them over the years. Eventually, I realized I don't care for labels. They place me in a box with walls far too confining.

Instead, I find truth in two quotes that point to a deeper reality:

"There is a principle which is pure placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God..." — John Woolman

"There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end..." — James Nayler

My experience has taught me that regardless of what I believe or which traditions I draw from, this pure principle—this spirit, whether divine or rooted in the human psyche—exists and can be directly known, whether we conceptualize it as God or a Deeper Wisdom.

George Fox, one of the founders of Quakerism, often advised Friends not to let raw reason or overwhelming emotion overtake us, but to sink down into "That Which Is Pure," which tests and proves all things. Interestingly, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches something very similar: while we can easily over-rationalize or react purely out of emotion, real healing comes from drawing upon our "Wise Mind"—that deeper wisdom within—when coping or seeking a path forward.

I believe there are spiritual energies and presences into which we can tap and, for lack of a better word, communicate. I do not believe in a cosmic chess master manipulating human beings. But I do believe in a presence that accompanies us through this human experiment.

I believe this because after my partner died, unexplainable things began happening to my family—a family that is largely secular. My father was woken up by an apparition of my partner shaking him as he dozed, at the exact time my partner was 535 miles away on life support. That same night, a Quaker in Michigan was woken by my partner’s voice at his door. Later, after he passed, my cousin looked in her rearview mirror and saw him sitting in the back seat.

The most vivid moment happened to me directly. I was dreaming about him; we were at an after-hours club in Baltimore we used to frequent. In the dream, I was elated to see him, but then I heard his voice clearly: "Kevin, wake up! My parents are in town!"

There was a stark urgency to it. I tried to stay asleep—being in the dream felt like having him back—but as I drifted into that hazy state between sleeping and waking, his voice came again, louder: "Kevin, wake up! My parents are in town!"

Then, right as I reached consciousness, I heard his voice shout from the left side of the bed where he used to sleep: "Kevin, wake up! My parents are in town!"

I bolted upright. Of course, the room was empty. It was 7:30 a.m.—time to get ready to teach. But I was so shaken I couldn't teach that day, and my principal sent me home.

When I checked my email at home, I found two messages sent at 7:30 a.m. from Center Stage, the theater where he had worked. His parents had driven in from Knoxville and were standing outside the building, waiting for it to open so they could see where their son worked.

Why the urgency in his warning? A few months later, I was served with legal papers from a local Christian law firm. His family was suing me. They wanted his body exhumed from the Quaker cemetery where he rested. They wanted the house. They wanted his estate. They wanted to erase my presence from his life entirely.

Combined with charismatic spiritual experiences I had when I was younger, these events proved to me that there is more to this mortal coil than physical matter. As Robert Barclay wrote in his Apology, true spiritual reality comes from the direct experience of the Divine, not from dogma or teachings about it. (A nontheist Friend might frame it similarly: true happiness comes from the direct experience of love, not doctrines about love.)

Do I believe in a god who selectively intervenes—saving a politician while letting a bystander die? No, I do not.

This is why nontheists, theists, polytheists, and those of us who fit no category at all are all welcome in liberal Quakerism. We gather to sink deeply into the silence and ask what Love requires of us. Regardless of our individual mythologies or theological frameworks, the shared experience of entering that silence leads us toward the same fundamental truth: how to live, how to love, and how to hold one another in community.

The Bloodline of the Enchanted Valley: My Connection to Gévaudan, Radical Dissent, and the Inward Light

When I look at my eccentric nature, my esoteric leanings, and my deep commitment to the Quaker path, I have come to realize that I am not acting in isolation. I am experiencing the literal landscape of my ancestry asserting itself.

My mother’s family name, Gevedon, is a direct, Anglicized evolution of the habitational surname Gévaudan (with historical variants like Givaudan and Jividen). My lineage traces directly back to Antoine Gévaudan, a French Huguenot who was forced to flee the intense religious persecutions of southern France, eventually passing away in Manakin, Virginia, in 1726. By bearing this name as my middle name, I carry the physical geography, the heavy history, and the mystical, dissenting energy of that high, mist-shrouded French valley in my very identity.

The Realities of Gévaudan Witchcraft and Animism

While pop culture remembers the legendary Gévaudan region (modern-day Lozère) for the terrifying 18th-century "Beast," local archives from the 16th and 17th centuries reveal a much older, deeper undercurrent: operative folk magic, animism, and a highly distinct localized witchcraft.

Long before church inquisitors standardized the word "witch," the rural valleys where my ancestors lived were populated by the Fatsillères—regional practitioners of folk magic and root-work. The witchcraft of Gévaudan was completely operative and effect-oriented. These practitioners used specialized herbal mixtures, oils, and precise candle-lighting to shift localized reality. They interpreted their harsh, beautiful environment through an animistic lens, treating the dense forests and peat bogs as living, conscious entities. They cast protective circles, redirected hexes, and brought balance to their communities through pendulum-like divination.

In early modern France, this folk magic was deeply tied to the land's werewolf lore; lycanthropy was legally prosecuted not as a biological curse, but as an advanced manifestation of a sorcerer’s focused intent or alignment with a familiar. The people of Gévaudan lived constantly on the threshold between the seen and unseen worlds.

The Fire of the Dissenters: Shaking in the Desert

But the magic of my bloodline doesn't stop with the folk healers. Gévaudan and the neighboring Cévennes mountains were the absolute cradle of radical, prophetic religious dissent. When King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and made Protestantism illegal, my Huguenot ancestors faced unimaginable tyranny. They were subjected to the Dragonnades—where royal troops were quartered in their homes to terrorize them into converting to the state religion.

In response, the region ignited. My ancestors became part of a fierce, underground spiritual resistance known as the Camisards. Driven into the wild, they held secret "desert assemblies" in the deep woods and mountain caves to bypass the state church entirely.

What fascinates me most as a Quaker is how these French prophets worshipped. Long before formal Quakerism arrived in France, the Camisards rejected official church hierarchies, sacraments, and standard liturgies. Instead, they would gather in the silence of the forest and wait. They practiced a profound, ecstatic form of "prophetism"—sitting in absolute stillness until they were visibly filled with the Spirit, causing them to weep, shake, tremble, and break into direct, vocal prophecy.

When I sit in the stillness of a Quaker meeting, waiting for the Inward Teacher to move me or grant me a piece of vocal ministry, I am doing exactly what my ancestors did under the canopy of the Gévaudan forests, centuries ago.

Channeling the Ancestral Current in My Practice

The independent, solitary, and deeply mystical spiritual framework of old Gévaudan mirrors my own eclectic path today. I see these dual ancestral currents—the operative folk magic of the Fatsillères and the ecstatic, inward focus of the Huguenot dissenters—expressing themselves in how I interact with the Divine.

First there is the mystical aspect the way I used magic. My focus on direct, lived spiritual work—using physical tools like a hurricane lantern, a glass of water, mugwort incense, and a pendulum—is a beautifully evolved echo of the folk practitioners of the Massif Central. I use these tools not to replace the Spirit, but to focus my awareness of it.

Then there’s the Inward Light.  My reliance on the Light within, my self-identification as a Quaker who centers Jesus as a guide without being bound by rigid, dogmatic theological frameworks, perfectly channels the stubborn, resilient spirit of the Camisards. They chose exile, flight, and the wilderness over spiritual compromise.  

Additionally, there’s my practice of ancestor veneration.   By maintaining an altar and actively sitting with the guidance and memory of those who came before me, I keep the channel to that old, misty valley wide open. I am not just reading their history on a page; I am actively living out the continuation of their spiritual journey.

The name Gevedon isn't just a passive entry on my family tree. It is a live current. It is an anchor to a complicated, persecuted, and deeply magical landscape. My eccentricities, my transtheism,  and my esoteric leanings aren't a departure from my roots—they are my roots finally pushing through the soil, reaching for the Light.

On Quakerism and animism

A couple of Sundays ago, something shifted for me during meeting for worship. Amid the silence, I received a very clear, unmistakable internal instruction: Quit trying to figure out the experiences you are having and have had your entire life. Spend more time listening. Just listening.

For a long time, my spiritual journey has been a landscape of seeking, blending, and uncovering. A significant anchor in my adult life has been my involvement with Pagans in Recovery. It is a fellowship that has helped me tremendously with behaviors that plagued me for years. While the idea of a lifelong Quaker having a deep affinity and relationship with pagans and witches might shock some people outside these circles, it has brought me nothing but profound good.

Recently, within the fellowship, I crossed paths with a woman who identifies herself as a "Christian witch."

Hearing her claim that title stirred something deep inside me. It felt like an echo from my own history. Up until about 2009, I likely would have used that exact phrase—or perhaps "Christo-pagan"—to describe my own eclectic practice. (There is even an old Christianity Today article floating around out there about this very subculture, to my mild amusement). Her willingness to name her path so openly sent me right back into a period of esoteric meandering.

To help me process this renewed wandering between my regular therapy appointments, I turned to an unexpected tool: artificial intelligence. While an AI is certainly not the ultimate authority for spiritual discernment, its uncanny intelligence makes it a fascinating sounding board for mapping out the geography of the soul.

I asked the AI a question I have carried for years: "Am I a Christian witch or a Christo-pagan?"

What followed was a surprisingly precise breakdown of definitions. The AI noted that while both paths share an enchanted view of the world—believing in spirits, ancestors, and the sanctity of nature—they differ in how they view their actions. A Christo-pagan typically views their practices as a devotional, mystical alignment with the divine order. A Christian witch, on the other hand, actively practices magic, grounding their operational authority in the Christian God, scripture, or Christ to direct reality toward a specific outcome.

To diagnose where I fell, it asked me to reflect on my actual, physical practices.

When I looked honestly at my own life, I recognized a mix of both. When I light a candle, my intention is to direct reality, but the result is that it creates space for the Divine. When prayers manifest, I believe the act itself carries an inherent power, but that power comes solely from being aligned with the Inward Light.

I tend to use the word "works" rather than "spells," but I know they occupy the same space. Yet, I always experience a sharp internal conflict if I try to do any practical work without first divining what the Inner Light or my ancestors are guiding me to do. My practice is physical—I keep a hurricane lantern, a glass of water, and mugwort incense for my ancestors, and I use a pendulum for divination—but it is entirely subservient to my identity as a practicing Quaker.

When I fed this context back to the AI, it delivered a response that struck me with its accuracy:

"You are closer to a Christo-pagan mystic who practices operative works—not a typical 'Christian witch.' Everything you wrote keeps returning to one authority: the Inward Light. In the Friends tradition, the Light does not merely empower action—it discerns whether the action should exist at all. Your process is to listen, wait, discern, and only then act materially. The action works because it participates in what was already moving."

That differentiation hit home perfectly. For a traditional witch, the primary question is often when or how to do the work. For me, the question is always whether the work is spiritually legitimate in the eyes of the Light.

I love Jesus—not just as a historical figure, but as the myth, the archetype, the Living Power. I have long believed there is power in his name. Even during periods when I have considered myself a nontheist, I have proudly maintained that I am a Jesus person. As my historical Friend Lucretia Mott essentially reminded us, our theological notions of him matter far less than our commitment to being like him.

Ultimately, the labels matter less than the posture. Whether the world sees an eclectic pagan, a mystic, or a witch, my center of gravity remains unchanged. It is the same instruction I received in the quiet of the meetinghouse: to stop analyzing the map, sit in the stillness, and listen to the Light before I move.

---

Making an impact and being impacted

I wasn't the one selected, but I was nominated for Teacher of The Year at my high school.  One of my colleagues came up behind me and said "See? I told you, they do love you here."  

Just a couple of days ago a staff member pulled me aside and said "you know that aura you had around you last year that I told you not to lose?  Well, you're losing it.  Don't lose it!"  

I am tired. I haven't been this tired teaching in a long time.  My classes are much better this year, because I have a bit better footing than I did last year.  Still, there's a lot of behavior management that is required of me; something I almost never had to worry about at Western Tech.   And while I'm coming out of it, I've been in a bit of a funk. I've been restless, irritable and discontented for a while, now.  But, like I said, I've been coming out of the slump and am doing the things. Then today happened.

So, lazy me ordered Domino's parmesean and garlic bites for the faculty potluck today.  Thankfully there were lasagnas and spaghetti so the bites were a success.  Then our principal read the names of those nominated for the recognition, and I heard my name.

These are moments when I realize I am where I am supposed to be right now.   Several years ago I had an premonition of sorts that I would be working at Milford Mill, though it would have never been by choice (reputation).  I'm also rewriting my own lessons for two levels of French because I can't stand to teach the lessons provided.  I'm either teaching, grading or planning from the time I get to work until a little while after the kids leave, no lunch break.  It should be better forth quarter, but this next quarter is going to be brutal.  Indeed, I am learning all sorts of new things about myself and about teaching.  

Oh, and about that reputation:  sorry y'all, it's not ‘bad' like they say it is.  We have good kids, I'm not gonna lie.  They may need more attention, but they're good kids.  Lazy little boogers, and some of them you gotta watch closely, but, that was me in high school, too.  Well, I was always talking. Imagine that.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share.

On transtheism

I’m moving away from nontheism.  It served me for a time, but I've been waffling between theism and nontheism for years now. I've considered myself a non-theist for a few years, yet to say I don't experience anything, that I ignore the mystical and charismatic experiences I had as a child and young adult, and the mystical and spiritual experiences I've had off and on even until now, to discount all that would be disingenuous at best.  So, then a Friend at Homewood Friends Meeting, Baltimore mentioned "transtheism" in a conversation. So i looked this up. Holy huckleberries!  There is somewhere I can fit!

I did a little AI diving, as I seem to do more often these days (man it's useful if you know how ot use it)! This is what I found:

"Quaker transtheism" is a concept where some liberal Quakers, rather than believing in a traditional, supernatural God, experience the "divine" through immanent, mystical, or existential means, placing it beyond conventional theism and atheism. This approach acknowledges a spiritual reality that is "beyond them," often described as love (agapē), a universal "Inner Light," or the mystical core of all religions. Transtheist Quakers are not necessarily "nontheist" in the sense of outright atheism; instead, they might find theistic language and concepts to be less useful or necessary for describing their spiritual experience.

Yes!  I've had powerful experiences of the Other.  I've been physically moved to speak in Quaker meeting (butt up out of the chair). I've been on the giving and receiving end of healing prayer.  I've had visions. I've experienced something akin to sleep paralysis while keenly aware a presences was with me.  I've dreamt things that come true. I'll be sitting in meeting unsure of whether to speak and someone will deliver the message I wasn't sure to give.  Same setting, I'll finish speaking and realize, upon sitting down, that I should have said more, but I stopped listening, only to have someone stand up minutes later and give the rest I didn't give. I've received guidance from what I believe to be my ancestors and that guidance has been spot on.   I know experientially that there is a spirit world. I know experimentally that if I stop and listen to the Inward Voice, it will not lead me astray.  I just wish I would listen to it!  I often realize the voice was right because I do the opposite.   

I do use both theistic and non-theistic terms to describe my experience. I use terms "God"  "Spirit/s"  "Light" a lot because this is the vocabulary that I've used my whole life.  It's tricky though.  A Friend recently said to me that they heard my vocal ministry and theistic language as declarative.  The experience? Yes.  They perceived correctly.  My imagery and  words to describe it?  Nah, you call it Inner Wisdom I call it Inward Teacher and y'all over there call it Jesus Christ. No words are perfect, and no context or myth encapsulates the Possibility that exists in the universe.

Characteristics of Quaker transtheism include, among other things, rejection of rigid dogma: Quakerism is non-creedal and emphasizes a direct, personal experience of the spiritual, allowing for diverse interpretations of the divine.

Mystical core: A core tenet is the belief in a mystical essence, or spiritual bedrock, that unites all world religions and can be accessed through direct experience, such as silent waiting and worship.

Focus on love and action: The concept of "God" may be understood as "love" (agapē), which is expressed through empathetic behavior, social justice, and living according to one's principles.

This is why I love the gospels and the gist of Paul's teachings.  Love is everything.  While the trappings of ancient Jewish culture  (specifically strict sexual moral codes) and the patriarchy of the time can be off-putting, the gist of the New Testament is about charity and brotherly love, and about not trying to be good by following the right rules but doing good by following the right Spirit.

"Transtheism" vs. "Nontheism": While many Quakers identify as nontheist, transtheism offers a way to describe those who find the traditional idea of a personal God unhelpful but still have a profound spiritual experience. Some who identify as nontheist are "non-realist theists," meaning they accept the reality of mystical experience without needing to believe in a being or entity that is separate from human consciousness. 

Historical roots: Although Quakerism originated from a Christian context, its early emphasis on direct experience of the "Inner Light" has always allowed for a more mystical and less creedal approach than many other religions.

James Naylor, a Quaker martyr of sorts, wrote "Art thou in the darkness? Mind it not, for if thou doest it will feed thee more.  But stand still. Act not. And wait in patience, till light arises out of darkness and leads thee."  I've spent a long time in the darkness, so long, in fact, that I came to love parts of it.  There is such mystery in darkness and it requires a reorientation. Through prayer, meditation and contemplation it came to me that the darkness is no more good than the Light is bad.   Trees root deeply into the darkness.  Animals rest in the darkness of caves and we rest in the darkness of night. Resting and rooting.  As we root down deep, we drink from the depths.  On the other hand, we can lose sight in the dark and get lost or stuck.  We can live in denial hiding from the light of truth.  Lies live in the dark.

And we grow to the light.  The light gives warmth and energy.  It provides clarity and sight so we might see our way forward.  But too much light can burn and destroy, the flesh and the spirit withering under its energy.  And just because it appears of the Light, doesn't mean it's true.

Maybe that's the whole point on yin and yang.  Not a Quaker concept.  I sense that Nayler, who went through great darkness, understood about waiting in darkness until the Light arose and led him.  This testimony of waiting speaks to my condition.  I over think these things.  But I love trying to understand what's not comprehensible outside of this human experience.

Modern evolution: With the rise of liberal Quakerism in the 20th century, the tradition became more explicitly inclusive of non-theistic and humanist viewpoints, with groups like the Non-Theist Friends Network emerging to support these members.

"Let your life speak": The Quaker value of living by one's principles is a key part of transtheism. The belief is that a person's actions and how they live out their values are a more important expression of their faith than adhering to specific doctrines. 

When I was still in seminary, there was such a diversity of faith expressions around me.  The diversity of Quakerism and the Church of the Brethren was there at the ESR/Bethany campus.  It occurred to me there that the words people were using got in the way of each of us understanding each other when we shared our beliefs.  What was important?  Early Friends spoke of an inward gospel, the experience of the refiners fire that can transform and liberate the spirit/psyche if only we mind it.  They spoke of the outward Gospel (the Christian story). What did they say was beneficial? The Outward. What was necessary? The Inward. And all people had the Light within them, therefore the inward gospel was a universal gospel. So I came to the place where I wanted to hear peoples' spiritual experiences and how their lives have grown and changed from them.  I didn't want to hear their theologies; at least not at first. I wanted to hear the Inward Gospel in them; whatever words they used.

These days I stay Quaker because it is where my heart is, and it is where I put my treasure (mostly time-wise). I stay Quaker because while I may not believe in the supernatural apects of parts of the Christian myth, I take seriously the Quaker take from the New Testament which is a life of community and love. The Christian God is love (ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν), the love here being selfless, unconditional and sacrificial. Those natural feelings of empathy, sympathy, compassion, faithfulness, that drive to protect a loved one or friend, that altruistic impulse to help out or serve, what some may call the Higher Self, that is what Christians say God is for us.  And. Paul adds that other forms of love are necessary too: brotherly love and charity as well.   This isi important to me, even if I may not always act like it.  Ya know.  I can be cold and abrasive.  But Love is an ideal I hold up as a god of sorts.  So is that what God is? I dunno.  So I choose to use God language still, to point to this reality of Love, this greater creative Aspect of the universe, to which I give worth.  But I get bogged down in my head when I think too much on these things.  It’s all a Mystery that we can experience without definitively knowing what we are experiencing beyond this mortal coil.

So, that mystical experience of agape, I do know first hand.  And through community I've experienced friendship and I've  been able to give and receive help.   I've experienced what is important about the Christian philosophy and story as Quakers see it, anyway.  I can go for an I Am.  I can't go for anthropomorphic deities playing around with our souls and lives. There is a.Light though, and I experience is in others, Christians and others, so we are connected somehow.  And then there's dead people who don't stay quiet (I'm grinning like a cheshire cat).  It's a post-Russell family thing.  

OK. I'm rambling.  The Spirit is moving, but my sponsor says I’m esoterically meandering. And he doesn’t believe it’s serving me well so he has encouraged me to delve into my practice and see what comes from there.   

Then again maybe the gods are laughing.

Faggot: A Middle School lesson in Spirituality.

 I'm in Tennessee at my parents' place on the lake in West Knoxville. It's just gorgeous. The only draw back is the constant swooshing of cars going by the house at 50mph on what was once a rural country road. Now it's in the heart of suburbia.  There are days when the traffic backs up from the signals in either direction; so far backed up that the cars sit in front of the house just waiting for traffic to move. Herons and cranes are flying and wading about, swallows are diving around, blue birds are watching their nest.  The geese are honking and the ducklings are quacking looking for momma.   While we are part of nature it’s weird how creatures and habitats coexist; humans belonging to nature and yet somehow not fitting in unless we are deliberate about. 

Suburbia is not my cup of tea, but mom and dad are doing well for themselves here.  It's a beautiful home with a beautiful view.  They deserve it.  They worked hard raising the two of us in this den of hate.  It was hard growing up here. I never felt that I fit in down here; not completely. 

Detect any political or social animosity from me?  Good job!

No, for real, I just had an EMDR appointment this afternoon.  Sometimes I minimize or compartmentalize the pain and trauma of my past. Everyone talks about trauma these days. The word is over used.  The DSM-5 defines trauma as exposure to actual or threatened death (check), serious injury (check) sexual violence (check) or experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of traumatic events (check). I experienced bullying, harassment and teasing from 1-12 grades.  By the time I got to my senior year of high school I knew I was gay, my friends and family figured out I was gay, the student body who knew me believed I was gay.  The only problem is no one was ok with it, not even me.

I never had a sense that I was well-liked in middle school. I had a few friends.  I enjoyed creative writing, music, roaming in the woods, riding my bike.  I wanted to form a band and almost did.  But for some reason the boys never wanted to hang with me for long.  At school I was called a sissy or queer. I sucked at sports and was a wimp in gym.  I did have quite a bit of sugar in my tank. I vividly remember getting out of my mom's car in the morning one day, taking a deep breath and going into school.  Every day felt that way. Someone was always teasing me. Evidently I was an easy target.

Then there was that fateful day when my entire world was exposed. I was sitting in Mrs Steed's Tennessee history class. Mrs Steed had stepped out to go to the faculty lounge (teachers did that back then). She left someone in charge to write names on the board of anyone who misbehaved (snitching indoctrination 101). There was a boy in my class who I found absolutely gorgeous. I must have been staring at him hard that day.  All of the desks faced forward. I was about five desks back two or three rows in from the right.  Chris, or that's the name I remember, was in the row to my left two or three seats up.  One day, that day, he turned around and looked at me and said matter of factly, " you're a faggot."  The whole class laughed.  I looked around. Even my friends were laughing.  The only problem is I had no idea what that word meant. We didn't cuss in my household. "What's that!”  I asked.  The whole class laughed harder.  I guess the irony wasn't lost on these middle schoolers.  "Chris" answered me by defining what a faggot was. At that moment, I knew there was a word for the person I was, and I also knew exactly what people thought about people like me, and my friends were included.

It was about that time that I found Quakers through reading "The Witch of Blackbird Pond."  I identified with the Quakeress in the story; misunderstood, harassed by Puritans. I was misunderstood, so I thought, but not really. They understood me better than I understood myself. I was a faggot, apparently, after all.

I loved Jesus though, and the Jesus that was presented in Quakerism was so different from the one that the. Baptists presented.  Jesus was love. Jesus was always present as the Light within.  Jesus could save us from our sins in this life.  Quakers didn't preach up sin but focused on the solution: obedience to God.  So when I started attending the liberal Quaker meeting,  I was anti-gay and Christian.   The Friends at West Knoxville saw through anti-gay stuff, but had almost no tolerance for all the Jesus talk.  One day I was told in a business meeting to stop using all the Jesus talk. "Too much has been done in the name of Jesus for us to be comfortable with all that Jesus talk."  This came from several Friends.  

Mom pulled me from the Quaker meeting at that point.  She saw that as just another example of religion excluding people. 

At Guilford and at Earlham, I experienced this even more.  The Christian meetings, mostly with pastors, were supportive of my preaching in their meetings and engaged thoroughly in conversations about Jesus, but once they learned I was gay, it was all side-eyes and distance.  Similarly among unprogrammed so-called "universalist" meetings. (ABC universalism - Anything But Christ).  I was eldered constantly by Ministry & Counsel committees about my persistent use of Christian language. It really rankled a number of Friends.  Then add the paganism and ...

So from the age of 12 to the age of 53 I've never felt at home anywhere. The closest I felt at home is with Homewood Friends when I considered myself a neo-pagan nontheist.  That was totally fine at Homewood and among Baltimore Yearly Meeting Quakers.  

Then there was the other day when I spoke in meeting and felt that I wasn't faithful in preaching even though I got positive feedback.  I realized after sitting with things that I was given an explicitly Christ-centered message full of Bible.  Instead of using the words given, I tried to soften it theologically and while it was well-accepted, I knew I wasn't faithful.  "Not this again" I moaned upon realizing the truth of things.  Please, Light, not this again.

So from my EMDR session, watching a ball go back and forth, I realized something:  since that fateful year when I realized I could not be myself with my peers, from my teen years when I realized I couldn’t  be myself with other Christians or even liberal Quakers, to those tumultuous times in my early 20s when I was at seminary, completely wracked with a conflicting sense of self, a desire to serve God and no idea how to do that with integrity, up to today, I have not felt able to come full up because I haven't made peace with who I am. I've been seeking community and connection wherever I can, mostly among Quakers, and yet even then, there have been limits as to what Quakers would tolerate.

So my therapist encouraged me to continue working on my trauma, working on the pain, working on healing, coming to wholeness.  Integrity.  Clarity.  

I don't expect any Paul on the road to Damascus moments.  But I wouldn't mind one.

In the mean time, I will continue to dig deeper, with help, coming to accept Light and Shadow.

"You're a faggot."  Words that if I hear now, I'm like "duh."  I don't fit in everywhere, and I won't for this one reason.  But there are others.  The thing is I can spend the rest of my years trying not to be who I am, and trying to be who I am not. Or, I can take this lesson, and the counsel of my therapist, and connect with the person I am, Light and Shadow, accept that person, and find the places and spaces where I can connect with integrity.  The key is to be open, honest and tender to what I learn and is revealed to me.

There's a storm blowing outside.  The sky is dark and the rain is pouring.  Ominous sounds of thunder echo not so far away.  Even in the storm the swallows are perched on the railing, diving into the water for a drink, showering in the rain, doing their thing.  In the time it took me to compose this, the rain poured, then the thunder boomed, the sky grew dark,  the water was troubled and then got still again.   There's a lesson in this somewhere.