Love Appeared and Saved me from Despair.

 

Some of my hardest spiritual times were when I was in seminary at Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, IN.  I chose to go there at the age of 25.  I felt called to ministry, and it had been affirmed repeatedly.  I was also still living that double life, but I thought seminary would save me from it and I would be moulded into the minister I was supposed to be.

Wrong.

I should have known the moment I started taking Spiritual Preparation for Ministry. Bill Taber was my professor. The point of the course was to get us to go deeply spiritually.  The problem was when I looked deeply, I saw into the abyss, and was unprepared for the demons that were waiting there.

At the time I believed in real demons, but that's not the point. There were certainly psychological ones.  You see, I really had never dealt with how I was treated by kids at my school growing up. I was called it all: sissy, queer, faggot. We all laughed at antigay humorists.  I took note, though.  I was the biggest homophobe; I truly was afraid of it. I never really could make peace that I was gay. Oh, I would rub that I was gay into anyone's face that opposed it.  I would bring up anything gay and weave it into any conversation. I had fun partying, being campy, going to parades and clubs, being young and silly.  But was I proud? No. Not really. Churches were openly hostile to gay people. We knew the stories of cops entrapping men, men getting gay bashed, families disowning and kicking out their gay kid. It was normal.  My parents gave me no reason to believe they would do the same and yet I also got messages that life would be hard and people wouldn't like me if people knew I was gay.  Like it would ultimately be a choice. All my friends told and laughed at gay jokes.  So did I. (Hey some gay jokes are plain funny).  But I took note.  So there I was in seminary, with none of that resolved, all staring back at me from the abyss.

At Guilford  I celebrated Pride, helped found the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Association at Guilford which still exists today. For my senior project I founded the Gay and Lesbian Resource Center at Guilford, now known as the Bayard Rustin Center.  I revived the Baccalaureate ceremony at Guilford which still goes on today.  This year, an anonymous donor paid for faculty lunch after the baccalaureate ceremony in my honor and in the honor of a person who was important in the spiritual lives of many Guilfordians.  It feels good to have left a legacy. But the young man who left that legacy was struggling so hard with self-hate and the draw of gay pop culture (sex, drugs, dance music).

At Earlham I served on Ministry & Worship.  For my preaching class I preached at all-campus meeting for worship.  I preached on the resurrection.  I remember the night before trying so hard to prep a sermon, but feeling that a prepared sermon was not what God wanted.  I prayed all night.  I did organize the programmed worship:  I chose the hymns.  I chose my elders to sit behind me and hold me in prayer.  The room was packed that day.  John Punshon, my Quakerism professor, and Tom Mullen, my preaching teacher, were there. Everyone was there.  The choir sang whatever song I had chosen.  There were readings from scripture.  Then I rose to preach. I wish I could tell you what I said.  We ended with the song Amazing Grace with the praise god chorus at the end. Afterwards Tom said my sermon was incredible and he had never heard anyone preach on the resurrection like that.   Two Friends, one from Latin America who was lesbian and another who was Australian, told me that before they didn't believe, but now they did.  It was no less than a revival.

So it was clear I had the gift.

But I was also on the side living a life that would ultimately catch up with me.  I shared with my evangelical Quaker friends what was going on, perhaps in too much detail.   One Friend gave me a book on being a prayer warrior from the Moody Bible Institute.  I began to pray every night. Every day.

Weird things began to happen.  One was that the woman who gave me the book started feeling spiritually attacked. She shared with me that her old demons were creeping up; issues long resolved were coming back.  She knew we were under attack.  Then my roommate asked me if I was battling demons.  I immediately accused him of going through stuff in my room.  He absolutely denied it.  It was because he had been praying for me and all of the sudden HE was being attacked spiritually by his own demons.

Then there was the night I was praying, warding off my room and my dreams with the Holy Spirit, and all of the sudden the room became super vivid.  I tried psychedelics in undergrad. It was as if I had droppped a tab.  Everything was super vivid. And then I realized I was not alone. Something was in the room with me.

There was another time I was doing the same thing (warding my dreams), and I was laying in bed. All of the sudden I couldn't move. I could, however, roll. And so I rolled myself off the bed and then I could move again, but stiffly.  Actually that may have been the same night as the spiritual trip. I can't remember. It was back in 1996.

It finally came to a head one day when I was in my living room contemplating all this.  I began to feel despair.  I began to cry.  Then I started sobbing.  It was while I was crying, shoulders heaving, tears dripping down my face onto the carpet, that I saw a pair of feet beneath me.  I was shocked. I knew I was in the presence of something.   "Look at my face" the entity said.  I could not and I cried harder.  "Look at my face" the being repeated to me softly.  "I can't," I replied.  "Look at my face" it coaxed softly.  As I looked up, I saw a robed figure, I assumed male, and then looked into his face.  There was a man, with a face as bright as the sun. Pure light, no human features. The light radiated and filled my vision.  I felt nothing but love, pure love. I knew I was loved.  I assumed at the time it was Jesus.

I wish that would be the happy ending but it was not.   The seminary staff began to suspect that I was mentally ill and needed help. They found a psychiatrist for me who prescribed a medicine combination that made me crazier than a bat out of hell.  I had all sorts of physical side effects that made me sicker.  Later, when I would have the dean of psychiatry at Hopkins as a counselor and doctor, he balked at the regimen I was on.  Every doc and therapist has since.  Things got worse.  Eventually I withdrew from ESR and came home mentally and emotionally unrecognizable.  The process of me having to leave was nothing short of abusive, though through therapy I saw that I had to leave, even if the process was harmful. I needed to go home and get well. Hurt, angry and feeling ashamed and a failure, I moved back in with my family in Tennessee.   A few months later I would meet my future husband.  But it would take decades before I finally decided to make some serious changes.

Did the demons get quiet? No, but I ceased to recognize them as any more than psychological ones.  But they would show up any time I began to get spiritually and emotionally well and I would sabotage all progress.  Was that Jesus that appeared to me that day? I have no idea, though I believed it to be so.   But Love appeared to me that day and saved me from despair.

The Voice said "Speak!"

 When I was 14 years old, I visited the local Quaker meetings.  The first one I visited was First Friends Church in East Knoxville.  It just seemed like the Church of Christ to me.   Then I visited West Knoxville Friends Meeting.  My first visit there I prayed diligently for the first 10 minutes and then yawned and fidgeted uncomfortably for the rest of the hour.  Still, I had read that there was something in the silence, so I was determined to go back.  The topic of vocal ministry was on abortion that day.  I remember feeling my heart quicken and a voice, almost audible, said to me "speak!"   I had an idea of the subject but no idea on how to say it.  I was also the only teen in the room and new to the meeting. "Speak!"  I got into a back and forth with the Voice and then all of the sudden I was speaking.  When I finally caught up with the words in my head, the words were taken away from me and I was finished.  My heart was racing I was wet with sweat.

I knew there was a power greater than me.  I knew there was a God.

Whom am I trying to convince?

I spoke with one of my therapists Alesha about my blog posts. She has been encouraging me to journal through blogging (I sometimes journal in my journal books. I have a few depending on what state of mind I'm in and about what I'm writing). I shared the content of my blog posts about my spiritual identity beyond that of Quaker.  Sometimes it's hard being Quaker with so many different manifestations of it.  If you have read my previous posts you will see the gay Quaker who feels he has to defend himself against more Evangelical or Conservative Friends about being gay and more liberal Friends about being Jesus-centered.

I'm about to redo my step 4 in my recovery work.  This is where we list our angers, fears and resentments and look at our own part in them.  This is where another level of acceptance comes from.  This time I will be sure to put Quakers, all Quaker groups, down on my anger and resentment list.  To be fair, I feel like I'm being healed of this by the Spirit, but it will do good for me to look at my part in how I reacted or responded to these feelings.

I find myself talking in spirals with my therapist when it comes to faith.  She stopped me at one point and asked "who are you trying to to convince? You? Or someone else?"  The answer to that is both.  For me it's a question of integrity not only identity.  It's a question of not trying to water down a faith that has it's own traditions and ways to access the Power.  But then Alesha, offered this: "Do what works for you."

Honestly divination has worked for me.  I've listened to sermons where the pastors disparage the use of crystals, tarot cards and other divination tools. They're not wrong: the Bible is clearly against them, just like gay sex, men wearing women's clothing, having sex when a woman is on her cycle (you get the drift).  The Hebrew peoples and Paul had a lot to say about how people should and should not live, whereas my perception of the pagan religions is that they left a lot more room for personal practice and lifestyle. Christianity further subjugated women and stamped out same-sex expression.  The Biblical teachings are simply about not putting things between us and God; and I get that.  Even though divination "works" sometimes, (sometimes the spirits are silent), I also feel that divination, or prayer beads, or mantras, or formal prayers, are simply tools that Quakers traditionally have testified are unnecessary. We don't need these things to access God. God is within and our experience of them is direct.

And to be fair, I rarely do any divination. I make it sound like I do it on a regular basis. I do not. I mostly sit and talk to the pictures of dead friends and relatives (and my dog). I'll put food or black coffee (or a bud of cannabis -- for Russell) on the table as an offering.  I talk to my family about the very content of my blog posts.  

What am I trying to avoid by simply sitting in silence and going within?  My Aries ass always wants to do things whole hog or not at all.  But I don't have to sit in silence for an hour. I can do it for 5 minutes just to pause and build up. This I know. But there is something in the silence that troubles me or of which I'm afraid or am avoiding.  Is it the Spirit? Me? Do I sense there is something I don't want to hear or am afraid of yielding to?  I think it comes down to trusting the Divine and trusting myself that it will be ok.  It is always ok in Quaker meetings. Why not "alone" with God? (I know I'm never alone).

And why this constant bloviating about whether or not my faith in God is Christian and whether or not I consider myself one and what kind of Christian I am?  Why play around with words so much? Probably because Quakers are notorious for using "just the right words."

But then when I was talking it through with Alesha, this song came to mind. "Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the Seed, that God sews in thy heart.  And let that be in thee, and grow in thee, and breathe in thee, and act in thee, and thou shalt find by sweet experience, that the LORD knows that, and loves and owns that, and will lead into the inheritance of life, which God's portion."   Give over thine own desiring to know or be anything. Wow. Quaker wisdom right there.  This theological back and forth that has occurred my entire life is really because 1)people like to put ourselves and others in neat little boxes that define them and 2)I've always felt a need to explain or prove myself.  I grew up with "How can you be gay and Christian?" from both gay people and other Christians. 

But that's not all; I fell in love with the Biblical narrative about Jesus and Jesus' love in a time where I didn't believe I was given unconditional love and acceptance by Christians or Quakers, my friends or my family.  This was my experience until I was in my early 20s.  Even later people would put up with one aspect of me (Christian or gay) but not the other aspect and both were important.  When I felt called to gospel ministry at a young age, that never died even through all the debauchery of my adult life.  My dual life only made it worse, though (see previous posts).  

Before I make this other people's fault, I take full responsibility for the choices I have made and how I have responded to various circumstances and decisions.  I made decisions. I tried to take an easier way out that made me feel good even when those same decisions made me feel good in the short term, they made everything harder eventually. However, it this double life started before I was an adult.

So if anything I'm simply processing on this blog. Am I looking for outside input? I welcome it. Ultimately, the decisions are mine.   So, we're back to Alesha's advice: do what works.  And in Barclay's Apology his first proposition is that we should approach faith in God as we approach art or science, that is experimentally.   Through experimenting and testing our experiences, we come to know God in a personal way, in a living way, and as a loving way.  That's the first proposition. All else hangs on this experience. And if I think to my life I've had many experiences of God in my life.  Honestly, no matter what I believed theologically about God, God has always been there.  There is a certain peace and joy that comes from that.  

I used to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present God, but got hung up on that.  What kind of God like that would allow... then I came to understand that it's not about allowing.  Creation has its own rules of actions and reactions of causes and consequences.  When a plane crashes, that's God's creation doing what it does. Some human error or natural occurrence caused the plane to crash.  People often give God the glory when they are saved from death and they explain away that there is always a reason for the bad things.  I don't see it this way at all.  Humans chose to get in a metal tube that flies with explosive fuel taking the chance they won't crash. God didn't choose to fly. We did.  But God is there with us, within us. When the plane crashes, God is there if we make it out. When the plane crashes God is there when we die.  That's the joy: God is always there in our sorrows, pain, happiness and success. God is always there.  Whether or not God has the power to save us from a tragic accident, that doesn't matter to me. God is there regardless.  There are many times when I've been in danger and have gotten out of that danger (life threatening sometimes).  God was with me and with the others who were involved.  When I was neck deep in my hurts, habits and hang-ups God was with me when I chose to cope maladaptively and God is with me in my recovery.  God doesn't make me or prohibit me from stuffing my face all night long until I'm sick, but God is with me when I choose to eat even when I'm not hungry.  The still small voice is there to Guide me, if I were to listen.  

These things are true for me:

I experience Power in some Christian worship but I've also experienced God in other religious settings.

I find meaning in the Christian and Hebrew myth (stories).

I know God to be omni-present, the rest I have no idea.

The Name of Jesus represents love, compassion, healing, transformation, regeneration, charity, peace, subversiveness to oppression, and justice. I love Jesus.

The dead speak to us today, and I have experienced that vividly and soberly.

There are many paths, but they do not always offer to lead to the same place (some enlightenment, some salvation). That's ok.

I don't have to agree on everything or understand everything to know God and to share that experience with others.

I don't have to accept the supernatural aspects of the Christian story to see power in meaning and metaphor.

It doesn't matter if what I call myself; it matters that I'm faithful.

Labels restrict. They also define and identify.  Jesus-loving Quaker suffices.  

Paganism is not bad or diabolical.  There are evil Christians and there are good Pagans.  It's the Inward Life that matters.  People have both the seeds of the Light and the seed of Darkness in them.  

That belief based on experience gives a solid foundation; belief based on teachings can lead to doubt and atheism.

I'm not alone in my journey.

Articulating the Quaker Faith - Can our kids do it? Can we?

 

Around 2001 or 2002, my late partner Russell and I went to worship at Stony Run Friends where we were regular attenders.  I always like sitting high so I can see everyone so we sat on the upper row of the facing benches.  We came dressed casually as we always do.  As the room filled to capacity with finely dressed people whom I didn't recognize, it became apparent to me something was off.

We didn't know but it was Friends School of Baltimore's senior farewell meeting for worship. "This oughta be good" I thought.

And it was.  The messages out of meeting, mostly from the teens themselves, showed  me the value of a Friends education.  These young graduates were able to articulate the principles of Quakerism better than I've heard many Quaker adults. They shared how they learned to be friends with people who were quite different from them; one grad mentioned that if he had gone to another private school, he didn't know, as a football player, if he would have such a diverse group of friends.  The emphasis on community, seeing that of God in everyone, the importance of meetings for worship in one's weekly practice, were among the principles that these mostly non Quaker youth learned and internalized.

When I served on FGC's Advancement and Outreach committee years ago, we learned that when articulating our faith to others, whatever we say should be under 30 seconds.  Think elevator pitch.  Whatever you can say in an elevator ride is about the attention span of anyone listening. If they want to know more they can ask more questions.

Even this video takes six minutes. But I think it's a start. As an educator I  believe that it's important that students express their experiences.  They often need help organizing their thoughts and narrowing down what they want to say.  Their understanding of life, even at a young age, is important to own and and I believe they should feel validated.  Yet when I have asked what it means to be a Quaker for some young Friends, I often get shrugs, or some vague answers about environmentalism and peace, or the SPICES.

SPICES is a start but those are the outward testimonies of an inward reality.  You can find secular groups or even other religious groups who share some or all of our values.

How do I explain Quaker faith?  Here is my simple explanation of Quaker spirituality.  I don't usually present this in bullet form but conversationally.  I'm still working to get it to 30 seconds 😉

1. We can experience the Spirit directly.
2. We have a tradition that informs us but does not rule us.
3. We experience the Spirit together, but we don't define it for each other.
4. Traditionally Quakers see the Spirit through Jesus Christ, but not all do today.
5. The Spirit is always with us and teaches and Guides us.
6. We use silence to hear the Spirit and it's out of the silence we speak, pray, sing or act in our meetings.
7. We can find Spirit in nature as well as with other people.
8. We can be healed or  released us from hurts, habits, hang-ups, addictions and attachments. and transformed by the power of the Spirit.
9. The Spirit can lead us to ministry, service and activism.
10. We see that of God in all people.  All are welcome. and we are enriched by diversity.

Can you articulate your experience of being Quaker?
What canst thou say?
What can your kids say?

My High Priest Haiku

So early Quakers often referred to Jesus as the High Priest of our meetings for worship.  This comes from Hebrews 4:14-16 where Paul writes to the Hebrew followers of the Way and says "14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[a] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

This metaphor has been useful for me in worship.  Early Friends counseled against creaturely activity or of things being of the creature.  That Puritanical influence of "me=problematic" "God=solution" isn't always wrong, but in terms of meeting for worship, "creaturely" probably means more like me deciding what I'm going to do or think or contemplate during worship instead of letting go and letting the Light do its thing.

So for me, the Spirit is like my High Priestess. Whereas a priest guides the mass/liturgy/worship/ceremony, the Spirit guides my worship.  When lost in thought, when astral projecting back to France, I can turn my mind to the Priest and listen to what the Priest would have me do: meditate on something (or nothing), contemplate something, pray (silently or aloud), sing (silently or aloud), offer vocal ministry, hold people in the Light, or just sit and be.  

People often think this difficult: but consider the number of times you've sat through a sermon, a song or a ritual at church and your mind was somewhere else, or you felt that you had specific prayers different from what the deacon or elder was offering; or maybe even you felt close to the Divine but not because of what was going on in the service.  Whether in silence or a programmed worship, our minds can do their own thing, and sometimes what the pastor has in store for his congregation is not what the Spirit wants.  In unprogrammed worship, there is a Priestess who guides us all if we listen to them.

In some Quaker meetings that have pastors, a pastor is willing to sit down and let the silent worship time in their programmed meetings take over.  I don't know how common that is anymore among programmed Friends but it was a thing. Anywho...

At Quaker meetings 

High Priest guides my inward parts

thus silence is full

Religion old and new.

 I watched this video on the rise of paganism.  The old gods are coming back.  The problem is, I don't know those gods.  The ancestors of my ancestors stomped them out.  They bought into Empire Christianity and my family has been Christian as far back as we can trace the lines.  The Olives were Normans who crossed with William the Conqueror to England in 1066.  They were obviously Catholics. By the time the Olives arrived in North Carolina from England they were Protestants who became Church of Christ by the time they had settled in Tennessee and Alabama.  The Gevedons were Huguenots who escaped central France to Kentucky via Switzerland and Virginia. They became Southern Baptists.  Any ounce of paganism had been stamped out even if they were people of the land (share croppers, mountain farmers and miners).

So we know that after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, all hell broke loose.  Pagan temples were destroyed and pagan religions became "satanic."  Before we judge the Taliban for blowing up the Buddhas in Afghanistan, Westerners need to understand that Christians did no less than the religious fundamentalists of other cultures.  They spread the power of empire through their religion, and used religion to justify the political and cultural domination of Rome. Priests and Kings became all-powerful.  A religion of domination and suppression became the rule.

This continued through colonization of North America and Africa.  While the Church destroyed pagan temples in Egypt in the earliest years, colonizers would do the same to the indigenous peoples they encountered.  Acceptance of Western domination came through acceptance of their god.  Evangelism often was a means of westernizing indigenous cultures under the guise of saving souls.  In truth, the people saving souls conflated their western practices with their faith, but were no less sincere in their desire to convert souls to Christ.

There was a scene in the Gladiator where Maximus was holding little "fetishes," statues that represented his dead wife and son.  Juba, and African gladiator, asked Maximus if they can hear him.  Two different cultures, two different men, and a genuine curiosity to the other's beliefs.   Living in the United States, even as a Christian, I was always interested in other belief systems.   There were commonalities and differences, and faiths and practices of some religions spoke to me in some ways. Some of the differences were off-putting but more often that not I was genuinely interested in others' beliefs and practices.

But the Abrahamic faiths do not allow for this, not officially.  As far as Christianity is concerned, where culture and religion collide, the religion assumes the cultural practice and changes its meaning (think Easter, Christmas).  The religious figures become saints, demons, angels or the Devil.  There is a sort of purity that is imposed.  That's not to say that certain practices don't continue, think Vodun, or combine anyway, such as Santeria.  But for the most part, paganism is syncretized into Christianity.

When Quakers began their movement, they sought to revive primative Christianity.  They were so anti-pagan that they refused to use the names of the days of the week or the months of the year; Monday = second day, April = fourth month.   They sought to correct the apostacy of the empire religion with all of its trappings.  There were still some unconventional beliefs and practices: Some Quakers professed a belief that they could read souls or detect the use of spiritual gifts, and Quakers practiced faith healing, exorcism, and herbology.  Their ecstatic worship, preaching and prayer were often seen as diabolical and therefore they were accused, often by Puritans, of being witches.  Quakers refuted these accusations stating that any spiritual gifts were of the Spirit.  

Quakers believed in the Devil just like everyone else.  To them, their practices weren't witchcraft (pagan) but of Jesus. The very need to refute claims of witchcraft indicates to me that Quakers bought into propaganda of the Church:  paganism is of the Devil.  Based on the few writings of Puritans about the Quakers I've come across, and I don't even remember what I read, I have the impression that The Puritans were like "looks like a duck, quacks like a duck."  

If you want to know what Quaker worship was like in the beginning, think pentecostal with a lot o silence. Quakers invented the hooting and hollering you see in some churches today. Sermons were passionate and fiery. Some of the preachers, men and women, were articulate and charismatic.  During worship people would quake in their seats when struggling with something (maybe a reality check, maybe wrestling a leading to speak).  People would wail and groan.  People would kneel in prayer and rise while preaching.  There would also be long pauses of silence out of which more preaching and praying would arise. And in the earliest days there was singing!  (They stamped that out real quick!).  Pentecostals today would recognize early Quaker worship. Some people today accuse Pentecostals of being of the Devil.  

This is completely off topic but did you know that Quakers even developed a style of preaching that influenced modern day charismatic preaching.  They called it sing-songing. 

Now, at least among liberal Quakers, paganism is not a threat and many Quakers employ various practices or share beliefs about creation and divinity.  The Divine Feminine is welcome.  Venerating Creation, even pantheism and panentheism coexist.  Some Quakers, like myself, continue in a long tradition of a "magical conception of the body, nature and society," or the Quaker Cunning Folk of the 19th century who practiced divination (even while the majority of Friends condemned it) or the Progressive Quaker Spiritualists.  From the outside, Quakerism often seemed a bit "witchy," and while most Quakers would counter this with all sorts of theological contortionism, the truth of the matter is any pagan would look at Quaker practices and read their beliefs about divinity's interaction with creation and think "um, take out Jesus and this looks pretty familiar."  Even today some groups counsel against joining Quakers  because of its theological diversity and practices.  

In any event, Evangelical Quakers are correct when stating that much of New Age philosophy and practice has found its way into Liberal Quaker thought and life.  And even though there have always been strands of pagan or "witchy" practices among Friends,  the Religious Society of Friends has traditionally taken the Empire Religion's stance that anything that smacks of the old faiths is bad.  The Religious Society of Friends itself has played a hand in colonization and the spread of Empire Religion.  But something is happening among liberal Friends.   We increasingly question our own institutions and the requirement of a God who demands belief.  Instead, we enter into relationship with the Divine.  We continue common practices such as silent worship and doing business without voting, sometimes we recognize ministries and concerns of certain Friends, but gone is the institution of powerful ministers and elders.  Our testimonies of stewardship of the earth and simplicity bring us into a deeper relationship with nature, with Creation, and we see the holy in it.  We question empire challenge the philosophy of conquest and shape of religion Empire brought, even if we came from that religion.  Just as Early Friends sought to revive primitive Christianity, liberal Friends are, in some ways, are opening the doors to religious and spiritual understandings that were disregarded as "savage or superstitious." 

The old Gods are back.  Ancient practices are being recast and revived.  Even among Quakers, who have always been accused of heresy and witchcraft even though they have fought long and hard to deny and oppose such things, there are those of us who look with curiosity if not interest at those old ways, who may pick up a practice here and there.

I wish that we could look at each others' faiths with curiosity and validation.  That is one thing I do like about liberal Quakerism. At it's best Christianity, paganism, Buddhism, you name it, they are all valid paths even in this Empire.  We respect them, acknowledging our Christian roots, continuing our "ancient" practices (almost 4 centuries now), but opening ourselves to what would feed Spirit in our individual practices. 

We are empire, here in the United States, but instead of having one faith, as Christian Nationalists would have it,  the diversity of religious expression in this country can and should be our greatest strength.  We don't have to adopt a new religion, or any religion.  The old gods, those who predate even the I AM, may be back, but their influence has been in Christianity since the start, and you don't have to look far to see it. Instead of starting with telling others about our faith, we can begin with questions about theirs.  If they ask questions back, a conversation begins! If not, so mote it be. 😉

A Personal God

 

For most of my life I believed in a personal God -- one that interacts with human activity, one who interacts through science.  I never saw a separation between religion and science, partly because I come from a secular, educated nuclear family, but mostly because Quakers have made significant contributions to science.  To me, religion is organized spirituality that can include deities, but can also involve spiritual practices that do not include personal gods, but rather deal with energy or explorations and discovery of a higher self.  Neil deGrasse Tyson defines "religious" as a belief that God answers your prayers.  That is an incomplete definition of religion or religious.  Not all religions have gods. To me "religious" means practicing one's spirituality communally or individually, often within a particular context (Quaker, Buddhist, Catholic, Hindu, Sufi, neo-pagan, etc).

Take liberal Quakerism, for example.  Increasingly among liberal Friends you get ambiguous answers as to what or who God is. For what I believe to be a minority of liberal Friends, that God is revealed through Christ our Savior/Teacher/Friend.  For others Jesus is not God but a teacher or rabbi, and Friends would state that he had the fullest measure (or a full measure) of the Light and he is a or the central religious figure. Still others would say they believe in God, but they cannot or will not definite it. Others don't believe in a personal God, and still others are non-theist or atheist.

Early Quakers emphasized a personal God that one could experience and one would experience this God as Love.  This was a radical departure from the distant judgmental God of the Puritans, or the God only accessed through the rites of the church (through formal prayers and practices).  Quakers went so far as to argue that water Baptism and Communion do not a Christian make; that seminary degrees and training do not a Gospel Minister make.  They put great emphasis on being "regenerated"  or made anew through a personal experience of the Light searching their minds and hearts like a search light, shining like a beacon on that which separated them from God and from a full life of joy, happiness and love (regardless of circumstances -- that peace that surpasses understanding).  That same Light, though, was also a guide to clarity, seeing the truth of things, and served as an inward prophet, teacher, guide, friend or counselor.  They knew this Guide to be the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth, or Christ within.   As they were faithful to the Light of Christ, they became friends of Jesus.  The entire message of early Friends was of that personal experience with the Power of the Lord which was over all.

But for many contemporary Christians, this personal Jesus is found through confession, prayer and Bible Study.  There is an emphasis on sin, heaven and hell, of salvation from hell, and a preaching up of sin.  You don't have to go to a fire and brimstone fundy church. Even some of the big mega churches preach up sin (or worse, the Prosperity Gospel).  Everything is about the problem (sin), and the solution is to confess belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and personal savior.  If not, well there are eternal consequences.   The hope is for a reward of eternal life in heaven with God.  It's not the most hopeful of gospels.

While early Friends would not challenge humanity's "fallen" state and the need for redemption, they emphasized freedom from sin, in the present day, and so beyond pointing out where they saw sin, they found that "preaching up sin" was not the approach to take. It made sin a trap out of which no one could climb, not even with the Spirit's help.  People may be depraved, but are not condemned to a life of sin.  For some Calvinists -- the Puritans in particular, believed that most of humanity was condemned to hell, except for the pre-elected.  For Quakers, all who came unto the Light and minded it and followed it would be saved. Even those who did not know the name of Jesus.

Friends found that the Power of the Light was over the Power of Darkness.  If one found themselves in the darkness, Friends counseled to sit still in it, don't pay attention to it, and be patient. Light arises out of Darkness and leads.  Again, this Light of Christ, the Resurrected Jesus, the Comforter, was one we could experience personally and corporately.  Many Christians today profess a belief in this personal Jesus. Quaker teachings influenced Wesley who used Quaker tracts in his ministry, and the Great Awakening and later Methodist revivals re-influenced Quakerism.  But it was the Quakers who re-introduced this personal experience of the risen Christ in the 17th century.

What hangs many modern liberal Friends up, and I include myself among these Friends, is that Great Chess Player in the Sky.  That God that concerns itself with the mundane aspects of life.  That sentient being in the cosmos that somehow pays attention to each and every person's choices. And no matter how good a person is, no matter how much they follow the teachings of Jesus (knowingly or not) they are condemned to hell without confessing belief in Jesus.  

According to Early Friends' reading of Scripture, that Light of Christ was in all people whether they recognized it as such or not.  It was the true and universal Light that enlightened all who come into the world.  No matter the outward confession, the Still Small Voice instructs all.  The Inward Life was evidenced by outward behavior; not by confession.  However, Friends often believed that if one heard of the story of Jesus they would often make a connection to the Inward Reality and convert; though the focus of convincing others of their need to mind the Light within was often to those who already considered themselves Christian.  Later, when the majority of Friends would become Evangelical Christians in the 19th and 20th centuries, proselytization and evangelization of non-Christians would become a priority for them.

This universalist understanding in modern times is not so ethno-centric.  Liberal Quakers do not all see that Light tied to Jesus insofar as the Light is Jesus. Instead, Quaker ministers like Elias Hicks began to see Jesus not as a God but as a Pattern.  Whereas most Quakers in England and the United States were affected by the Great Awakening and the Methodist revivals, other Quakers began to downplay the specifics of Christian religion and over the next century and into today would decline to profess belief in a personal God at all; certainly not one that manipulates, rewards and punishes people.

I think it's a false choice, however, between a micromanaging deity and no personal experience of the divine at all.  For years I declared myself a non-theist, because I bought into this binary choice. Either God is a personal God, a sentient manager of my life, or God doesn't exist, or if God exists it's a term for a reality we cannot really know or understand.

What does make sense to me is the early Quaker teaching that I have experienced personally in myself and in community.  There is a Light that shines inward from the Creator.  This measure of the Light, that of God within us, is what can guide each person's conscience into right living with the rest of creation.  It is also what makes each person equal in the eyes of the Source.  It's what connects me to my neighbor.  It's what triggers the hormones and the neurotransmitters that bring us together, that bonds us and unites us (I'm not a scientist, but you get the point I'm trying to make).  It's that Power that helps me to altruistically,  selflessly, charitably.  It's that Presence that calms and brings patience when frustration and fear come.  It's that Peace that we can't understand, but is there if we wait on it.

So I can articulate what it's like to experience the divine.  I don't believe I can understand divinity whether that is a natural aspect of Creation to which we attribute supernatural powers because we don't understand how it works scientifically, or whether God and what we experience of God is truly supernatural. But as I have continued my Quaker practice which has consisted of occasional prayer, reading, Bible study, journaling, blogging, regular attendance at meetings for worship and meetings for business, participation in Quaker committees and meditation, as I have continued in these things, all the while claiming a non-theist approach to "God,"  I continued to have these experiences of truth being revealed to me, of a transforming power that helped me overcome some of my attachments and show me how to overcome others (still working on it).  Love showed up when my heart was hardened.  Clarity showed up when I was confused.  Peace showed up even in my most anxious moments. I continued to be led to speak in meeting, an experience which never allowed me to let go of the notion of God, at least. Regardless of my theology, I continued to experience The Other Within.

What helped bring me back to an understanding of a personal God is when I heard a Friend who serves with me on Baltimore Yearly Meeting's  Ministry and Pastoral Care committee speak about what a personal God is to him.  This led me to my own understanding: A personal God is a higher power that we experience, however we experience it.  That Light that guides us to live justly and peaceably.  That motion of Love that heals us or leads us into action.  That teacher who reveals truths about our lives and our experiences. That counselor who supports us in navigating challenges.  That guide that shows us the way forward.  All of those are experiences that are personal to us.  Each of us can have those personal experiences.  That, by definition, is a personal God, because we experience God in our own way, in our own time.  Anyone who has had even the smallest of those experiences, has experienced God.  And that God can show up in nature, alone or in community. God can be known in peace and in strife in prosperity and in poverty in freedom or in bondage.

What trips us up, perhaps, is when we think God "cares" or "loves" or "is displeased."  These are human emotions and feelings. God is not human.  God just Is.  But the only way we can understand God is through our human experiences.  So it is natural to believe that when the Seed Within grows and shows us how we are living is not in keeping with the Spirit, the spirit is "disappointed" or "wants" something different for us.  Sure that can be our own judgments, but we can sense a dis-ease when we are not yielding to the Light within.  Sometimes it's obvious and other times more subtle.  We find ourselves become restless, irritable, contrary, or maybe we are trying to manipulate situations or people.  The discomfort within can be something we may be tempted to try escape somehow, turning to maladaptive coping mechanisms.  

Perhaps we have have achieved a goal, we have won a competition, overcome a hardship.  We are full of love in our hearts, of gratitude and of glory.  We may say "God is Good" and "I am loved/favored/blessed."  Or, we may be so full upon finding a new font of love that there is no room for the anger, hate, resentments, distrust or fear we were holding onto.  We have found forgiveness that we could not understand before.  We have witnessed self-sacrifice and are touched by the beauty of the gesture. We may say "God cares" because it is evidenced in the actions of others or in an inner change. We say "God is Love."  

God is none of those things.  God is not human.  God is all of those things, because we are conceived by the Divine.

In truth, if we are in the Light, in these moments of continual revelation through experience, we are in unity with God, and so our caring, our condemnation, or judgments are the human responses to a spiritual experience.  

Are you still with me? I went down a rabbit hole again.  So, sin. Redemption. How does this fit into a personal god? Because as we come to identify that of God within us, we can test it and learn how to follow it. That Light within shows us our true selves, as we really are.  No matter what we have done, or who we have become, no matter what has been done to us there is a power to heal and overcome. Each day we choose to listen to that Light rather than ignore it, we are renewed. We are changed.  One step at a time. One moment at a time.  We come to trust the Light as a personal friend, even though this Light is in all people everywhere.

So, my dear reader, I offer to you that those experiences you have within of a power greater than you, or a power deep within you, or a power higher than you, are your experiences and therefore personal, whatever language you use to describe it.  And that power, in my experience, will regenerate you, will make you whole and new, though if you are stubborn like me, it may take a while.