Again, that Wondrous Spiritual 'Pick-up' Line of Light-centered Hope

Remember back to our young teen years when many of us were dying to talk to the individual we had a crush on, and kept trying to figure out what we could say that sincerely stated our care and hope?:_)

Religions, too, sincerely, speak words of love, sacred pickup lines, heart-centered--
in Judaism
(Jewish Bible's extended metaphor of God saying 'He' is Israel's lover),
in Christianity, especially in Quakerism and Pietism
(Christians are Christ's bride),
in Sufi Islam,
in Bhakti Hinduism,
in some forms of Mahayana Buddhism,
in Unity/New Thought,
and so forth...

According to Quakerly, Wesleyan, Pietistic movement, God infinitely loves every single human
who has ever existed, and loves every single human
who will ever exist in the future.

"I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love,
which flowed over the ocean of darkness."
--George Fox

Talk about spiritual hyperbole...
up close and personal
but as a young, naive, troubled teen, I loved this hope, this spiritual pickup line
(made famous by spiritual crooners from George Fox
to John Wesley, John Woolman, D. L. Moody, Billy Graham, Thomas Kelly, Henri Nouwen, etc.)...



--

I Love This Line
“For God so loves everyone."
I love this line

That the Light, the Divine, Transcendent Reality, the Good--
the inexplicable TRANSCENDENCE at the center of the whole cosmos
cares for each of one of us
to the utmost!



What a wonder, what a hope, what an Everest height
that ultimate linguistic sign.
Yes, I love this line

Yet born with a constant why in my mouth
always seeking,
always looking beyond every belief, every doctrine,
I struggled far past usual doubt

Got gore-baptized by the horrors of Christian history...
heck, even rich Quakers owned slaves until 1776
though they bespoke that heartfelt spiritual pickup line,
their many brutal actions belied their spiritual romantic claim.
Yet I still love their line.

Despite Fox supporting the slaughters of Cromwell;
despite early Jesus wars in the 4th century
and ever since down to this troubled present;

and endless doctrinal horrors:
Augustine claimed Original Sin
in human sexual love-making, then
abandoned his long-time common lover
for God and, seeking for a high class woman,
he lined this line to eternal death.

And most Christians, including some Friends, while lipping "For God so loved.."
spoke darkly of God's hidden foreordinations to hell for God's glory,
total depravity, limited atonement, forced adoration,
and His constant killings for His own "good pleasure."

So many billions of religious folk lie that Lightful line--
with Biblical infanticide,
the Inquisition, heresy trials, burnings-at-the-stake,
multi-millions slaughtered dutifully for God and country,
Trinity, Jehovah,Allah,Shiva, Shinto, Buddha...

And Black Deaths, influenzas, plagues and famines
tsunamis, floods, and disasters,
and 30,000 children
dying daily--21 each minute;
such glaring harsh facts
bloody and leech all hope
from that lied line.

It does appear that Love’s not an endless YES,
never an the transcendent sphere,
not our Beloved’s ring,

No, not a never ending line of peace and mercy
but only a paltry pickup conning.

Now at 76 years, I hate this false line, the constant
come-on starter by Jews, Christians, Muslims and other con crooners.

How do we ever truly trust again?

Heck, some American and British Quakers even claim
there is NO Light, that only matter and energy exist!

Is there only Mere--as these Friends claim, no Transcendent myrrh?

What of the "impossible possibility" of a Niebuhr,
of the romantic one-liners of George Fox
and Margaret Fell?
That God never says never?

But only,
(to quote Tillich and St. Paul),

Yes, and Yes, and Yes.

But critical assessment of existence
cleavers God’s promise line--
I love you!

Still, I refuse to bow to that despairing cut
The slash of Never--
by creedalists, nontheists.

Let us hope against the brutal facts of religious history...
as did early Quakers though persecuted, abused, and killed--
that ever Past is
never
always Future.

Despite all negation, somehow,
let's still love this LIGHTFUL line--
Love wins.


In the Transcendent Light,

Dan Wilcox

No comments:

Light and Rearranging Chairs in the Midst of Multiple Hurricanes

Again, and again...rearranging deck chairs in the midst of multiple hurricanes...
one discouraging image that comes to mind when reflecting-ruminating-contemplating
on the recent breakups of two more Friends Yearly Meetings (NCYM and NWYM)
while the world suffers endless severe crises,
millions are destitute,
many persecuted, abused, and slaughtered.

And on the current absurd political wranglings--leftovers and rightwrongs...

Been there:

Was a member and leader in California Yearly Meeting shortly before it broke from Friends United Meeting, back when the Yearly Meeting opposed freezing nuclear weapons. In fact, many members defended nuclear weapons, though their Faith and Practice clearly condemned ALL war.

Instead most time was focused on lesser doctrinal points and the danger of possible uncontrolled behavior during open worship...

Attended a local Arizona meeting of Intermountain Yearly Meeting with my wife, where to our bafflement and shock, some Friends followed forms closely, yet defended killing...

Was a member of Pacific Yearly Meeting where some members opposed support and involvement in peacemaking in Iraq because the word "Christian" was part of the name, even though Friend Tom Fox, as a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, had already been died witnessing for and working for peace in Iraq.

Instead, we spent considerable time on plans to get a peace pole erected....:-(

And worse...

Since I'm an extremely liberal Friend far out on the edge and have plenty of my own shortcomings and failures,
no doubt, other Friends could point out many ways that I, too, don't live up to the Light.

STILL.

Think about this: What is the Friends/Quakers beyond an empty form?

Even back in the 19th century, social activist Friends were opposed by their meetings because of their abolition work.
Most Friends instead focused on their religious forms.

Modern Friends insert totally contrary, contradictory views,
advocate opposing ethics,
even deny that the Light exists,
or insist that only a doctrinaire understanding of God is the Light.

At times, as a UU-leaning Friend, I'm tempted to jump ship.

Only the Unitarian-Universalists are also rearranging chairs, still order their services like traditional churches! And are caught down in a severe controversy right now, too (including opposition to their UU president).

And, strangely, like some Friends, many UU's claim the lifestance of Pagan!

Huh? How could any rational, contemplative members of Quakers and UU ever think that the cosmos is polytheistic?

Furthermore, such a worldview--Paganism--is completely contrary to everything that is essential to being a Friend (and a UU).

If you think differently, please comment on why you believe my observation is incorrect.

What if instead of inserting almost any and all contrary ethics and philosophies into the empty-bucket called Quakers...

What if instead of acting like lawyers arguing over minutia and forms...

What if all of us, instead, centered,
then
stood up against all war, inequality, injustice
and focused on seeking
the True, the Good, the Just, the Beautiful?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Modern Thinkers

Two Opposite Views by Modern Thinkers on Ethics and Human Rights:

Good:
"When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself,
and from this point of view
human solidarity is metaphysical."

"No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people."

"...exalt justice in order to fight against eternal injustice."

"Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal
to the essence of being."
Albert Camus

These quotes are from later in the life of Albert Camus. In his early writings,
he did present the modern view that ethics are subjective and relative, not real.
He even wrote of murder as amoral, in his book, The Stranger.

BUT then the world faced the horror of Nazi Germany. Camus worked for the French Underground, wrote against the Nazis and their atrocities.

And his thinking developed and changed. He wrote The Plague and The Rebel, and other books which emphasized goodness, compassion, and justice.

By the 1950's, Camus became deeply committed to human rights for everyone,
worked for social justice,
opposed wars,
especially objected to the killing of civilians,
and rejected governments' use of capital punishment.

"When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself,
and from this point of view human solidarity is metaphysical."

According to Camus it is important to rebel against governments and societies which are unjust.

VERSUS

from ASK THE ATHEIST:

"So then, who...does an atheist believe gives them rights?
I obviously can’t speak for all atheists, but as for my own opinion
I would say it’s the same group
that gives all of us rights, namely society and by extension, the government."

"...rights in one part of the world aren’t the same as in other parts. Society defines your rights
based upon it’s culture and morality at the time.
These rights are given by society..."

"Now to answer your question about the Declaration of Independence,
as I understand it, the architects of the declaration were careful to leave out any reference to “god”."

from another atheist:
"Rights are derived from the culture or society doing the defining."

another atheist:
"Well, I think we have rights in the sense that we have the rights that society/ government...agrees that we have and grants to us...


"...“rights”...They’re not real things."

from Ask the Atheist
--

It seems very strange that Ask an Atheist
declares that the "architects of the
declaration were very careful to leave out any reference to "god."

What the heck?

It's exactly opposite in the Declaration:
The Enlightenment thinkers emphasized that God is the source of all humans' inherent rights:

From the Declaration--
"...to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
--

But even stranger--and far more despairing
is the claim by these writers at Ask an Atheist that it is societies and governments who give/grant humans "rights."

NOT SO!

If it is governments who give "rights," then they can take them away.

And they often do deny millions of humans their natural born rights.

Those of us who work for human rights organizations have spent many years opposing governments including South Africa, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Guatamala, North Korea, the U.S., etc. who have denied humans their rights.

That is why Enlightenment leaders emphasized all humans are born with inherent rights.

All humans are born to "equality," and "certain unalienable Rights."

ALL conscious, rational, ethical beings have inherent rights.

(I would take it a step further. ALL conscious, sentient creatures have inherent rights.
Isn't this the very emphasis of the Animal Rights movement?)

Rights are inherent,
and "unalienable" (meaning that no government
or society has a right to take them away, though many
claim they do)
and
all
humans
have the right
to reject any society or government
which denies them their inherent rights.

Listen to Albert Camus, again: "When he rebels,
a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself,
and from this point of view human solidarity is metaphysical."

Don't listen to
these modern piped pipers who think that humans
in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, North Korea, etc.
ONLY
have the rights that their governments
and societies grant to them.

WRONG!

Rights are inherent in every human being.

Societies and governments, of course, do often deny
humans' ability to exercise
their rights.

But societies and governments
don't give rights.

We are born into the human species with rights and equality.


As Camus wrote, "Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being."

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Conundrum of Emphasizing What You Are NOT

Here's a baffling conundrum of modern society:

I have a complete lack of belief in
Islam,
but I don't emphasize that I am an A-Muslim (a- means "without").

I have a complete lack of belief in
Calvinist-Augustinianism
but I don't emphasize that I am an A-Calvinist-Augustinian!

So why do so many now
emphasize what they have a complete lack of belief in
Theism,
that they are A-theists?

It reminds me of a short reflection by the astronomer,
Neil deGrasse Tyson,

“You know, the only ‘ist’ I am, is a scientist.
“It’s odd that the word ‘atheist’ even exists. I don’t play golf.

Is there a word for non-golf-players?
Do non-golf players gather and strategize?

Do non-skiers have a word and come together
and talk about the fact that they don’t ski?”

Atheists are now claiming that all human infants are Atheists at birth.

And I might add, are all infants at birth
A-Golfers, A-Skiers;-), etc.?

Huh?
Thanks, Kurt V.


In Light-hearted satire against this weird Trumpped world,

Daniel Wilcox

Yes and No--Review of Meeting: A Religious Autobiography by Chuck Fager

from Meetings: A Religious Autobiography by Chuck Fager:

“I’ve been trying to lose my religion for years now, but it refuses to go away. Just when I think I’ve shaken it – put it firmly behind me, a piece of my obscurantist past no longer suited to the faithless life I now lead – it turns up again, dogging me...”
Daphne Merkin

Chuck Fager:
"Daphne Merkin wrote that in the New Yorker, and it made me smile with recognition. As I undertake to unpack in these pages, losing “my” religion was also a major goal of my early adulthood.

But for me there turned out to be a difference between religion” and “Religion”: shaking off the church of my youth was possible; but then “Religion” proved not so easy to discard. Everywhere I turned, it kept coming at me."

"Partly this was no more than inclination and predilection: even shorn of belief, feeling the prickles of a theological buzz-cut as when rubbing my scalp after visiting the barbershop, the stubble of religion was still there, and was soon growing again, combed differently perhaps, but not to be held back. I was still interested in the subject."

"I only know to approach the answers through stories: and one lesson has been that any religion worth its salt is built around stories..."
from Meetings: A Religious Autobiography by Chuck Fager.
Available on Amazon,
https://www.createspace.com/6272748
--

My Response--
Introduction:
First let me say: During a deep, dark, despairing time in the past, Chuck personally encouraged me to not give up, to instead overcome despair. He did this by sharing his own personal story dealing with despair and overcoming that dragon.

Eventually, Chuck even made it into one of my published books, my speculative/alternative history science fiction novel, The Feeling of the Earth. In that book he appears as a minor character, Charles Faber, working at Quaker House. A friendly thank you.

I doubt that I am in his new autobiography--haven't finished it yet--since I was only one of millions of past commas in his long life. He probably doesn't remember our email exchange during my time of the "ocean of darkness." Nor should he. But I am very thankful for his encouragement and direction.

Second, let us all thank him for his decisive witness
for many years against war,
racism and intolerance.

And for his compassionate work for years
with those in the military at Quaker House,
in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Now for the Yes and No.

Background
(Skip this if you want to jump immediately to the thesis of theism
versus nontheism and everything inbetween):

I admit to being a Friends' member-at-large, no longer officially related to the society.

I resigned from my local meeting of the Society of Friends in 2009. And since then have become a practitioner of the Society of the Swimming Pool:-)

Why exactly?

And what does this have to do with Chuck Fager's stories and spiritual reflections,
and my Yes and No to religion and Quakers in particular?

Patience...Though only the Divine seems privy to that virtue.

For a number of reasons, I've decided to give you the long version of this
(contrary to strong advice from my spouse to always give her and others
the "short version," the very short version!)

Religiously, I've been a part of the Quaker movement for nearly 50 years. First at Backbench Young Adult Friends Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the fall of 1967. I was newly arrived on the East Coast to begin my service at a mental hospital after being drafted as a conscientious objector.

I don't remember if our meeting belonged to the Hicksite or Orthodox wing of the Quakers. Hard to say, there are many 'angles' in Quakerism, like in other religions. Yes I know I mixed my letters;-). It matters little now.

Then later I became a active member of California Yearly Meeting and then of Pacific Yearly Meeting.

When we didn't live near a Quaker meeting, my wife and I drove 2 1/2 hours into Phoenix for a while to attend 2 Friends meetings there.

But some Friends supported killing! So we changed to a progressive Mennonite Church when in Phoenix.

Later, we were avid members of California Yearly Meeting, but were troubled that it de-emphasized some key ways of Friends.

I tried to affect this when I was a member and teaching the Quaker history and spirituality class at our local meeting.

But then California Yearly Meeting's leaders came out in support of nuclear weapons in 1981. And our local meeting hired a fighter pilot as our released minister, etc.

So we resigned and moved on.

Later I resigned (but didn't become resigned to these severe losses) from Pacific Yearly Meeting when our "peace committee" opposed involvement in Christian Peacemakers in Iraq, etc.

Even most upsetting, some Quaker leaders came out in support of nontheism and self-identified as nontheists!

How can a religious/spiritual group whose central focus for 350 years has been on worship and ethics possibly come to think there is no Truth to seek and worship, and to act upon?!

Besides, haven't they read key books of deep spiritual experience by George Fox, John Woolman,Thomas Kelly, and so forth? Were those central thinkers deluded?

Sometimes, what this comes down to is a difficult question of very important philosophical semantics.

But most of the time, this whole issue and Friends is filled with contradictions, like what is characteristic of most religion.

Why am I recovering from religiousness, but being "dogged" by it?

And why, do I now belong to the swimming pool?

And I am not 'lyin' in the den,
but only a brief primate named Daniel in the swirl of the vast cosmos, seeking...

So when it comes to religion, all ideas spiritual, ethical, and philosophical, and the Society of Friends, here's a few of my answers:

YES

#1
See above for my thankfulness, for Chuck's many years of service helping others and for many other Friends who have been an inspiration, direction, and guidance.

#2
Chuck is to be commended for his vivid, user-Friendly;-) prose articles, blog, and other writings. One never gets bored with bland, obtuse, meandering prose when an article has the Fager name.

To use a wholly incorrect metaphor, as a writer and thinker, he shoots to the target.

Speaking of humor, Chuck majors in that with a wry angle. Yes, his off-the-wall sort of humor is hilarious.

Take the preface of his new book where he compares religion to hair:"...shorn of belief, feeling the prickles of a theological buzz-cut as when rubbing my scalp after visiting the barbershop, the stubble of religion was still there, and was soon growing again, combed differently perhaps, but not to be held back."

LOL, but what an apt metaphor!

Not that I know this personally. I've kept my hair long
(except for one buzz-cut at Christmas 1967) for many years and, basically, a beard since the late 60's.

But I know plenty of shavers and short-hairers, including my father, relatives, and friends for whom keeping that hair back is a never ending chore.

Even an early morning shave begins to look shady by afternoon!

#3
The liberal Quaker religion which Chuck has explained in great detail in his books such as Quaker Theology, Remaking Friends: How Progressive Friends, Some Quaker FAQs, Without Apology
is winsome, positive, and has contributed to the furtherance of compassion, justice, and truth.

What's not to like about it and other forms of liberal religion
which have a lot in common with Friends?

Well, that is in the NO part.

The YES section, to be continued--

NO

#1
We both grew up in the Vietnam generation, but my life actually took a very different turn from Chuck's.

He wrote in the Preface of his new book, "losing “my” religion was also a major goal of my early adulthood"!

Exactly, the opposite for me.

To reverse a phrase from C.S. Lewis,* I was dragged kicking and screaming from religion, desperately trying to hang on to that center of my life. Maybe, its time I write my own story, too.

Take a look at this ironic story from Chuck. In 1976, he was writing for the San Francisco Bay Guardian as a journalist feature writer of odd stories.

When he studied the very popular anti-tradition simple-life book of E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, Chuck discovered that many of Schumacher's views come from Roman Catholic writers, though the academic speaks of "Buddhist Economics."

So when Chuck interviewed the thinker, he thought he had a "gotcha" question:
"Dr. Schumacher, wouldn't it have been more accurate...to have called your program 'Christian,' or even Catholic economics?"

...[E.F. Schumacher] "threw back his head and laughed..."But if I had called it 'Christian Economics,' nobody would have paid any attention."

Chuck got his story: "Exposed: E.F. Schumacher Is A Vatican Agent."

"The Bay Guardian's readers ate it up. The editors loved it. But the whole adventure still left me looking to stretch a skimpy paycheck at the St. Vincent thrift store."
--

What an ironic story. How wry is the fact that while Fager was dissing an academic over Roman Catholicism, he himself was regularly frequenting and economically supporting a Roman Catholic institution dedicated to the poor?!

And Chuck himself was poor, though not by choice, like the 'Poor Brothers' of that faith.

Chuck has played us a story comic song worthy of Samuel Clemens or Kurt Vonnegut's ironic wit.

Rather a thrifty combination of prose meaning, irony, humor, and contradictions.

But let's get deeper into Chuck's religious and philosophical views.

#2
Chuck writes about a holy relic card he found in a missal at the Saint Paul thrift store, ..."that the card had been brushed up against something, which had in turn touched something else, which touched something else, in a sequence repeated..."

"All of these were links in a sacred chain stretching back through twenty centuries, to one which had purportedly touched something which had been in contact with the actual cross on which Jesus hung and breathed his last..."
--

I don't think there is a better summation of religion, especially the Christian religion, than that description. Except, of course, Protestant Evangelicals and Fundamentalists--while rejecting relics as superstition--attach a similar extreme importance to the literal Bible.

This example is one of the two key reasons why I think religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is untrue. There is way too much superstition, illusion, and delusion.

As for Chuck's comments and points, to be continued--

P.S. One last gag:-)
I'm surprised that Chuck at this point didn't wise off with a comment on his autobiographical life--calling his autobiography--From Missals to Anti-missles.;-=)

But then his humor isn't as ridiculously corny-bad as mine. He was born in Kansas, not Nebraska, the Cornhusker state, like me:-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

* Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis, a spiritual autobiography: “the most dejected, reluctant convert in all of England . . . drug into the kingdom kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape.”

The Far and the Near of Quakerism

“The Far and the Near” is a powerful short story by Thomas Wolfe, the lyrical American writer.

In the brief story, the narrator tells of how he often passes by a pleasing-looking house and family in the distance. That place and that family seem to epitomize all that is good and hopeful in the world.

Then, finally, one day the narrator decides to visit the far place. He drives to the distant location, with high hope and deep intensity, expecting to find this warm family and beautiful place, this shining star of joy always, only seen from afar.

But when he arrives, the observer is faced, instead with brute, ugly facts so unlike his hopeful expectations.

“Why had...the very entrance to this place he loved turned unfamiliar as the landscape of some ugly dream? Why did he now feel this sense of confusion, doubt and hopelessness?...with a sense of bitter loss and grief, he was sorry he had come...

All the brave freedom, the warmth and the affection had...vanished...But he faltered on, fighting stubbornly against the horror of regret, confusion, disbelief that surged up in his spirit, drowning all his former joy…”
--

When I was viewing and longing for the Society of Friends from afar, it looked like the true deal in a world awash with destructive and delusionary religion. It seemed an Ideal, Christianity truly lived—weekly real encounter with the Divine, communal communion living within worship and then active peacemaking, etc.

I would often drive long distances in order to participate in Quaker worship. And I did experience a deep sense of God’s presence sometimes, despite the usual quieting of my busy-body mind within.

But when I finally came near—actually lived near a Friends meeting and became an active member, and taught a Quaker class on Friends history and witness, I discovered a significant number of Quakers in the U.S. and England don't even think the Divine exists!

They are nontheists who go to weekly worship to not worship!

And, strangely, it turned out there are many Quakers who actively support war. What?!

California Yearly Meeting (of which my wife and I were devoted members) strongly refused to oppose nuclear weapons at its yearly conference!

Instead, members and leaders got up and defended not only regular war, but the possession and threat of atomic bombs!

I went home very troubled and disillusioned. How Far Quakerism in Southern California was from the Near of the Ideal.

There was an intentional willingness for killing in some “liberal” meetings, too!

Once I so wanted to be “near” that my wife and I drove over 2 hours to a liberal Friends meeting only to have members there speak up in the meeting in support of killing! Later, the AFSC in some cases even supported war.

My wife, who wasn't diligently a Friend but more a ride-along:-), wondered why we had bothered.

Then later after we joined a Friends Meeting, finally really got regularly “Near,” our local meeting hired an active fighter pilot as its leader…
Then it got even worse.

“Something is happening here, and we don’t know what it is, do we Mr. Fox?” (to misquote Dylan, Bob not Thomas).

Where was the beautiful spiritual home and family I had pined for so long?

Not that I wasn't also most of the problem...

But I was seeking help and spiritual communion for my own suffering life, not another secular gathering, that denied the Transcendent, or one which would be as gung-ho for war as most religions.

However, I said to myself--and many others--despite all these tragic developments, true Quakerism isn't like this.

What we need to do is get back to the real and true early movement of the Friends. That true Quakerism of Far in the past, the 1640’s.

But then I came face to face with textural evidence that early Quakers weren't like the Ideal either.

Oh, the far and the near...

For instance,
Quaker historian, David Boulton, proved my view of early Friends wrong.

Contrary to popular understanding, and Quaker histories, the original Friends weren't active peacemakers, actively opposed to war.

Boulton shows in “Militant Seedbeds of Early Quakerism" that, originally, Quakers strongly supported war, and war of the worst kind ("unkind").

George Fox even called on the Puritan warlord Oliver Cromwell to extend the English Civil War into continental Europe!

From “Militant Seedbeds of Early Quakerism:
“Consider this message to Cromwell, signed “George Fox” and dated January 1658, where the Protector is lambasted for not carrying his military conquests into Europe and on to Rome itself—even to the Turkish empire:

“Oliver, hadst thou been faithful and thundered down the deceit, the Hollander had been thy subject and tributary, Germany had given up to have done thy will, and the Spaniard had quivered like a dry leaf wanting the virtue of God, the King of France should have bowed his neck under thee,
the Pope should have withered as in winter,
the Turk in all his fatness should have smoked,
thou shouldst not have stood trifling about small things, but minded the work of the Lord
as He began with thee at first...Let thy soldiers go forth...
that thou may rock nations as a cradle.”
George Fox

For, not, heaven’s sakes, even Quakerism’s Margaret Fell said
that the English Puritan army was “the Battle-axe in the hand of the Lord.”
http://universalistfriends.org/library/militant-seedbeds-of-early-quakerism

Does anyone want to say, “Amen”?

The Far is no way Near, or rather is so like the Near.

I wonder why all religions at some point are given to violating others,
to carnage, even those who claim they are for peace.

Maybe, it’s not just religion, but that war and violence are inherent in the natural order
as scientists from Charles Darwin to Richard Dawkins have emphasized.

Natural selection, not Divine encounter.

Strangely, peacemaking and nonviolence are contrary to how most religious people actually behave,
including that Far country of the Society of Friends.
Peacemaking and nonviolence aren't easy to follow.

So that’s the Far and the Near.

And it’s an experience of disillusionment which leads if not overcome, to living with despair or illusion.

However having said all that, I see, despite my severe disillusionment with the Near and the Far of Quakerism that I still come out as a Quaker on Belief.net's Survey, 100% Liberal Quaker in fact.

This surely is the time to take a little encouragement from Howard Zinn, an American historian, who points out that despite the horrors of actual history and the way most people live,
“ TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness."

"What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives...If we remember those times and places...where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction."

"And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn

So, for us, so what if the “near” of Quakerism isn't what it appears at the “far,” and even the “far” wasn't nearly as wonderful or divine as we like to historically remember?

Let’s live for the Good, the True, and the Just and the Merciful and the Kind in the present.

Become what Quakerism should have been, should be now.

To misquote George Fox, “I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but that light and love could flow over the ocean of darkness...”

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Am I Weird or Deluded or What? And being a pinball...

Am I weird or deluded or what? Or just still a very naive Nebraska village kid? For some reason I yet think most humans I meet are--underneath their vocalized differences and doctrinal tags--basically of similar spiritual faith and inner devotion and ethical concern.

But again this weekend, I discover for the umpteenth time--It AIN'T So.

Years ago, I became of the Friend's persuasion, leaving Evangelical Christianity partially because so much of the latter represents that which is most abhorrent in religion.

And I am a Friend because I love the centrality and experience of open worship where God is present right now in deep biblical "knowing."

Yet more and more I am finding there are many Friends who don't think God is. I keep trying to understand their view (such as the dialogues I've had with the bloggers on Nontheist Friends.org and elsewhere).

But I admit Untheism baffles me. If the God whose essence is love (of the NT and Friends for 360 years)
ISN'T,
then why are we meeting for worship? Are we not truly deluded as Richard Dawkins claims?

And in my dialogue with Evangelical Christians again this week, I realize to an abyssed degree that not only do I disagree with their central beliefs, but I don't really have faith in the same God as them. We use many of the same biblical terms but mean very opposite values.

I do live in a totally different cosmos from such humans.

Where is there a window where I can go and scream...

And last night, I was invited over to a couple of my friends and we had a great talk fest for four hours! At least we are in the same cosmos:-) but their views also seem so contrary to everything I trust and think true.

So I am like the small pinball in one of those classic game machines that bounces from other worldview to other worldview, all so incredibly different from my own faith and wondering where all of this is leading.

I am too much of an intellectual doubter to think everyone else must be bonkers;-) and only my group--Theistic Friends--understands Reality. So I struggle.

On my more despairing days--for instance yesterday, the day for worship--I wonder if maybe Friends, and indeed all religion, is delusion.

Maybe only Existentialism is true.
Maybe this is an absurd world like Albert Camus said and where The Plague wrecks havoc and we are brief consciousnesses for no reason and then the abyss...

Thank God, today I have renewed hope. I may be hanging in emptiness or am pre-damned, etc.,
but today I experience God's love
and am
in God's
Presence.

The Nature and Destiny of Existence: Introduction

The title of my long reflection is, of course, a reference to Reinhold Niebuhr's famous theological tome--one of the best and deepest! I love reading all kinds of theology and philosophy--at least the parts I can comprehend;-);
HOWEVER,
And that is a "how" that goes on "forever,"
I am a pretty average guy and I've never stopped wondering how it is that famous theologians and philosophers of all stripes and spots think they know so much about Ultimate Reality. The Reformers and the Catholic Church, for instance, thought they knew God's reality and will so well that they executed (by drowning and burning) other Christians who didn't believe in infant baptism! Yet these same theologians and philosophers who "knew" God's eternal nature and hidden decrees didn't even know the basic nature of our local solar system or why people get sick (must be God's will).

And then there's the opposite extreme: the other Know-It-Alls, those of Nontheism who while being, also, only finite conscious mammals are sure, to a strong degree that there is no objective Meaning, no Purpose, no Truth, no Goodness in the Cosmos. We humans are a brief fluke of cosmic chance, one evolutionary twig on the natural selection bush (according to Stephen J. Gould, the famous Darwinian biologist).

Seems rather presumptuous. Of course, I've had my own times with humankind's dear friend, Pride, too--when I thought I "knew" much more than I actually do. As I get older and older, I know less and less.

So if you are misguided by the title of this reflection and think I am going to pontificate about knowing the Ultimate nature of everything and the whys and wherefores and to-dos for all, etc., you are about to be disappointed or relieved.

My goal here is very personal and very basic. Rather, by the love of God, I hope to share my own narrative experiential theology--how I have experienced God (at least in my own perception) and what difference that has made in me and my limited influence on others and the world.

For those who want the quick short version, rather than my own long-winded journey, here's a quote:

And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly, to help me; nor could tell what to do; then, O then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition": and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. (...) Thus when God doth work, who shall let [i.e., hinder] it? and this I knew experimentally. My desires after the Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of God, and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing. For though I read the scriptures that spake of Christ and of God, yet I knew him not, but by revelation, as he who hath the key did open, and as the Father of life drew me to his son by his Spirit. Then the Lord gently led me along, and let me see his love, which was endless and eternal...
The Journal of George Fox


I think George Fox's statement (of his experience in life, his spiritual search, and encounter with what he perceived to be Truth) says its best.
Even though
I know all the naturalistic vultures;-) are circling waiting to pick Fox's experience clean until there are only factual bones of meaninglessness left.

Well, each of us takes our life journey and what trail we walk makes all the difference...

To be continued

The Nature of Reality: Step #1

What is the true nature of Reality? Notice the capital R. I'm not talking about the finite observable present day-to-day temporal world of basic facts which includes humans as one form of primate undergoing evolutionary change.

Rather, I am speaking of the ultimate category of reality of which philosophers, physicists, and cosmologists refer to, and what religious people and mystics say they experience--the ultimate objective source of Being and Becoming.

Where does "all this" come from and eventually go to?

After this cosmos in so many trillions and trillions of years either stretches out space to infinity or implodes back to a singularity, what will still BE?

Why are we here? Are there eternal truths?

Of course some philosophers and scientists declare there is nothing "out" there beyond matter and energy. The cosmos-- maybe universes beyond universes--has no Meaning or Purpose, only IS for no reason.

Scientists such as Richard Dawkins claim that even to think there might be some Meaning behind it all is to be deluded in the worst sort of way. He wrote The God Delusion to try and demonstrate this central non-theistic thesis.

And Stephen J. Gould the famous Darwinian biologist, in a magazine interview, said humankind itself is only a "fluke" of evolution that probably wouldn't show up again if evolution were re-run another time.

Other famous scientists in this chorus of non-meaning include Coyne, Harris, Cashmore, Hutchens, Monad, Dennett, and Provine.

Dawkins' most famous statement against religion and the transcendent is probably his declaration in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life:

"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so."

"If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice."

"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
--

So there is the first option as to the true nature of Reality: Matter, Energy, and Chance or Cosmic Determinism. The natural, indifferent Cosmos itself is all there is.

We humans are an accidental species or "meat puppets" who construct our own illusions.

Then die. Eventually we as a species will go extinct.

In strong contrast, Enlightenment figures argued that consciousness, reason, human rights, justice, equality, and so forth show evidence of the essential nature of existence--the Deity.

And Friends have trusted for 300 hundred years that Ultimate Reality is Loving Relationship, Equality, Purpose--
that at the very center and heart of Reality are eternal truths, everlasting ideals, absolute love.

Some other faiths agree with the Society of Friends. Transcendent Love is the Center of the Cosmos.

Martin Buber, the Jewish mystic wrote a book on God, titled, I-Thou, which speaks of a love relationship between God and each human.

The Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., (despite his own moral failings), strongly held to Ultimate Reality being loving and good and true and just.

In his speech "Rediscovering Lost Values," King said, "The first principle of value is that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations."

"In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws..."

"I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. (Yes) Eternally so, absolutely so."

"It's wrong to hate. (Yes. That's right) It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. It's wrong in America. It's wrong in Germany..."

"It was wrong in 200 B.C. and it's wrong in 1954 A.D...It's wrong in every age and it's wrong in every nation."

"Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute."
--

No doubt early Friends would have ascribed non-theism to the "ocean of darkness" that threatens humankind. So how is it then that some Friends in the last 40 years have come out stating there is no God to worship, no Ultimate Reality to "quake before"?

They say God is a fiction, a word which does not represent anything real.

It is uncertain why such Friends deny God's existence. We are all doubters to one degree or another, but when humans, especially Friends, claim for certain that there is no God, it is puzzling and distressing.

After all both names--"Friend" and "Quaker"--are in reference to God. And the vital central focus of a Quaker meeting is worship of the Truth, the Light, the Divine.

If there is no One--no Center--to worship, then it would appear that such individuals are consciously choosing to pretend, what other non-theists such as Dawkins term "delusion."

Before I continue with an introduction to the Friends view of worship, let me emphasize that ALL humans are invited to come to commune in worship, even those who don't think there is any Ultimate Reality to live in and commune with. Hopefully, they will encounter the Truth, the Light.

After all, remember what Stephen King that famous Quaker horror writer;-) wrote in his novel, The Stand. In response to an atheist's statement that he doesn't believe in God, the heroic leader in the novel laughs and says, "But that don't matter. He believes in you."

To be continued


In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox