Pain, God and Injustice

Several times in my life I have faced terrible malicious harm.

There comes a point at which forgiveness lifts such a weight from the soul. Fox's advice to Cromwell's daughter to look inside for comfort ... well, I know from experience that it is the way and possible.

Once I was so hurt that I lost sight of God. I didn't even know I had lost sight of God. All that I was had been robbed from me, in that I had come to believe that I was what I did, and because of lies and liable, I could no longer do that which defined me. I was faced with injustice on a cosmic level, theft of self. An Innu friend, no sister of mine phoned. She had heard through the Indian word of mouth network, (the moccasin telegraph) that a terrible thing had been done to me. She called and said, "are you sad?" I told her, "yes, quite sad..." She said, "just come up north for a sweat." All the pain evaporated at that moment.


The hard point, the time it is hard to look inside, is when the injury is so raw that it distracts thee from the ability to look within... late at night. It is easy, so easy to have told others not to expect justice, working in law, that is a mantra. I can't tell ye how often I have told someone who wanted to sue for an injury, "don't look to the courts to give thee a sense of justice, don't look to the world for justice. Look inside thee for that perfection that does not need to balance the books of justice in thy life, and sue for the costs of the injury - and hope for the best, but justice and peace is for thee to find.


But, I cannot lie to ye, dear Friends, when an injury, an injustice happens, the weight on the heart is heavy to bear. Nights are hard, the hardest time... comments on how to set that weight aside ... to center down when darkness leaves thee alone with the burden... no platitudes... recipes for mixed drinks... jokes, easy answers... nothing we already know, like time will cure thee, of course it is easier to center down as time cures the wound... Lurkers on this blog... pull out the stops and send thy light to me...


Well here I am, like most living in the city... I want the fast road, the McFaith approach... I patiently walked a path with native friends for decades before I was invited into a sweat lodge, patient as could be... but the thorn in my foot screams take it out. Opt out for the quick solution. Come buy the big bright green pleasure machine, hypnotize away thy smoking habit.


So, I know... I've been through enough deaths of friends and family to know that faith carries thee to the time that it stops the hurt. But we are raised to solve problems. Solve the problem of pain. Well, pain is just that, pain... with all its lessons, with all its sleeplessness, it is a gift from God to tell us to heal. How hard it is to thank God for pain, but how necessary it is to thank God for the deepest hurt - without which our hand stays in the fire, we don't see the injury... we go on with blind life.

Ouch... thanks... silence

lor

When faced with fear, turn to love instead...

...Jesus could do no more than to recommend to the Comforter, which was the light in him. 'God is light, and in him is no darkness at all; and if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.' Because the light is one in all, and therefore it binds us together in the bonds of love; for it is not only light, but love--that love which casts out all fear. So that they who dwell in God dwell in love, and they are constrained to walk in it...
Elias Hicks - in Chester PA, from a description of him by Walt Whitman,
Christian forgiveness is not putting a good name on a bad thing, or saying a bad thing did not happen, but it is not letting it get in the way of the relationship.
Sally Scott, Devises, Wiltshire, England
"Let your heart not be troubled, neither let it be afraid." --John 14:27
and when all else fails, do as a friend of mine does... play secret agent.

Love is very patient and kind,

Love is very patient and kind,
never jealous or envious,
never boastful or proud,
never haughty or selfish or rude.
Love does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable or touchy.
It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.
It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out.
If you love someone you will be loyal ... no matter what the cost.
You will always believe in that person, always expect the best of that one, and always stand your ground in defending that one.
All the special gifts and powers from God will someday come to an end,
but love goes on forever..........

1 Corinthians 13:1-8,

Changed him to more universal language... above,

There is little this does not speak to, from how Friends should approach business meetings, business in the world... and the trials and pains and joys of friendship... eh?

Monday ... 4:10 am...

Discipline thyself to joy, and all things are bearable


Discipline thyself to love, and all things are new


Discipline thyself to faith, and all things are possible...


then take two asprin and call me in the morning...

A New Song....

Le manifest d' Jean MaynardA translation of a Quebecois canoe song

Tune Zigulon, words Otway/Gareis/Gilmore

Second First Day's come again,
the worshipful time when
We Quakers all sit down
and pass the thoughts around
to show we're all profoundon
solid Quaker ground

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block another's way
everybody has their say
While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away just past mid day

A young Quaker near the door,
said why don't we feed the poor?
and with a smile sat down

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block another's way
everybody has their say
A Friend near the door
Suggests we feed the poor
While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away, an hour past mid day

An older Friend arose,
and dusted off his clothes
taking off his hat
Said, with so many poor in need
who are we going to feed?

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block other's way
everybody has their say
A Friend near the door
Suggests we feed the poor
with so many poor in need
who are we going to feed?
While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away two hours past mid day

Another Friend agreed
with so many poor to feed
when we mean so well,
We could give the poor some soup
cause soup is so easy to scoop

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block another's way
everybody has their say
A Friend near the door
Suggests we feed the poor
with so many poor in need
who are we going to feed?
We may give the poor some soup
cause its so easy to scoop
While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away, three hours past mid day

A weighty Friend began,
to speak and pound his hand
in an enlightened way
They'll eat in the name of Christ
And wouldn't that be nice?

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block another's way
everybody has their say
A Friend near the door
Suggests we feed the poor
with so many poor in need
who are we going to feed?
We may give the poor some soup
cause its so easy to scoop
feeding in the name of Christ
some Friends think it would be nice
While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away, four hours past mid day

A Quaker rolled her eyes,
and looking towards the skies
cried Jesus Christ again!
It's enough the poor will eat
next you'll have us washing feet!

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block another's way
everybody has their say
A Friend near the door
Suggests we feed the poor
with so many poor in need
who are we going to feed?
We may give the poor some soup
its so easy to scoop
feeding in the name of Christ
some Friends think it would be nice
It's enough the poor will eat
We need not wash their feet
While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away, five hours past mid day

This minute's not quite right!
I don't want to start a fight
but I am led to say
it's no committee its a group
and a group can't dole out soup
we need a clerk and all
a committee or we'll fall
into ranter anarchy
and that's not the way to be

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block other's way
everybody has their say
A Friend near the door
Suggests we feed the poor
with so many poor in need
who are we going to feed?
We may give the poor some soup
soup is so easy to scoop
feeding in the name of Christ
some Friends believe it would be nice
It's enough the poor will eat
We need not wash their feet
a committee not a group
a group can't dole out soup
a committee we will name
though the membership's the same
While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away, six hours past mid day

A lawyer rose to say,
we can't do this anyway
It's just a matter of risk
what are we going to do?
If we poison them they'll sue
said a Friendly helpful guy
we can feed the poor some pie
and yet still the poor may die
if they choke on Quaker pie!
The only way to solve this mess
let the poor to starve I guess
then it wont be Friendly chow
that will kill them anyhow
and if the poor complain
they must really bear the blame
I don't want to seem to hate
But I wont facilitate
Until an open way
the poor will wait another day
the poor will always be
and I must take care of me

Let's minute this this way
On Business Meeting Day

we're all on solid ground
and being so profound
never block another's way
everybody has their say
We feel for the poor
A way will open we are sure

While the clock ticked away, ticked away, ticked away
the clock ticked away, till the end of day

The Soup Kitchen's going strong
As we finish up this song
in that old Quaker way
Back bencher's made some stew
in a borrowed pot or two
and Now all the Quakes
smile and trade hand shakes
for being very good
and doing all they should
And are feeling very grand
for the poor are well in hand

And the minute it will say will say
The meeting found a way
and the clock will tick away tick away tick away
the clock will tick away till the end of day

Weefox Greatcoat

My new Greatcoat from WeeFox Tailors arrived. (See the post three weeks back Dec. 28th). The folks at Weefox promised the coat in three weeks (a shorter wait than jackets... a kind thoughtful thing during the winter!) and the coat arrived three weeks to the day.

It arrived on the coldest day so far, and it is a very welcome addition to my life. The quilted lining is warm and the cuffs inside the sleeves keeps the breeze from coming up my arms, and the cape adds warmth up top, where folks tend to lose heat.

It was made with real craft and care and I recommend it to plain Friends and any other plain tradition, or people who like to know that their clothing is made as an expression of faith and love.

So, once more thank'ee to the folks at Weefox.

Thyne in the light
lor

Dr. Martin L. King Jr. Day

As I do, on this anniversary every year, I wake up to images of Dr. King on TV, and invariably they are playing the "I had a dream" speech. This is, of course, part of the canonization of Dr. King. Canonization is the process by which we take the innovator, the leader often martyred by the powers that be, and claim that martyr for those same powers. The self same America that murdered Dr. King on that day I remember so well, now edits his message to say, all is alright in American, there is freedom thanks to our Saint Martin.

Yet if he where alive today, I know in the depths of my heart one thing. I feel almost silly to say, "IF" he protested this war of conquest and aggression the US has been drawn into, but in fairness to the right of the dead to choose their issues, I will say, if Dr. King protested THIS war, the same politicians who bow their head in his memory would defame him as their parents did in his life. Of this I am well sure, that it is safe for the United States to make a saint of him because he has been silenced by a bullet aimed at him by the state.

So, this is my gift to his memory. Please read the Letter from the Birmingham Jail. I will provide a link.

From the Letter from the Birmingham Jail:
"In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through an these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro .leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation. "

Peter Fingesten

Peter Fingesten

How to explain ... describe? Peter to those who missed him? Well, here is an invitation to Friends to post his short comments which spoke so much wisdom. To get the ball rolling, ... Peter sees me, at 11 or 12, with a book on Tarot. He motions me over and says... "My dear young Friend. Many roads lead to God.... that, I am afraid, is not one of them."
So, if you remember Peter, do put a recollection in the comments.

Mary and the Tsunami

Mary and the Tsunami

Again and again I have heard folks ask how God could "do this" to the people who died in the Tsunami. I should point out, that as Terry Jones of Monty Python said in a recent interview, as many civilians have died in the joint US British invasion of Iraq and I have yet to hear the same folks ask the how God of that, but be that as it may...

This past first day the words of two Medieval carols became very present in my mind. Both say close to the same thing... the parts important here are,

Suddenly she, abashed truly, but not all thing dismayed
With mind discreet and meek spirit to the angel she said
With what manner should I child bear, the which ever a maid
Have lived chaste all my life past and never a man assayed.
....

Thou shalt conceive in thy body, very God himself

...

Then again to the angel she answered womanly
whatever my lord command me do, I will obey meekly
Ecce sum humilimma ancilla Domini
Secundum verbum tuum, she said fiat mihi.

the last line translating: Behold the handmaid of the lord, be it unto me according to thy word


My message began that Mary got in the way of the genitive intentions of God.

Now, this is a complicated thought. I agree with Hannah Bernard, at the beginning of the Hicksite/Orthodox schism, that this does not mean to me that God was born on earth to a virgin, as Hannah said, paraphrasing by memory "as a woman I find this unlikely."


But, it is a powerful thing that happened. An unwed young woman at a time when unchaste behavior could be punished by death, and in the best cercumstances of the day, death was a huge risk in child birth. Mary is faced with that overpowering contradiction. On one hand the strong likelihood of death and on the other love of what is in the process of coming to be, and trust in the intention of God in the process of creation with the accompanying destruction -be it unto me according to thy word.

In this there is the echo of Job and the trial of God at Auschwitz.

The outcome of Mary placing herself with loving resignation in God's way was to her sorrow after sorrow, I am sure. To see a son killed by her people's Roman oppressors is a horror I have seen in the eyes of too many I have met over the years who's children were destroyed for the crime of getting in the way of the occupying armies of large and aggressive nations such as the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany and on and on... But, as with Dr. Martin Luther King, as with Rosemary Nelson and Patrick Finucan, as with Anne Frank, their murder becomes a road to understanding God in totality.

God did not pull the trigger which took from the world Dr. King or Pat Finucan. God did not wire the bomb that stilled the voice of Rosemary Nelson, God did not come for Anne Frank. God did not send a wave to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Humankind is formed with free will and greed and in that monstrous nations have devoured the noble, the kind, the meek and loving with cold hearted viciousness. But humanity is also given the great gift of empathy. In the balance between these to human parts is the choice between extinction and salvation of our kind.

The destruction of the good by the cold heart of the state, the execution of a Rabbi so long ago, brought the world the wisdom of Hillel as well as a model to understand the love of God. It also has brought the hateful interpretation of Jesus' teachings which led to the killing of Jesus' own people for centuries, the burning of those who understood "Christian" teaching differently, the present belief held by some that destruction of the environment is not wrong as God gave us just enough use to get us to the rapture which they believe is almost here - a theology of salvation through extinction of humanity (and some people are afraid of our Moslem brothers and sisters!!!)

God is a process of death and growth... be it unto me according to thy word - to have the faith and humility to say, I don't understand fully, but I put myself in thy way. I would hope to have the strength to fight for my life against a raging tide, as so many stories to come out of this disaster have provided us, the fisherman clinging for days to the overturned boat, the swim suit model, who in spite of her injuries clung to a tree and clung to life. But, I also would hope to have the spirit of Mary to say, - unto me according to thy word.

As new land emerges from the sea, should I get in the way, of course I would want to survive, but who am I to ask that the earth which was formed that we could live on it, should now stop living and growing to accommodate me. I can't ask why God allows this to happen, I thank God for the gift of empathy, which calls so many to help.

My prayer is that our empathy stops the occasion of war, that we don't need to ask God to stay his hand for, we need only stay our own hands.

Tower of Babel

Tower of Babel

I don't think that the destruction of the tower of Babel was a bad idea... after all, well, next to telling the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites, it was a peach.

A Friend said to me that he wished there was a Christ centered meeting in which New York where he could worship. Now being a rather literal fellow, I will likely be corrected on the exact words... well, yes and so I should be. I, however, think that the Tower of Babel is important to consider here.

All these posts before this about the difference between anything and our abstractions, from the image of it in our senses to the words we use to describe it. Well, that is the Tower of Babel all over. The lesson is that we are not meant to worship in the same language of God, it is part of human existence to each have a unique language in our perception. What God demands of us, is to accept and understand that in order to build, to work, to worship together, we need to go past the language that divides us, and thereby build the Tower to heaven.

I think it is better to worship in a diverse community. It teaches us to deal with the world as it was created by God. If diversity was not the intention of God, fascism would work. A society could destroy everyone who was not of the political orthodoxy and live in a Utopia. But, as we know, the remaining few would come to a different interpretation the next day and the killing would go on forever. What hubris on the part of any endeavor of humanity to believe that one could be so right, that everyone would worship or govern in the same way. It is like being so sure that one tree is the perfect strain, that one would kill off all the other plants in a forest and plant only one kind of tree. What a disaster.

The diversity after Babel is God's plan. I, for one, will try and get with the program.

Thyne

lor

We Can only Really Know Anything by Other Than by Abstraction

We Can only Really Know Anything by Other Than by Abstraction

In an earlier post Richard said that he finds me an abstract thinker.... to quote the young folks vernacular, Duh?!


Let's put God to one side a moment and consider a glass of ice water. Where is the real glass? We look at it without touching it. Do we experience the glass or the abstract? Well, light bounces off the glass, goes into our eye, and we interpret the signals in our brain, abstraction. If we have glaucoma we can experience a leprechaun carrying a ladder in the same way. We touch the glass and are we touching the real glass. Our experience is not on our fingertips, but in the electric stimulation within our brains. We drink water from the glass, and we do not experience the glass. We can study what it is about. We can parse it out to the point that it is star dust coming to matter on earth, becoming sand, melting into glass, and yet, all that is not to bring the reality of the drinking glass into our being.

For me it is the same with God. The difference is that the attempt to go completely as we can beyond all we tell ourselves and God tells us in abstraction, and hold the completeness of the mystery and faith at once in our mind, and then make it simple enough, to listen and wait. This is not abstraction. It is reality, it is the acceptance that all we know is an image of the real and NOT the real. Many claim to have transcended the image, and yet, spend huge amounts of time defending the image in stead of acknowledging the unknowable aspect that for me IS the truth where faith takes over.

So, an answer to the question of the title is, we begin to know in silence.

HAS THE HICKSITE ORTHODOX SPLIT EVER HEALED

HAS THE HICKSITE ORTHODOX SPLIT EVER HEALED

This question comes up in several present loggerheads in our meeting. I wont go into the details, other than to say that I find that whether or not a Friend self identifies as Orthodox or Conservative, the Sadduceean mind set I write of in my earlier post, defines any orthodoxy.

Hicksite Friends, in the Phariseean model, accept that the advices are not rules, and that we may not see eye to eye on the advices, but we still help each other, or at least do not block each other. On the other hand, to be orthodox: the book, the rule, the image rules. And, more, as any abstraction can be interpreted, the interpretation of the orthodox individual rules. This is why when looking at the history of Quakerism the Hicksite tradition remained somewhat stable, while the orthodoxy split into hundreds of facets.

I am not ragging on Conservative Friends. I only say, that for us to be a single community of faith, we must bend to each other. Let orthodox Friends be hard lined on their rules with each other and with themselves. However, for us to work together, there should be enough understanding that they not demand that Hicksite Friends act as if they were converted to an orthodoxy.

How does this work. I have had projects that cost me time, money and effort, vetoed by members using unity as a club. I have NEVER stood in the way of another member's light. However, even the gentlest suggestions to the meeting, that some decision was rash or not in our traditions, without objecting to a proposal and breaking unity, has often led to my censure by conservatives in the meeting. I use the small "C" on propose as some are conservatives who are not Orthodox in the traditional sense.

Instead of a split, as happened over the Hannah Bernard incident, at the dawn of the great schism, I see Friends leaving our meeting again and again burned out and angry. I sometimes have to center myself painfully in my faith in order not to follow them.

What is a Hicksite?

What is a Hicksite?

There is some confusion these days between Liberal, New Age and Hicksite as expressed by a Friend who said on his Blog that Hicks would not have accepted me as a Hicksite. Maybe so, I don't know... he's a wee bit dead these days.


But, for me the difference is as follows. Many definitions of hyphenated Friends means that one believes as another believed, so thee believes in the place of scripture as did Gurney. Hicks is a wee tad different. Hicks believed in rationality. So when there was an obvious or rational contradiction in the bible, Hicks accepted that one had to follow one's light. So, for Hicks, he felt it unlikely that God commanded the Israelites to kill every Cannonite man woman and child. He also accepted the rational belief of another Friend on the virginity of Mary (or doubt there of), though he felt the opposite way from her. In short, he did not deny the real world for the sake of faith.


Now this is different from Universalism, in that as Peter Fingesten said to me as a child, "My Dear Young Friend... many roads lead to God... that I am afraid is NOT one of them!" or New Ageism, which takes from a menu of myth and ancient mystical practice (often time calling that science) and grafts that into life in 21st Century Quakerism, and Hicks' approach ... open mind, well studied, and believe truth over myth. So, just because Hicks did not believe ... say ... in Quantum Mechanics ... to do so does not separate one from that tradition in which I grew.


The bottom line, for me, is that Hicks' tradition seeks to resolve faith and science. The idea being that science seeks to understand and observe the handiwork of God. There is a trend today, often put forward by New Agers and Fundamentalists, to believe that Science is a conspiracy to lead people away from God. This could not be farther from the truth for me. I believe that when one puts faith over fact one has elevated the work of man, art, over the work to God, as expressed in the natural world.


Now it is true that we all worship in some form of abstraction. All words are abstractions. But, when one worships the abstraction, that is idolatry to a Hicksite. I have met a neo pagan who says that when he dances around naked in an ash grove etc. he does not believe the abstraction, but worships the one God describe by the abstraction. I think that is less a pagan than one who ignores science as an act of hubris to worship the abstractions of that person's faith.


Personally I don't have focused enough a mind to worship the totality of God while dancing around naked in an ash grove (and who'd want to see me do that anyway, that old time religion is best practiced by the younger and better looking...) For me, sitting in silence and waiting on the lord, with the occasional message from a Friend brings my attention to the one God beyond the abstraction, and for I think Hicks and I would agree ... if he lived another hundred and some years.

Thyne in the light
lor