Ministry in a first-person culture
Years ago—decades ago—when people rose to give vocal ministry in a Quaker meeting for worship, it was common for the speaker to quote a passage from the Bible, or from the essays of Emerson, or from Leaves of Grass, and follow it with some reflections that brought out the meaning of the quoted text and its relevance to some situation at hand. That type of vocal ministry has become less common these days. A more common message these days is a first-person account of something the speaker has recently experienced or has been thinking about. Speaking in the first person was at one time less customary than it has become now.
The change in the style of vocal ministry in Quaker meetings seems to be a reflection of a change in American society in general. People seem to speak much more about themselves these days than used to be the case. They want to tell their story—not just any old story that could have happened to anyone. People are very much at the center of their own universes these days; everything revolves around them. One sometimes gets the impression that not much else really matters except that person who is at the center of his or her universe, making comments on all the things rotating around the center. These are egocentric times.
Quakers are encouraged to speak what the spirit urges them to say, and it is not uncommon for the spirit to relate things to the speaker’s own experiences. Quakers are encouraged to speak from their own experience and understanding rather than merely offering reports of what others have said and thought. The locus of authority is one’s own inward light, the particular refraction of light that has worked its way through the prism of one’s own life history. So there is nothing at all blameworthy in first-person narrative in vocal ministry in a meeting for worship. For something to be a truly spirit-led ministry, as opposed to a simple report of something interesting that happened on the way to the meetinghouse or an account of something amusing that the cat did yesterday, it should have some sort of universal dimension. It may be about oneself, but it should also be about others as well. It should be something that, in Quaker idiom, speaks to their condition as well as to one’s own.
Needless to say, not every message can or should speak to everyone’s condition. There is reportedly a belief among some Muslims that there are so many religions in the world because there are so many kinds of people with so many different needs and perspectives that God must constantly provide new ways of reaching all of them in their diversity. Even God cannot find messages that speak to the condition of everyone. How much less can a Quaker minister impart such a message. That said, even if a message cannot be expected to speak to everyone, it can be expected to speak to others in the room than the speaker.
When someone else rises to speak in a meeting for worship, one sometimes has the initial feeling that what is being said is irrelevant to one’s own conditioning. Rarely is it the case, however, that a spoken word, however falteringly delivered or apparently pointless, cannot become the basis for fruitful reflection by nearly everyone who hears it. In the final analysis, the old saying is perhaps true that the spirit makes no mistakes.
These are first-person times in America. These are times of self-centeredness and self-absorption. That is just how things have become for now. But why?
Mysteries
There is nothing more terrifying than one’s own mind.
There is no greater source of comfort than God.
What is God but one’s own mind?
The first of the above claims is a paraphrase of a Buddhist dictum. The second is a fair representation of a belief found in numerous theistic religions. The third is not a claim but a question. Perhaps it is a rhetorical question, in which case it could be worded as the claim "God is nothing but one’s own mind." This third claim could be made not as a metaphysical statement but more as an epistemological observation: "The only thing one can know of God is that part of God that can squeeze into the confines of one’s own mind. All the rest is perforce beyond one’s ken." Treat the question in whatever way suits your temperament.
The point of quoting the two claims and the question is to state what is increasingly obvious to me: one’s own mind is both the source of one’s greatest fear and one’s greatest comfort. The mind is both that to which one can go for refuge and that from which one feels a need to be a refugee. My own mind conjures up everything that terrifies me, and then it releases me from that terror by conjuring up something to protect me from the terrifying images it has created. The cycle continues unpredictably, sometimes amusingly and sometimes annoyingly. (Amusement and irritation, of course, are also created by the very mind taht creates the things that are found amusing and irritating.)
Folly takes many forms. One form it takes is the belief that the mind is somehow under one’s control—that one can volunteer oneself out of fear by thinking more clearly, or by meditating or by praying. As one who does a fair amount of thinking (clearly, I hope, at least on good days) and meditating and even a little bit of praying, I have observed that nothing is predictable. Sometimes meditation "works" and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes prayer provides relief, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes thinking is lucid, and often it is not. No practice can be known in advance to be effective. When things go well (that is, when terror goes dormant for a while, or when peace and tranquility arise or when love floods the heart), then one believes that whatever one was doing before things went well must be the cause of things going well. Or, if one honors the common religious taboo against taking credit for things going well, one may regard going well as an instance of divine grace—a gift, a charism. If one is otherwise conditioned or indoctrinated, one calls it all a matter of blind luck.
Whatever one calls it, all but the most foolish agree that there is not much of a correlation between what one sets out to achieve and what actually comes one’s way.
At the moment, I am very much at peace with the fact (if it really is a fact) that I have very little control over how I perceive things at any given moment. Peace of mind is a creation of the mind no less than terror, envy, hope and solace are creations of the mind. They come. They go. I just watch.
Reading as prayer
The Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200) recommended in an essay on reading that a young person should read widely to gain a broad education, but an older person should select a few works to read again and again. He recommended reading slowly and carefully, word by word, reflecting on each phrase. This practice of slow and careful reading is akin to what medieval Christians called lectio divina.
The Christian contemplative classic called The Cloud of Unknowing recommends inspirational reading. Anyone seeking an intimate familiarity with higher things (by whatever name one wishes to call them) does well to recall that few of us have within ourselves all the resources necessary to succeed fully in our pursuits. We benefit by being exposed to the wisdom of others. But blindly following others as authorities is no less a folly than ignoring the good that others have to offer. To make the wisdom of others fully our own, we must ingest it very slowly. Having taken a small helping, it is best to digest it well before taking more.
The kind of reading one does as part of one’s prayer and meditation practice is almost exactly the opposite of how one reads as a student. Students are usually assigned absurdly large numbers of pages to read. They are forced to skim rapidly, with the result that not much sinks in. Modern education breeds superficiality. It takes most students the better part of a lifetime to break all the poor reading habits they are forced to acquire on their way to getting a degree. It takes some effort to become properly uneducated so that, after getting a diploma, one can finally become properly educated.
The works I find myself reading again and again in my older years are The Cloud of Unknowing itself, the inner chapters of Zhuangzi, the essays of Xunzi and Mengzi, the Suttanipāta, the Bodhicaryāvatāra and a selection of essays by William James, especially “The will to believe.” Recently I have come across some early Quaker writings that, if breath keeps pouring into my lungs, I am inclined to read over many times in the future.
The particular list of what is read is of interest mostly to myself. How it is read should be of much wider interest. Read slowly. Read with an open heart. Let the words work their way into the core of your being, and let them do there whatever they will do. The results are bound to be as surprising as they are wholesome.
Universal love
Various traditions around the world have advocated cultivating universal love. Buddhist texts such as the Mettā Sutta say that nothing is more noble in this world than loving all beings as a mother loves her only son. The Chinese philosopher Mozi says that one should love every older person as one loves one’s own father, and every younger person as one loves one’s younger brother, and every country as one loves one’s own. Various theistic religions say that one should try to love as God loves: without favorites and without conditions and without expectations of reciprocity.
On more than one occasion when I have advocated some version of universal and unconditional love, I have been challenged. Some say it is not desirable for a human being to have such love. Others say it is impossible for a human being to love everyone unconditionally and equally. In what follows I shall explore whether universal live is desirable; and, if it is desirable, whether it is possible; and finally, even if it is not possible, whether there is a point in striving anyway for unreachable goals.
Is universal love desirable?
The argument that universal unconditional love is not desirable goes something like this. Love entails forgiveness; unconditional love entails accepting people and other living beings just as they are, with no expectation that they be otherwise. But some actions are so heinous that they should never be forgiven, nor should the people who have committed them. To accept a serial rapist or a sadistic torturer or a genocidal tyrant would be monstrous and contrary to everything we normally mean by love.
The objection just stated seems to rest on a confusion between forgiving persons and forgiving actions. One can easily forgive a person without forgiving or condoning every action the person has done. Parents do this sort of thing all the time when they lovingly remonstrate with their child. Quakers have a tradition of what they call spirit-led eldering, which amounts to lovingly helping a person get over an obstacle to realizing his potential of being the best person he is capable of being. It is based on the recognition that no one ever completely outgrows the need for benevolent parenting. In Buddhism, the obligations of a mentor and a disciple are exactly the same; each undertakes to help the other follow the Buddhist precepts, and each remonstrates with the other when behavior falls short of the ideal. To accept rape, torture or genocide would be monstrous. But to fail to provide loving help to someone whose circumstances have led him to such conduct is no less monstrous.
Another objection to the very idea of universal love is that loving every living being would diminish one’s love for parents, siblings and offspring. This objection is apparently based on the assumption that everyone has only so much love to give, and if one gives it out to everyone, then no one will receive as much as if she were the sole object of the lover’s love. As everyone who has ever loved knows, however, that assumption is false. Love has the mysterious feature that the more of it one gives, the more one has to give. The experience of those who cultivate universal love is that their love for friends and family actually increases rather than diminishing.
Is it possible to love everyone?
Some people argue that it is impossible to give unconditional love to everyone and that it is certainly impossible to love everyone as a mother loves her only child. Some make this claim because they have tried and failed. Others offer a priori arguments. One such argument is that only God can love everyone and that human beings who try to do what only God can do are falling victim to the sin of pride, or, at best, are sure to be disappointed as a result of failing to do what they set out to do. Yet another argument is that it is impossible to love what one does not know, and since it is impossible to know every living being, it is impossible to love them.
Of those arguments, the a priori claims are of course the least compelling. Not much is gained by making untestable claims about the nature of God. It is true that setting out to do something that turns out to be impossible can lead to a kind of disappointment, and, if one lets oneself indulge in self-deprecation. one might even suffer a blow to one’s self-esteem. The claim that there are more beings than one can possibly know is, of course, beyond question. It is not, however, required to know someone to have love for them. Having love of the sort advocated here is a readiness to be open and receptive to whomever one does happen to encounter.
The most persuasive of the arguments is the one based on experience. As someone who fails daily to cultivate unconditional love for all living beings, I am ready to concede that loving everyone equally and without preconditions is beyond my capacity. In effect, it is impossible for me to do.
Is there any point in striving for unattainable goals?
In mathematics there is the useful concept of an asymptote—a limit that can never be reached but toward which some function tends. I see the Buddhist concept of nirvana as something analogous to an asymptote. Nirvana is defined as the complete eradication of all negative and counterproductive psychological traits. I doubt that anyone has ever attained such a state. At the same time, I see it as the right direction to be heading. I had rather be reducing the number of counterproductive traits rather than to be increasing them or being content to stay forever at the stage of progress I have made so far. Similarly, universal love is an asymptotic goal. I had rather be increasing the number of beings I love and improving the quality of the love I can offer them than to be reducing the number of beings I love or loving them with an ever more inferior kind of love. In short, the theoretical or practical impossibility of reaching a goal does not make the goal any less worthy of pursuit.
Swallowed up
Looking down at sin, and corruption, and distraction, you are all swallowed up in it; but looking at the light that discovers them, you will see over them. That will give victory, and you will find grace and strength; and there is the first step of peace.
If George Fox had never written anything else, the words in a letter to Lady Claypole (Elizabeth Cromwell, the second daughter of Oliver Cromwell) would be evidence of Fox’s profound insight into human nature. Condemning those who fail in various ways is a sure route to being captured by failure. When the mind focuses on sin, it can never break free of sin; it lives in a world of awareness of sin, and this world is cramped and stifling and ultimately unsustainable. Literature is filled with stories of preachers and ministers who specialize in pointing out the sins of others and who eventually fall into the very sins against which they preach most passionately. One need not turn to fictional literature for such stories; they can also be found regularly in the daily news.
Fox’s words to Elizabeth Cromwell are more than a warning not to become too obsessed with the failings of others lest those failings become one’s own. It also has the positive advice to look at that which makes shortcomings known. Fox calls it the light that discovers—in modern English we would say “reveals”—these sins, corruptions and distractions. That inward light, which corresponds in part to what we might call conscience, shines equally on all sins, corruptions and distractions, including one’s own. When the light is shone on one’s own failures, it also reveals the way to stop failing. Nothing more is required than to stop doing whatever it is that is blocking success, and whatever that may be, it is obvious to anyone who recognizes that he or she if failing.
Probably all of us have become habituated at least to some degree to making excuses for our own failures. We know what we should do, but somehow we think we cannot help doing it. In talking about inability to act, the Chinese philosopher Mengzi said there are two situations in which a person says “I cannot.” As an example of one situation, Menzi gave picking up a mountain, tucking it under one’s arm and jumping across the ocean. This task is physically impossible, so it is legitimate to say that one cannot do it. As an example of another situation, Mengzi gave the example of helping an elderly person find firewood. Helping out in such a situation is something anyone can do, so when one says “I cannot help,” what one is really saying is “I do not choose to help. I do not wish to help.” One of our greatest tragedies as human beings, says Mengzi, is that we fail to distinguish between these two ways of saying “I cannot.” We deny our own unwillingness to be humane, benevolent, kind and helpful when being that way would be slightly inconvenient or would distract us from the immediate pursuit of some transitory and essentially meaningless pleasure or bit of fun. We fail to be ashamed of our own selfishness.
The light that discovers our own unwillingness to act on love also reveals everything that it is necessary to do to quit failing to act on love. All that is needed is to act on love. And all that is needed to do that is to stop thinking only of oneself. It is that simple.
An effective way to avoid being aware of one’s own selfishness is to focus on the selfishness of others, to see their failures and shortcomings. But being blind to one’s own failings is the only benefit that comes from focusing one’s vision on the sins of others. And that benefit is so piddling and empty that it should be easy to forgo it in favor of the enormous benefit of seeing one’s own failures, seeing the way out of them and then taking the way out.
For better or for worse, I see what I must do to be fully at peace. Can I do it? Yes. Will I do it? Suffice it to say, there is no good reason not to.
A longer excerpt from Fox’s letter to Lady Claypole is found in an online version of his Journal.
Out of a living silence 