Words, words, words

Imagine God singing this from My Fair Lady:

Words, words, words,
I’m so sick of words
I get words all day through
First from him, now from you --
Is that all you blighters can do?
Don't talk of stars burning above,
If you're in love, show me!

Near the rise of meeting recently, a Friend spoke about the difficulty of finding any words to express ineffable spiritual truths, and his discovery of some words which come closer, for him, than any others.  Then he recited a sonnet in Italian.  Thanks to Spanish cognates, I understood “paradise” and “spring” and perhaps “love” but nothing more.  It was enough.  The Friend’s passionate sincerity was vibrant in every tone of his voice, and afterward we remained in a deep gathered silence.

That same evening, a dear young friend told me of her hurt when someone posted on Facebook, out of context, something she had said in a private conversation.  Several people she doesn’t know at all posted nasty, hostile responses.  We’ve all seen things like that online from time to time; people read the words without personal interaction, they react in words, and quarrels flare easily.

Chapter 3 of the letter of James begins with a diatribe against the tongue, “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”  But that was written when oral communication was all most people had; books were expensive, handwritten rarities, and of course there was no Facebook.  Nowadays, we have many more media of communication, and all are subject to misuse.  A modern version of James should probably speak of the evils of “words” or  perhaps “language” (which derives from the Latin lingua, tongue.) 

Among the pitfalls of words, the anecdotes with which I started highlight two:  the impossibility of fully expressing many deep experiences — spiritual, aesthetic, emotional — and the way words (particularly gossip and slander) can be used to harm other people.  There is another pitfall, however, which is important in our spiritual lives.  We tend to fix on specific words or phrases, without context, and invest them with meaning and value far beyond what they actually say.  Sometimes, those words are lifted out of the Bible, such as the antisemitic use of “let his blood be upon us” (Matthew 27:25).  Sometimes, they are creedal formulas such as “personal Lord and Savior.”  One of my pet peeves is the modern liberal Quaker use of “that of God in every one” as if it summed up all Quaker belief (which it does not), without knowing its quite different meaning in the original context (available in full at www.tractassociation.org/tracts/friends-ministry/).

Religious liberals sometimes critique “bibliolatry” — making an idol out of the Bible.  No one worships the physical book, which is made of paper and ink and glue, but the words written there, or rather our human interpretation of those words, can indeed become an idol, something which we honor as if it were God.  But liberals are not immune to logolatry (veneration of words).  We need to be wary of our limited human interpretations of spiritual realities far beyond words. 

Because I am a “word person” who loves words and uses them with professional skill, I must keep reminding myself how inadequate they are, and how dangerous.  There is a wonderful story about Thomas Aquinas, that near the end of his life he had a spiritual experience (not described) during Mass, and after that he stopped writing.  When someone asked why, he said, "After what I have experienced, all my words are straw."

good and faithful servant?

“Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48 KJV)

That’s a tall order!  It seems like saying I must be a world-class marathon runner, nothing less.  If you don’t think you can make 26 miles in two hours, don’t bother to try at all — an excuse for not going on that walk, even though I know the exercise would do me good.

Is that what perfect means?  Quakers don’t seem to talk much nowadays about the idea of human perfection which was preached by the early Friends.  Have we given up?  Friends were fiercely criticized for the idea in those days, more because they seemed to be claiming equality with God rather than because they were urging people to do the impossible.

I think, though, that the idea is more like saying I should go for that walk, even just around the block if that’s all I can manage, even though I know I’ll never run a marathon.

In his famous 1678 Apology, Robert Barclay uses the parable of the talents to discuss perfection (Matthew 25:14-30).  That’s never been one of my favorites, but I’ve been taking a new look at it.  Barclay points out that the servant who increased two talents to four was praised as much as the one who increased five to ten.  He doesn’t mention, though, that the boss gave increased responsibilities to both of them.  Perhaps after walking around the block once a day for a few weeks, I might be ready to try walking around two blocks?

Friends sometimes use the example of a growing child.  What is a perfect three-year-old?  Would she be able to count up to ten? to a hundred, if she’s really smart?  Would we expect her to do calculus?  The goals for each child should be adapted to the individual child’s age and abilities.  Perhaps I’m a perfect athlete if I walk as far as I’m reasonably able, one block or two; the 26-mile run is out of the picture.

That kind of example used to satisfy me, but as I approach seventy, these questions are taking on a sharper edge.  I am aware that my mind and body are no longer capable of some things I used to do easily.  Unlike the servants in the parable, I’m looking at decreased responsibilities and expectations.  It’s still an individual matter.  Arthritis keeps me from walking more than absolutely necessary, even though I know older people who walk several miles a day.  On the other hand, I can still read Latin (with dictionary and grammar book at hand).  I’m not as good at it as I was in high school, but it’s still useful in my translation work (right now we’re working on that Apology, which Barclay originally wrote in Latin).

I need to keep reminding myself to measure my goals and standards against what I’m capable of now, not what others do, not what I used to do,.  I have to let go of many pleasures and challenges, and there’s grief work to do about that.  I’m trying to learn to be a perfect old lady. 

And sometimes I hear the Friend of Friends cheering me on, “Well done, good and faithful and perfect servant! — keep reaching for the stars!”

“overcome with love”

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

                                          Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

These beautiful lines came to mind a few days ago, while working on a translation of William Robinson’s Letter to the Lord’s People,^* written in August 1659, four days before he was hanged in Boston for returning to the city after banishment.

Our brother William writes in a reiterative, ecstatic style quite similar to Whitman’s, easy to divide into lines of free verse:

I am overcome with love,

for it is my life and the length of my days,

it’s my glory and my daily strength,

I am swallowed up with love,

in love I live, and in it I dwell with the Holy Seed.

You children of the living God,

feel me when you are waiting in it,

when it runs from the fountain into your vessel,

when it issues gently like new wine into your bosoms,

then feel me present in the fountain of love.

With the life of it I am filled,

and with it I shall depart,

with everlasting joy in my heart,

with praises in my mouth.

What is this ecstasy, this overwhelming flow of love in the face of imminent unjust death?  And how does he expect his fellow Quakers to “feel” him?  It makes no sense at all.  Yet clearly it is sincere, heart-felt.  Marmaduke Stephenson and Mary Dyer, condemned to die at the same time, left behind similar expressions of joy.  On the way to the gallows, hand in hand between the two men, Mary said she had been in Paradise for several days.  When she was reprieved after seeing the others die, she didn’t want to descend from the gallows, but they threw her out of town anyway; she returned a few months later and was hanged. 

It certainly isn’t a death-wish.  It’s a life-wish, overflowing love and confidence in God, absolute certainty that they are obeying their loving Guide.  It rings through their words, through the whole story.  The four who were hanged were not the only Quakers who suffered in Boston.  Three had their right ears cut off, one was branded with the letter H, thirty-one were flogged with 650 stripes.  This joyful confident obedience is beyond me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. (Psalm 139:6 KJV)

“Feel me present in the fountain of love.” This is perhaps a little more accessible to me, because I do feel the presence of loved ones who are no longer living, and others whom I may never see again.  These people shaped me, not by deliberate intention but by simply being who they were.  I feel them present, they are filter and fiber of my blood.  That human love, so strong, flows with Divine Love, uniting us across years and miles, beyond mortal limitations. 

Divine Thou, help me to grow more and more conscious of that love; help me feel thy fountain bubbling up like new wine; help me feel thee present in dear ones by my side and far away.  Help me to feel you under my boot-soles.  Teach me the joy of obedience, the certainty of your loving presence.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses … let us run with patience the race that is set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 KJV)

* Early Quaker Writings, 1650-1700, eds. Hugh Barbour & Arthur O. Roberts (Grand Rapids MI, Eerdmans, 1973), p. 133.

Is not uniformity lovely?

Recently I took an online course on Isaac Penington’s 1660 essay on religious toleration.  Towards the end of the essay he posits an objection from an imaginary critic:

But is not uniformity lovely; and doth not the apostle exhort Christians to be of one mind?

Penington answers:

Yea, uniformity is very lovely; and to be desired and waited for, as the Spirit of the Lord, which is one, leads and draws into one.  But for the fleshly part to strive to bring about fleshly uniformity, this is not lovely, nor spiritual, nor Christian.

The online teacher asked,  “In response to this objection, Penington suggests that the unity we are looking for is an internal unity, of all of us listening to the Spirit, the ‘pure’, the inner teacher, not in outward practices.  Have you had an experience of feeling that internal unity despite outward disagreements?”

Here is my first response:

I had that experience this Sunday morning.  Before regular worship, we had worship-sharing on one of the new NEYM Queries: “How does your faith relate to the Christian heritage of the Religious Society of Friends?”  We began with some very centered worship.  When Friends spoke, responses ranged from one person whose basic answer was "Not at all" through a wide spectrum, to perhaps the opposite end, one who spoke of Christ as "My Lord."  Throughout there was a sense of deep listening, trustful honest speaking, and a total lack of contention.  After everyone who wished had spoken, we sat together in silence a while more; it was so deep we were all reluctant to move on to the next thing.  Waiting outside the bathroom in the interval, an elder Friend who was leaving muttered to me, “I think I've had a spiritual overload.”  I have sometimes felt that way after gathered worship.  The regular meeting for worship was also very centered; there was not much vocal ministry and there was a clear sense of being gathered — not by our very different ways of thinking and speaking, but by That Beyond all Words which gathers us in love.

Later on, I posted another response:

“Is not uniformity lovely? ...”  “Yea, uniformity is very lovely.”

Hell no, Isaac!  You know damn well it isn't lovely.  Unity is lovely. Uniformity is always fleshly.  You sad it yourself a few paragraphs ago:  “how sweet and pleasant it is to the truly spiritual eye, to see several sorts of believers ... every one learning their own lesson, performing their own peculiar service, and knowing, owning and loving one another in their several places and different performances to their Master.”

Humanity plants flowers in rows, all the same kind, color, stage of maturity, etc.  God's gardens are messy, full of incredible variety, with weeds and decay mixed in among astonishingly beautiful flowers.  God created (still creates) incredible diversity, both now and in the millions of years before us.  God's ways are not our ways, and even in the snowflakes there is no uniformity.  Our desire to sit comfortably with people who look like us and think like us and act like us is natural, it's part of our human limitations, but it's not lovely.  What is lovely is the diversity God creates, in all its intermixing, chaotic multiplicity.  Uniformity is spiritually stultifying.  When we run into ideas or customs very different from our own, we should sing praises and thanksgivings to God, then humbly try to open our minds a little broader to something new.

P.S.

The course was offered by Quaker Studies, a program of Beacon Hill Friends House and Salem Quarterly Meeting of New England Yearly Meeting.

www.bhfh.org/qsp

The Penington essay on toleration is the last part of a long pamphlet which he wrote in response to the Boston law which banished Quakers on pain of death.

www.qhpress.org/texts/penington/boston.html#page377