‘For grace is a spiritual, inward things, a holy seed… that springs up in the heart.'
A piece of Works: Ruth Tod introduces Isaac Penington
‘His letters reveal a gentle empathy with everyday problems, and advice full of wisdom and kindness.’
In February, our Meeting invited people in our town to see the snowdrops in what used to be the burial ground. The space is now an orchard, with the old gravestones propped up against the walls. As visitors walked through the archway they stopped still, spellbound. ‘This is a sanctuary,’ said some of them, ‘a haven… so peaceful.’ A few confessed that they pop into the garden when they pass by. One couple comes regularly to meditate and practice Tai Chi.
Though our visitors would express what they felt in different ways, I think on a deep level there was something we all shared. I wonder whether some of them would say this was a religious or spiritual experience, and whether they are searching for something like that personally. Later, some of them asked questions: ‘What do you believe? Can anyone come to a Sunday Meeting? What happens there?’ We are a mystery to many people. Our visitors wanted to know who we are, and we needed to be able to tell them. Being Quakers, we recognise that we enrich one another by bringing our own experiences and views to the whole. We encourage one another to keep listening and learning, accepting differences and finding the threads that weave us together. Our fluidity is part of who we are. Yet it is not all that we are.
The Quaker way has survived as a movement because we maintain a core of belief and practice from which all else flows. This story began in seventeenth century, when England was in a state of flux, with a civil war that ended with the execution of the king. People were searching for meaning, stability and hope, just as many of us are today. What they found in the stillness of Quaker Meetings gave them new insights that transformed their lives. Fortunately for us, many of the early Quakers wrote about their experiences, including how they interpreted them, so it is possible to engage with them and see their core message. It’s as relevant to us as it was to them.
Of all of these accounts, it is Isaac Penington who speaks to me most. In his letters and pamphlets, he writes about his beliefs and how they shape his life. His prose is almost poetry in the way it touches my heart. The twelve extracts in the current edition of Quaker faith & practice are there because they reveal a faith that is timeless.
During lockdown, I reread the books I had on Penington, and then went online to read his ‘Works’, which are available free (see for example www.qhpress.org/texts/penington). As he writes, he takes us to the core of our being, adapting his language to different audiences. He mixes traditional words with fresh words, tenderly encouraging and guiding us. The more I read, the more I felt led to share his messages. There was, however, no short, accessible introduction available in book form, so I decided to write one myself, quoting passages from his work and reflecting on their meaning for today, to help us renew those threads which connect us.
In seventeenth-century England, most people were Christian, so their worldview was set around the Bible and the traditions of the church. To them, Penington spoke about God as Lord and Father – not the judgemental God of the Puritans but a loving, guiding God that we can all experience. Not so much as a noun, as a verb. ‘God’, says Penington, ‘is the fountain of beings and natures, the inward substance of all that appears’. In the stillness we can feel this power as grace, ‘For grace is a spiritual, inward things, a holy seed… that springs up in the heart’.
These words leap out at me. Here was the freedom to listen to oneself in the depths of one’s soul and connect with the web of life.
This experience can take us to our still centre and beyond ourselves, so that we feel held in a creative, loving energy. Penington says, ‘God is love. He gives love and teaches love.’ His letters reveal a gentle empathy with everyday problems, and advice full of wisdom and kindness. To the widow who cannot sleep because she is worrying, he says, be still a while, open your heart and let love transform your fears. To the man who has a quarrel with a fellow Friend, he asks him whether he has stood in his shoes and seen the situation from the other point of view. Always, Penington is asking us to listen, learn and follow our hearts. The more we engage with this practice of waiting and listening, the more we are able to see ourselves and the world from a wiser, more compassionate perspective.
Penington himself went to prison six times for breaking the rules of the day – once for refusing to take his hat off to the earl of Bridgewater, and another time for walking in a Quaker funeral procession. Quakers were some of the earliest nonviolent activists in their refusal to conform to the expectations of social norms. They believed that a kinder, more equal society was possible now, in the present time, when everyone would embrace the spirit of Christ, the divine mystery. In the political and social turmoil, they had a strong sense of hope in the potential of human beings to be healed and transformed by this inward power.
Penington taught new Quakers how to discover this presence for themselves, because he recognised that not everyone would find it without help. His letters are full of reminders: to sink low, to feel the seed within, to wait for the seeds of grace to spring up in your hearts so that ‘thy heart becomes a garden enclosed, watered, dressed and walked in by God’. His constant refrain is that we wait to feel that still voice within. Let your breath be your prayer. Send your breath out into the mystery of all life, and feel it as a thread connecting to you all that is. Breathe in the goodness and kindness of universal healing love. Wait to see what love teaches you.
This is the core of my own Quaker belief, and the thread that weaves us together. It has the potential to attract new people because it speaks to the spirit of our age. It is the message that I most want to share with our visitors to the garden, as they too seek a haven where they receive support, nourishment, hope and courage to create a kinder world. Through his writings Penington is reminding us of this gift that is the Quaker way. I hope he will always inspire us.
Ruth’s Exploring Isaac Penington: Seventeenth-century Quaker mystic, teacher and activist will be published in May.
Comments
Having been avidly focussed on Penington’s letters and works for several years as well, I would welcome details of Ruth’s book which I look forward to reading with shared fascination! Her summary in this article is ‘spot-on’. Thanks, Ruth.
By pdahl173@icloud.com on 7th April 2023 - 7:41
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