‘It is a fluid, dancing God, responsive to the complexity surrounding me.’ Photo: by Dynamic Wang on Unsplash
Article of faith: Abigail Maxwell is in the flow
‘This may be what Quakers call my inner light, which I will not hide under a bushel.’
I am an atheist materialist. I do not believe in God the father almighty, the creator, the ‘uncaused cause,’ or the ‘God in everything’ of panentheism. I believe all my words and acts are the products of my neurons, not Spirit separate from matter. And I am a Quaker. Quaker practices of sitting together in worship, including in Meeting for Worship for Business, can help me see reality more clearly and act more constructively. They heal my inner conflicts, oppose my comfortable illusions, and make me a saner, happier human. They help me see and relate to others. Our spiritual experiences have value, though some would call them mental states.
I came to Quakers as a Christian, and experienced the inner light, that of God in me and others, in spoken ministry. One of the barriers to seeing it was my judgment of it: a thought that ‘God would not say that’. Then I wondered, ‘What else is there in me?’ For example, there is the inner critic and harsh taskmaster, which fears my feelings, tries to suppress them, and opposes me saying what I feel, rather than what I ought to say. This may be an introject from childhood.
Increasingly, I speak from the heart, or my whole, integrated self. People tell me this is powerful. My inner critic cries in rage and terror – ‘You can’t say that’ – but I pay it less heed. My inner conflicts reduce. This may be what Quakers call my inner light, which I will not hide under a bushel. It is a fluid, dancing God, responsive to the infinite complexity surrounding me. And it surprises my ingrained Christian sensibilities: it is a sexual being, and more playful than I had thought God would be.
My light is worthy of the word God. Jesus said that God would be in us as God is in Christ. This is not a God for one hour on a Sunday but for all of life, even though I still often speak from something lesser, more habitual. This God is Flow: loving, creative, graceful and beautiful. But it is not omniscient and omnipotent by itself, as I was taught God is.
A woman who had a profound effect on me once told me that in particular situations ‘I feel free to love’. Our friendship ended, and I thought that line false and manipulative. Then I wondered, what if she were telling the truth? This person sees the world profoundly differently from me. Similarly, lines in the Gospel of Thomas or the Tao Te Ching, which at first seemed confused gibberish, have unveiled their meaning as I lived with them.
Not everything everyone says comes from God, but anything may. God unveiled in me might be open to God in others, not just at set times in the Meeting house but in the streets and workplaces. We might see and hear God anywhere we go. Then, as George Fox said, we might ‘make the witness of God’ in others to bless us.
The blessing of diversity is to escape groupthink. They who have ears to hear shall hear.
