‘There is still an interest in mysticism.’ Photo: by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
Future tense? Reg Naulty finds two friendly guides
‘The continuance of religion is not exclusively our concern.’
Many Friends are uncomfortably aware that, in ten or fifteen years, most members of their Meeting will have gone – and there are not many young (or even middle-aged) people to replace them. Some are given to wonder what will become of the public observance of religion.
There is someone who may be a straw in this wind: Eckhart Tolle. In his seventies, Tolle has been in the public arena for a long time. What brought him there was a mystical experience that lasted a couple of years, which is itself remarkable (they are usually fairly brief, twenty minutes or less). After the experience, he began to write about it, locating it solidly in Zen Buddhism – though there are frequent references to the Gospels.
The success of Tolle’s written works has been astonishing. His first book, The Power Of Now, was a bestseller translated into thirty languages. One webinar he made has been watched thirty-five million times.
So there is still an interest in mysticism – and Friends have a mystical tradition. Perhaps we should make it more public. On this point, the US Friend Thomas R Kelly (1893-1941) is an excellent guide. Like Tolle, Kelly’s initial experience came after a disappointing period in his life. In 1937 he was swept by an experience of ‘presence’, where, in his own words, he tells us that he was literally ‘melted down by God’. The meltdown passed, but the experience was continually renewed. Whereas Tolle’s engine of renewal was controlled awareness, in Kelly it was a deep level of prayer. He gives careful instructions on how to go about this: ‘Mental habits of inward orientation must be established. An inner secret turning to God can be made fairly steady.’
If we can keep up the life of simple prayer so that it becomes habitual, we are, in George Fox’s terminology, ‘established’. ‘In the Now we are at home at last’, says Kelly. ‘We live within time, within the one dimensional ribbon. But every time-now is found to be a continuance of an Eternal Now.’ When we look ‘through the shimmering light of divine Presence’, we see a world made by God to which we wish to contribute. Kelly remarks, sagely, that the world’s work is to be done, but it doesn’t have to be finished by us. The continuance of religion is not exclusively our concern, it is also God’s.
Kelly believes that in the gathered meeting the real presence of God is in our midst. What if it is not a gathered meeting? Is it a failure? Not necessarily. We may still be nourished by it. The group must learn to endure spiritual weather without dismay. Kelly assures us that we can live from this divine centre with a new and radiant vision.
