'In "God, words and us", Beth Allen makes a plea for Friends to find a theology which offers both healing and hope.' Photo: skodonnell via iStock.
God, words and us: The river of the Spirit
Alison Leonard offers a personal response to God, words and us
Well, how can I best express my thanks and congratulations to the thirty or so Friends who did the thinking, praying, meeting, listening and writing that gives the material for this book? And to the team who produced it, editing and arranging, providing footnotes where necessary and resources at the end, creating the final attractive short paperback?
A first comment about God, words and us is that only Quakers could have spent such a huge amount of time and energy on this task of listening, in depth, to their own inner longings for meaning and, at the same time, an equal amount of time and energy listening to the oh-so-different longings and meanings of others. Even more remarkably, they have managed to step aside from the ‘belief systems versus secular reductionism’ that swirls around in our culture, while still being intellectually informed by it.
The second thing to say is that the book shows ‘theism’ and ‘nontheism’ to be wholly inadequate terms. The much-feared conflict between them, when it is as closely examined as it is by these Friends, is pretty much hot air. It’s clear from these pages that the best thing to do now is to throw both terms into the waste bin on collection day – not, please, into the recycling – and instead, find words for your own experience and pay attention to others articulating theirs. And when there are no words, the silence will do fine. We are Quakers, are we not? And Friends.
Spiritual influences
God, words and us makes plain the huge variety of spiritual influences that are supporting and enlightening Friends in these turbulent times. From Psalm 84 to Hinduism, from Buddhist meditation to parish Anglicanism, from the Sea of Faith Network to Tarot cards, these Friends acknowledge their debt to numerous wisdoms and experiments. They seem to me to be representative of British Friends at large. You have only to read Patterns and Examples: Experiencing the Spirit of other Faiths, published by the Hampstead Interfaith Group in 2005, to see how widely we are still exploring.
I wrote in my chapter for that book about those of us, particularly women, who are refugees from centuries of deeply damaging forms of patriarchal monotheism. (Indeed, the true horrors of this are only now becoming clear.) For more than a decade my spiritual path was enlivened and inspired by the annual Goddess Conferences in Glastonbury, where I absorbed worldwide stories of goddesses in myth and in spiritual practice. So, when things are tough, I can turn to Bridget for healing, Ceridwen for stamina, and Aphrodite for enduring love.
These adventures have complemented my regular Quaker worship, Quaker ways of decision-making and Quaker commitment to community, and provide a strong basis for my ambition to find a better relationship with our Mother, the Earth. They have also been challenged and balanced by the experience of living with a couple of scientists in the family, both doubtful about the idea of transcendence, both active Quakers.
Healing and hope
In God, words and us, Beth Allen makes a plea for Friends to find a theology which offers both healing and hope. She recalls a Quaker discussion about God-language and nontheism at which several clergy were present: ‘[One] priest asked, “I work with many people who are in the depths of misery. How do Quakers show people who are in despair that there can be hope?” There was silence. Beth Allen continues: ‘As the chair, I asked all there: “Do Friends have anything to say about this? Does anyone?” At length a non-Quaker who is a professional counsellor rose and replied from her clinical experience. We Quakers had nothing to say about hope.’
This story touched me deeply, and not because I’ve failed to find hope among Friends. I’ve found it often, and it isn’t a false hope. The support of Friends when I’ve despaired about the state of things, and about my own inadequacy in the face of those things, has been genuine, and deep. I could describe it as attention of the same kind and quality that the author and critic John Berger writes of his doctor hero in his novel A Fortunate Man: ‘His satisfaction comes… where he faces forces which no previous explanation will exactly fit, because they depend upon the history of a patient’s particular personality. He tries to keep that personality company in its loneliness.’
Though I’ve known this kind of loving attention, I haven’t recorded it under the heading ‘Quaker theology’ or asked for it to be entered in Quaker faith & practice. But if I’d been at Beth Allen’s meeting that day, I could have offered it as a story. I could also add stories of its opposite: blank expressions, or even bristles of hostility. But we are human beings, fallible, and often confused, and we are sometimes simply not up to this level of attention and response.
The process
What I remember from my churchgoing days (and this is purely personal recollection, not to be generalised at all) is plenty of talk about hope: hope of redemption, hope of heaven, hope of a God who would intervene and save me if I prayed hard enough. These hopes vanished, one by one. I felt betrayed, bereft. Better by far, I feel now, the fallible, tentative, human, humane offerings of Friends, who are no surer than I am of the outcome of my or their anguish, but who are willing to keep me company in my loneliness.
My reading of God, words and us – and maybe it’s a reading between the lines – is that the theology of this book, the hopefulness of this book, lies not in its conclusions but in its process; in the methods and the commitment that these thirty or so Friends employed to listen to themselves and each other to bring it about. Most religious bodies wouldn’t dream of undergoing this exercise, because it would threaten their power structure.
Quaker structure, when it requires voluntary commitment, undermines power. We occupy a post of responsibility for a few years, then give it up and hand it on. Our decisions are made corporately, with those at the desk not dictating, but listening. In a Quaker business meeting, a single Friend’s contribution – a young Friend, maybe, an inexperienced Friend, a mentally disturbed Friend – can change the course of our decision-making process. Power is there, but it is fluid power, following (if we are disciplined enough and careful enough) the river of the Spirit, rather than the self-made channels of our egos.
A final word is the word ‘discipline’. The Quaker way is a difficult road, without any of the rewards promised by our current status-seeking, consumerist way of life. It needs discipline to keep going, and we all need time off to recharge our batteries. But, for those of us who stay the course, it’s worth it. I hope the thirty or so Friends who created God, words and us will feel that this has been worth it too.
God, words and us: Quakers in conversation about religious difference edited by Helen Rowlands is published by Quaker Books at £8. ISBN: 9781999726928.
