Quaker renewal: A shared language
Craig Barnett continues his series on Quaker renewal
One of the ways that contemporary Quaker practice has become impoverished is by the loss of a shared spiritual language. Instead of a common vocabulary for sharing our experiences and understanding, we have a multitude of individual languages that often rely on borrowing from a wide range of other traditions.
We have come to assume that the only way we can communicate at all is by trying to ‘translate’ each other’s words into some other terms that are meaningful for us. This may work when our experiences are similar enough that we are ‘just using different words to talk about the same thing’. But it doesn’t help us to hear and to take seriously Friends whose experience is significantly different to our own. By translating their words into our own preferred language, we sidestep the reality of difference, instead of allowing ourselves to be challenged and enriched by it.
The absence of a shared language can also be an obstacle when we want to produce collective statements, such as minutes or outreach materials. If we try to include only words that no one will object to, we are left with an increasingly restricted vocabulary that is ever more dominated by the bureaucratic language of the wider culture.
There is an alternative. We could choose to cultivate a contemporary Quaker language that is rich enough to express the full diversity of our varied experiences. There is an extraordinarily creative spiritual vocabulary to draw upon in the writings of Quakers throughout our history. A contemporary language would also be continually open to whatever images, words and symbols arise from our current experience of Quaker practices.
A shared Quaker language would include multiple images and metaphors that reflect the multifaceted nature of spiritual reality. Quaker practices open us to the possibility of encounter with a reality that may be experienced as personal and impersonal, masculine, feminine, immanent, transcendent or otherwise. So, words and symbols such as ‘God’, ‘the Guide’ or ‘Inward Christ’ might be recognised as valid ways of expressing the personal nature of some of our experiences – such as a sense of loving presence and guidance. At the same time, and without contradiction, such a language would also include impersonal images such as ‘Light’, ‘Energy’ or ‘Oneness’, which can point to experiences of illumination, empowerment and interrelationship.
A shared language would involve accepting all of these images as valid, but none of them as sufficient in themselves. It would be rich enough to enable everyone to express the depth and variety of our personal experiences. At the same time its diversity would point towards the inexpressible nature of spiritual reality, which is always beyond our capacity to fully name, identify or control. By acknowledging the validity of numerous ways of encountering spiritual reality, it would also create space for change and growth in our religious understanding, so we might be less inclined to rely on narrow theologically-defined identities.
Instead of defending our own concepts and images, and trying to exclude those used by other Friends, we might recognise a wide range of experiences, images and symbols as equally important for expressing the full range of Quaker experience.
Many of us also draw insight and inspiration from other religious traditions, and would continue to make use of other spiritual languages as well. But a sufficiently rich Quaker language would not depend on importing concepts from other traditions. It would be broad and subtle enough to communicate the breadth and depth of Quaker experience with each other and with the wider world – including the varied insights and commitments that arise from our shared Quaker practices and their practical expression in our lives.
Comments
I agree that secular language should not be brought in and leaned on so much in the RSfF. Yet, in creating new I we need to be careful we are not letting go of that of God in both the Society and in our language. I do see the need for replacing as much as expanding that language as we get a more confident sense of the Spirit. Otherwise it really is just a secular experience of artificial linguistics.
By asruth on 2nd July 2016 - 8:05
), I have just returned from a week’s silent retreat of Centering Prayer in a Catholic monastery. Language at one level is unnecessary to share in the experience of the mystery of God, but when we do want to communicate, there is a value in having a shared shorthand of language. To take an example, Catholics have a clear concept of the stages of the spiritual journey, based on people like Thomas Keating, John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila. People like Ken Wilber do the same in a secular setting. But amongst Quakers, there does not seem to be a language for this sense of direction and an understanding of the stages of spiritual depth, and the dangers that may be faced along the way. I have found that when I can cross-reference the same experience against different terminologies, such as Catholic, secular or Buddhist, it actually enhances the experience and enriches it. So I would find it helpful if there was greater clarity about what the spiritual journey for Quakers actually involved, using language appropriate to today’s Quakers.
By Richard on 2nd July 2016 - 10:17
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