Saying his peace: Bob Johnson’s Thought for the Week

‘It all sounds wonderful, but is it realistic?’

I was born into a Quaker family, so Quaker tenets have always been part of the furniture. There was never a time when I didn’t know Quakerism existed. For me, the question has always been: does it matter? Or, does it make sense? Is it any use? To my surprise and delight, I can say yes to all three.

There are several Quaker testimonies, of course, all eminently sensible and worthy. But one is magnificent: the Peace Testimony. Like much of Quakerism, this testimony is not widely known, nor well understood, outside the Society. It’s prone to get lost in the mists, even in mysticism. Yet to have survived intact since 1660, when a group of Friends submitted it to Charles II, it must hold some truth. Indeed, when realistically re-evaluated, it shines brilliantly and offers a stable, sensible, self-evident pathway out of the Armageddon we seem determined to self-inflict.

The original testimony is worth quoting in full: ‘All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.’

It all sounds rather wonderful, but is it remotely realistic? We’d all love the lion to lie down with the lamb, but this is the real world. Horrors happen, inhumanity seems limitless, and hate, not love, is the order of the day.

So, if it’s not to be summarily dismissed as unworldly, even cowardly, we need a key to unlock it. And the best I’ve come across is provided by another early Quaker, James Nayler, who was robbed and fatally beaten. On his death bed, he spoke the following extraordinary words: ‘There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor revenge any wrong’. An astonishing statement in any circumstances, but coming just after he had experienced such evil… well, it sounds miraculous.

Look at the sting in its tail. Revenge. You hit me, so I’ll hit you. Really? Are two hits better than one? Where’s the logic in that? It doesn’t sound wise.

Parkhurst prisoners taught me that this spirit is real. Revenge was key to them – invariably revenge from infancy, a carryover from their kindergartens. Ultimately, revenge is emotionally infantile.

All three Abrahamic religions pay lip service to this. ‘Vengeance is mine’ saith the Lord of the Old Testament; ‘turn the other cheek’ says the New. Here I relabel the Peace Testimony ‘Nayler’s Law’, wherein it states that obsolete revenge (from kindergartens) powers hate. But this deadly infectious disease is curable by the spirit which delights to do no evil. It’s something each one of us can grow, but only if we so decide.

Our global ‘defence’ policies rely on the illogic that I’m justified in planning to obliterate all life on this precious planet, because you’re doing so too. James Nayler can smell the evil in this – can you?

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