The universal Spirit

Gerard Guiton offers a personal interpretation of the Spirit

Jesus was a man, not God. He did not ‘come’ to ‘redeem’ us from our ‘sin’, nor was he ‘sent’ by God to ‘atone’ for our wrongdoings. Instead, he chose to die for Love, his Abba-Imma (Hebrew for ‘faith-mother’). This Love (or ‘Word’ as John calls it in his gospel) is the ‘Kingdom’. It is not a human kingdom but of Abba-Imma. This Kingdom is inside, among and around us as the Presence of Love, a Love that is only ‘almighty’ in its omnipresence as Love, in its capacity as Divine peace, justice and compassion.

Like us, the early Quakers were ordinary people. As with Jesus, their central concern was the ‘Kingdom’ for which they, too, were prepared to die; and also, like Jesus, their halakhah (Hebrew for ‘Jewish law’ or ‘the path that one walks’) was their own Torah guided by the Inward Light of the Christ. They were to let their lives speak, see what Love could do.

That of this Christ was within them as in all people, the same Light as in you and me, the same Light as in Jesus who, Isaac Penington wrote, was the ‘garment’ of the Holy Spirit. There are other such ‘garments’ of this Spirit, of this Abba-Imma, Krishna, Buddha, the Great Spirit and so on. They are called Gautama, Nanak, Ramanuja, Rabindranath Tagore, Eckhart, Francis of Assisi, Gregory Palamas, C F Andrews, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Stang, Jane Haining, Oscar Romero, Maximilian Kolbe, Dietrich Bonhoeffer… and, yes, you and me, and so many more.

This Kingdom or Spirit is our common language, so there is no need to look for it. It’s already here. This common language or ‘Word’ can be Love-in-action, our own Lamb’s War, as it beats in our hearts and guides our minds, as it fills us with a desire to heal and reconcile.

This Kingdom is the Source of One-der and joy. It is ‘Beauty.’ It is infinitely creative and always inclusive. It is heard and seen in nature, in the vast workings of the universe, yet also in the laughter of children, in our generosity and tears.

Being inward and outer, it is (as John Woolman said) ‘confined to no forms of religion’. Thus so, it is universal, immanent and transcendent – ‘in here’ and ‘out there’ – objectively existing while, at the same time, felt and experienced subjectively. It is expressed in silence, in the good we do and in our languages, yet it is not dependent on any of them.

The Spirit is simple, truthful, peaceful, and in it we are all equal and together. It is our true home and destiny.

---

Comments

Please login to add a comment