Thought for the week: Michelle Dumont gets the picture
‘Images show us something that speaks to our condition.’
Since the start of our Quaker movement, there have been Friends whose spiritual experience has been characterised by ‘seeing’. George Fox had visions. John Woolman and Samuel Fothergill had dreams. They spoke about them with other Friends, the imagery was shared, and it became part of the spiritual life of the wider Society.
I don’t feel we do this to the same extent today. Perhaps the rationalistic tone of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has meant that people are less willing to talk about these experiences in ministry, or in conversation or writing. There might be fears of being misunderstood – of having a profound experience mocked. Our mental health might be questioned. When put into words, our inner experience – which can carry so much resonance and emotion – can seem paltry compared to its description, which can make us reluctant to speak about it.
Images though, even a description of them, can be powerful and motivating in a way that other forms of communication are not. They are their own ministry.
Most people will have some experience with mental images, even if this is only in dreams. So what’s the difference between a regular dream or daydream and something significant? Any of our dreams might tell us something about our subconscious, but anyone who has had this kind of experience will recognise it as having a different feel, just as giving ministry in Meeting feels different from talking. The experience can have a soulful resonance, and a profound (and sometimes lasting) emotional impact. These images are not anxious, despairing or confused like bad dreams. They are not hallucinations in which we fail to distinguish our inner experience from what happens around us. They are a form of mental experience that show us something that speaks to our condition.
Last autumn, when I was sitting meditatively in silence, a female figure appeared and showed me an image of a mountainside covered in a deep-green conifer forest. Halfway up the mountain was a monastery-like building. The whole scene carried a deep sense of peace. This didn’t last: to my shock and dismay the forest caught fire. It spread rapidly. I could see that the figure I was with was deeply saddened by the destruction: she started to cry. Feeling an urgent need to respond I asked her how we could stop the fire? Could we pour water on the flames? She told me that the only way to fight the fire was with fire: soul fire.
In some ways, this experience told me something any climate activist will have known for years: that we must change hearts and minds; that this crisis is as much spiritual as it is ecological. But the image will stick with me in a way that the cognitive realisation didn’t.
I’ve felt drawn to ask whether other Friends have also ‘seen’ things related to the climate crisis. Perhaps it will be possible to compile and share (anonymously if that helps). It would make more visible some of the hidden sides of contemporary Quaker spirituality. I’d love to speak to or hear from any Friends who are willing to share. You can contact me via the Friend.
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