SPEAKING OF GOD Kerry O’Regan 1808

SPEAKING OF GOD 
Kerry O’Regan

 It was that Guardian article about God language and Britain Yearly Meeting that prompted me to think more deeply about my own position – in particular the statement in the article that some Friends were “offended” by such language. I thought no, that’s not it for me. I’m not offended by talk of God. Not re-traumatised by childhood or later tales of a vengeful and demanding God. No. It’s more a puzzlement. A non-comprehension. You know how George Fox said “and this I knew experimentally”? Well, I must confess I have
no “experimental” knowledge of God. I have had no experience, no encounter, that I can attach the label “God” to. I am like someone who has never experienced chocolate. They can hear others speak of chocolate – hear them describe its appearance, texture, smell, taste. They can accept the reality of that experience for another person, but ultimately, for them, the word has no real, experiential meaning. So it is for me and God. I hear people use God language and I think What? Nor does it help to use soft synonyms like Spirit or The Divine. It’s like saying to our non-chocolate person: What if we use other words for chocolate? That might help. It doesn’t. 

So what am I doing here among Quakers? Someone pretty much summed it up recently (at least from the belief perspective; there are other aspects). “Other religious groups tell you what to believe; Quakers ask you what you believe.” 

Experientially, I also relate to what the novelist AS Byatt says of her experience of Quakers: "Their religion is wonderful – you simply sat in silence and listened to the nature of things". I really value sitting in silence and listening to the nature of things. And then there’s the testimonies of course, and a sense of these are my people.

I do experience what Capital A Atheists, like Richard Dawkins, (and, ironically, the Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto who actually invented the term) call the Numinous – a generalised sense of awe and reverence. But I have no sense of an I-Thou encounter with an Other. No sense of Spirit. No sense of being led or guided. When I was a child, I was told that that sense was all about God. I believed that. But only because that was what I was told; I had no other basis for such a belief. I’m totally accepting of others’ God experiences. In fact, I quite envy them. I would love to have a connection with an all-loving Spirit who would guide my path with infinite wisdom. I even have my Samuel Here I am response all ready. But so far, nothing from the chocolate corner. So that’s why I struggle, even among Quakers, with talk of God and The Will of God and Spirit
and so on. I just hear chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, and I think Huh? I did stop coming at one stage. For a few years, in fact. 

My sense of puzzlement (What are they talking about?) became too great, and I stayed away. I didn’t resign my membership, however. I retained my identity as “Quaker”. (And that raises the whole issue of what it means to be a Quaker – but that’s another story.) I’ve been back for quite a while now, though sometimes rather uneasily, with all the talk of God (or was that “chocolate”?) that swirls around me. I’ll wear it as long as I canst.