Everyday Mysticism, Interview with EunSung Kim

Everyday Mysticism

Everyday Mysticism


Thoughts about spirituality and faith. My own struggles and descriptions of my spiritual journey within my everyday life.

About Me     eunsung k

Gender         MALE

Occupation Stay at Home Dad

Location         Richmond, VA, United States

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I love writing and creating art. I also love noticing beauty and art in hidden places. 

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/722392-eunsung

Sunday, November 1, 2015

the Cloud of Unknowing

Can people who are married and have kids be contemplatives? I used to think that contemplatives only existed in the walls of a monastery, whether it be a Christian or Buddhist monastery. I do not live in a cloister, but my home is the community in which I am spiritually growing.

My daughter Winnie is almost a year old. The days of holding her in the early morning while she naps on my chest and praying silently are long gone. Winnie wakes up rearing to go and walks from corner to corner exploring each cranny, and un-shelving most of her favorite books. It is hard to center and sit in silence and open oneself to contemplative prayer, when you are utterly exhausted most of the time.

The anonymous author of Cloud of Unknowing writes in the 43rd chapter about forgetting the self and to "let nothing stir your mind or will other than God. Attempt to suppress all your thoughts and feelings regarding subjects less than God. Put distracting ideas under a cloud of forgetting. In contemplation, forget everything, including yourself and your accomplishments." How do I focus on God and let everything else go?

For me, getting out of my own thoughts come usually the way of helping others and being of service to them, and eventually I get out of my own head in the action of helping others long enough that I remember to consciously contact God with my thoughts, words, and eventually someday with my whole being.

Being a father to a young toddler is often hectic and frenzied. :) But there are opportunities to open yourself up to the moment and let go of "distracting ideas" and "forget everything." Kids are wonderful teachers in opening yourself up to the present moment. My daughter Winnie and I have been lately taking morning walks. Winnie does not go very far until she inspects the tiny spec she sees on the side walk, or stumbles towards the grass to see a leaf, rubbish, or something that caught her eye; she is in awe of everything. If I put down my cell phone long enough, because I am usually busy capturing these cute moments digitally, I am invited to be present and put my focus on here and now. I see with new eyes, eyes of my daughter, a piece of discarded wrapper becomes treasure and a thing of fascination.

Children are also good teachers in giving and receiving love. I am not sure where Winnie learned this, but sometimes spontaneously as I or my wife, Jocelyn holds her, she will cry "hug" and give the most warm heartfelt hug. Winnie gently lays her head on your chest and wraps her arms around you. In those little moments, I am not thinking about myself, how tired I am, but just being in the presence of love. This sort of love I think are glimpses of how God loves us. This sort of Holy Love only exists now, in the present moment. It is love that one has to experience and open up to, and let go of one's defenses. Kids and puppies are good at disarming most of us, and a random act of kindness from them will melt even the coldest of hearts (not all, but most).

I am not a monk. I am a father and a husband. But I too am a contemplative. I happen to be Quaker and also Catholic. I grew up in the great tradition of the Methodist Church, but even then I was drawn to moments of silence. The contemplation that finds me in my current experience is sporadic, but it still nurtures me. It is the type of silence that opens me up and connects me to something bigger, and gives me hope even in the worst of days. I carry this silence that lives in my heart and is nurtured at home, to the hospital when I encounter folks in crisis as a Chaplain Intern. I am grateful to have my wife, Jocelyn and my daughter, Winnie as teachers in giving and receiving love with all my heart and soul.

Posted by eunsung k. at 8:31 PM 2 comments:

Labels: Catholic, contemplative prayer, parenting, Quaker, spirituality


Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Living Here and Now

Spiritual identity is not something far off, not something we need to go to Tibet to find. It is here, in the way we walk on the earth, the way we see our life, the way we care for ourselves and others. Our true nature is not something extraordinary; in fact, it is quite ordinary, an inevitable portion of our daily life.--Muller (How Then Shall I Live?, 64)


Spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.--Anonymous (Big Book, 83)


It is hard not to run away, when things get hard. Even good things like being a dad, being married to the person i love, pursuing a career that feels natural to who i am, and seeking spiritual growth in the community i have been placed can be all very "hard." I learned very early on to check out when i feel overwhelmed and stressed. I escaped into my room, and would day dream being a super hero, or a famous country music star traveling the world singing in juke joints. I escaped into my mind to disconnect from the unbearable discomfort of what was happening in the now.

I find it sometimes impossible to pray where I am, because I feel like where I am is not enough. I judge the hell out of myself, and this self judgement keeps me disconnected from God, myself, and others around me. I am slowly, but surely learning to take a deep breath during these moments of self-pity and as I get grounded into my breath, my body, I become more aware of the here and now. I start to connect to myself, and then able to connect to something greater than myself. Quakers have a saying "that of God in you," and I forget in these moments of disconnection that the Holy Spirit dwells within me.

I still daydream sometimes about practicing a "real" spiritual life when I have time, so I can go on prayer retreats, visit monasteries, and learn from holy people. I do not discount the value of going on spiritual retreats, but my wish for escape from spirituality in my daily life robs me of growing and practicing a spiritual life in this very moment. I pray in the now, even when I am changing my daughter's poopy diaper, and even after or during hurtful words being spoken. I pray, when all I can utter are a few words, because I am so sleep deprived.

God accepts me even when I am cranky and not at my best, and the question is whether I can accept myself as I am. I am working on this, and it's a work in process. But this "work" is often joyful work that I undertake, because the work of a spiritual life is my life as it is. So here I am, trading on this road the best I can, and making tons of mistakes as a first time father and husband. I try to be a good son to my parents and a good brother, but sometimes I get caught up in my own life and go a long time without reaching out to them. But even in all my little failings, I know that God is walking with me and through me.

I hope these words are helpful to others who are struggling to live a spiritual life here and now in the messiness of their lives.


Lord Grant me the serenity to be myself. Give me the courage to grow, and the wisdom to trust in You, myself, and others. Amen.(http://julianofnorwich.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-56.html)

Posted by eunsung k. at 11:28 AM No comments:




Sunday, July 19, 2015

Growing Pains

"Communities need tensions if they are to grow and deepen. Tensions come from conflicts within each person--conflicts born out of a refusal of personal and community growth, conflicts between individual egoisms, conflicts arising from a diminishing gratuite, from a clash of temperaments and from individual psychological difficulties. These are natural tensions. Anguish is the normal reaction to being brought up against our own limitations and darkness, to the discovery of our own deep wound...There are a thousand reasons for tension. And each of them brings the whole community, as well as each individual member of it, face to face with its own poverty, inability to cope, weariness, aggression and depression. These can be important times if we realize that the treasure of the community is in danger. When everything is going well, when the community feels it is living successfully, its members tend to let their energies dissipate, and to listen less carefully to each other. Tensions bring people back to the reality of helplessness; obliging them to spend more time in prayer and dialogue, to work patiently to overcome the crisis and refind lost unity; making them understand that the community is more than just a human reality, that it also needs the spirit of God if it is to live and deepen." --Jean Vanier (120, Community and Growth)

I think of myself as a caring and loving person, and yet at times I find myself deeply self-centered and selfish. I don't set out to be selfish or self-centered, but it often starts with "Yes, but..." or "Well, you could have said it this way..." My need to be right sometimes gets in the way of unity within my current community, my life with my wife, Jocelyn and our 8 months old daughter, Winnie. I have been experiencing these tensions that Jean Vanier described in the quote above, and they do indeed bring me a place of what he calls "reality of helplessness," or what I choose to call an experience of powerlessness. I lack the power sufficient to solve the problem of my own making, which is my aversion to growth and change; when I deny this fundamental reality of life, change, then I experience pain and suffering.

I agree with Jean that the movement from tension, conflict, to growth comes from opening to a power greater than ourselves, which he calls the spirit of God and what I choose to call the Divine Presence. My own deep wounds come out, as I share my life on a daily basis with the people I love and that love me. Sometimes, our wounds rub up against each other, and we react out of fear and pain. I experienced the discomfort of my wounds being rubbed at L'Arche Daybreak and then at L'Arche GWDC, when I shared my life with other members of our community. One conflict I had early on as an assistant at Euclid House was over dishes with another assistant, and he had soaked by beloved cast iron skillet in soap! I am not sure why something so small, evoked so much anger in me, but it also brought out anger in him when I confronted him about it. We were eventually able to work it out, slowly but surely, and talk through our tensions and own inner conflicts. We realized that we were both hearing the voices of critical father figures.

I am no longer at L'Arche, but I find myself reliving the lessons I learned in community within my life as a husband and as a new father in Richmond, VA. I am learning that I cannot make decisions on my own, because my actions affect the whole family. I know this seems very simple, but seeing that I cannot act selfishly and that I have to choose unity of the whole does not come easy for me. I sometimes want to make my own choices and not run it by my wife, or just drag my daughter along to activities I want to do. On most days I do not make these selfish choices, but it sometimes takes a lot of prayer and dialogue to make this happen. I also fall prey to going on rants or long winded monologues with my wife, instead of actually opening myself to listen with love.

Most people see me as a nice and polite person, and it's true that I can be very nice and polite. However, sometimes underneath my layer of quiet politeness, lies a deep seated anger and frustration. I am slowly learning to express anger and frustration in healthy ways, along with other feelings and verbalizing other range of emotions. I feel like a immature teenager when it comes to communicating feelings, and navigating conflict.

I am currently working on getting accredited as a chaplain, and the experiences as a chaplain intern and course work has been very helpful in exploring naming tensions within myself and groups that I am part of. I still find tensions between people, whether it be with me and someone else, or tension among people I am with very uncomfortable. But lately, I am learning to stay put and listen deeply, and patiently explore ways to clear up miscommunication. Hopefully I can allow the Divine Presence to live and deepen within my life and deepen my commitment to the folks around me. What a blessing it is to share life with Jocelyn and baby Winnie.

published 7/19/15




Posted by eunsung k. at 8:17 PM 4 comments:




Saturday, May 16, 2015

Spiritual Life: Clearing Away the Poop


Everyone poops. Most TV shows leave out characters doing mundane things like using the bathroom, cleaning their homes, because they want to suck you into a world that you want to escape to. I watched a lot of Star Trek: the Next Generation, and I don't know if anyone poops or pees in the future. Similarly, great works of spiritual writing and theology often leave out the very practical mundane reality of our existence like cleaning up a 6 months old baby's poopy cloth diaper, after she has started eating solids. Maybe the early Church Fathers and Mothers did not have this problem, but they do talk about daily tasks in the monastic setting. However, my community like the majority of us does not occur in an Christian monastic setting, Buddhist monastery, or in an Ashram.

My immediate community I wake up to everyday, the people I am sharing life together in a very intimate way, consist of my wife and daughter. I never imagined while I was studying theology at Duke Divinity School, which for the most part was really academically focused, that my prayer life includes wiping my daughter's rear and spraying off her poopy cloth diapers. What am I ranting about you ask? Simply put, my spiritual life is here and now in my very reality. I pray now, connect to God at this very moment as I write this blog, as I laugh with my daughter, and when I practice forgiveness.

I think God is with me even when I get angry or say a hurtful word to the very people I love, but in those moments I choose disconnection and separate from a loving God that holds me and others gently. I can choose to reconnect, sometimes slowly and other times quickly by looking at my part and admitting where I was wrong. If you know me, I rarely like to be wrong. I am always trying to figure it out and talk my way into being right: a way of being that served me well before, but does not create a happy or healthy marriage. Sometimes the most spiritual thing to do is hold my tongue and swallow my pride, and just shut up and listen. It sounds simple, but really difficult to do in the moment when you are sleep deprived, and start taking everything personally.

I wonder if the Buddha or Jesus ever changed poopy diapers? Jesus was not married, but surely he must have been around little babies. The historical Buddha was married and had kids before he awakened, but he probably had servants who did all that stuff since he was a prince. Most of us are not the Son of God or the awakened one, but like them we can embody love in the here and now, even at the most difficult moments.

I used to think I would become a spiritual person by becoming a monk, then later by living in community at L'Arche. What I am experiencing now is that God, which I prefer to call the Divine Prescence invites me into holy silence in moments of boisterous cries from my daughter, to the still quiet mornings when my wife is asleep upstairs, and I am holding our daughter, Winnie. close to my chest as she peacefully naps. Like I said before, it's not all about cleaning poop, but my life includes the day to day stuff that needs to be done. I can't always see the everyday stuff as spiritual. I don't always experience how sacred this very moment is, but sometimes my heart breaks open for just a little bit and I truly experience everything as a gift. But if I am not careful, I collect resentments, fears and judgments that turn the very things and people in my life I am grateful for into burdens and hassle. Sometimes, I need to clear away the "poop" within myself, metaphorically speaking, to be open to gratitude for my life as it is. It's much easier to live life clear and free, so I can be grateful for now instead of living in the past or living in the future.

Posted by eunsung k. at 1:49 PM 2 comments:




Saturday, April 18, 2015

Spiritual Lessons from a Teething Child



Me and my daughter.

Teething is a painful process and very uncomfortable. My daughter's ear piercing screams make my heart wrench as I try to soothe her as her new bottom teeth are coming in. While spiritual growth is not exactly like getting your first baby tooth, it can also be a very painful and down right uncomfortable process.

In my 20s, I had a mistaken belief that a spiritual awakening or some sort of "aha" moment, which Zen describes of kensho would somehow make my life more easy. I confused spiritual growth as somehow comfort and ease. Don't get me wrong, sometimes spiritual experiences are very pleasant in that they provide a sense of clarity.

In my early 30s, I was given a moment of clarity, where I saw for the first time that the way I was living my life was not working. I could no longer blame everyone else for my misery, and maybe just maybe I was willing to try another way before I tried killing myself yet again. It seems funny now to me looking back at how delusional I was thinking I was somehow in control, and I could figure my life out. I had tried many spiritual paths at this point from Anarchist philosophy, Stoicism, Buddhism, Taoism, and different strains of Christianity like Methodism and Catholicism.

I moved to a L'Arche community in DC also hoping that somehow coming to a spiritual community would fix me. The reality was I did not want to truly let control, and my mind started seeing all the ways in which my L'Arche community was the problem and not really helping me. I once again fell into a common pattern of mine, blaming others for the dissatisfaction, restlessness, and internal discomfort I felt. I was spiritually sick and I did not even know it, until I finally came to the jumping off place. At this point, I was praying everyday for a God of my understanding to kill me in my sleep. Why do the dirty work if someone else will do it for you? It upset me each morning that God was not merciful and took me in my sleep, but I had to face life which felt like a chore...a living hell.

I am like a baby in that I thought the world revolved around me. A 31 year old man behaving like a helpless baby leaves one angry entitled human being. Luck for me, I was given a gift of desperation...hitting a spiritual bottom. In a moment of clarity I became aware that the common denominator in all my misery no matter where I went was me. I had to change or get busy dying, because I did not want to continue living this way.

No one, not even a loving community could make me surrender, nor could they then do the work of inner change. I opened myself to a God that I did not really believe, because this God of my childhood, God I studied in seminary was a God of my own making...ultimately I still ran the show. My way did not work and luckily enough I was able to reach out for help and be desperate enough not to control who or what that form of help came.

I experienced a state of admitting I was powerless and being open to another way, which meant admitting my way, my thinking, and the way I was living was not thinking. I was my worst enemy. I am not sure if babies think these thoughts as they experience pain and suffering, maybe they just cry because they hurt. My daughter goes from extreme distress to belly laughs, and I truly envy how she is so much in the moment. She is powerless over the pain and discomfort of teething, but it is my hope that she trusts that she has loving parents that are looking out for her and walking with her through the process. I sometimes forget that I have a loving Power in my life that walks with me through the pains and joys of life, and sometimes that Power reaches out to me through friends and sometimes strangers. I truly believe and have experienced how we can be channels of God's peace, especially in moments we are honest and vulnerable.

Teething like spiritual growth can be very tiring, and sometimes we need a nice long nap cuddled up to someone we love.






Posted by eunsung k. at 9:49 AM 1 comment:




Saturday, March 28, 2015

getting Winnie to nap: lessons in humility

I've faced many challenges in my life: depression, paying taxes, getting beyond suicidal iterations, finding a job, and etc. But none of them compare to getting a little baby to nap on her bed. :)

Winnie loves to nap on my chest, but based on the wisdom of all the parents before me and especially at the suggestion of my lovely wife, I am trying to be consistent about teaching her how to nap in her own bed. The problem arises a few minutes after I lay her down, and she abruptly wakes up either smiling and laughing or screaming and wailing.

What does this have to do with spirituality? There's nothing like a lesson in humility and a call to practice love and tolerance like the presence of a young infant. I am learning a lesson that my life in community keeps teaching me, which is that I cannot control other people. However, I can try to be centered and stable inside, so I can show up on a consistent basis.

The other day, my daughter and I napped in our bed for a whole freaking hour. It was amazing, and especially needed because she had woken up around 3:30 that morning. I am learning that we are called to love and practice love, even when we are sleep deprived and tired, and I feel like I have nothing to give.

I never thought I was a rigid person, but I've realized as this lovely new person is constantly changing my routine that I have doggedly become a creature of habit. I want things to happen when I want them to, even when I have a roughly fluid schedule. I am working on this with my wife practicing love and tolerance with me. I don't always see how selfish I am being. I'll offer up a story to illustrate. Few months after Winnie was born, we planned to visit our friends in DC. I had organized a lunch with friends and also set up a place for us to stay, and sort of roughly mapped out what we'd do that weekend. The night before we were going on the trip, Winnie was not feeling well and I was also starting to feel slightly not so well. I sort of threw a tantrum when my wife Jocelyn told me we probably should not go tomorrow.

I was really upset and could not get past the plans I had made. My plans became more important than the people right in front of me, and even my own body telling me to rest. The morning came and my daughter was snottier and I was worse, and I finally had the sense to realize that my wife was wise and spoke the truth. It is so humbling to admit that you are wrong, and then the hard part is trying to change and not repeat the same mistake.

Winnie's naps similar to the story I shared, is another experience of me not being able to control the situation or a person. Little babies have good days and bad, and my job is to show up with an open heart. Laugh when my daughter wakes up smiling and laughing, and soothe her when she wakes up crying. Back to this great experiment called parenting... :)



Posted by eunsung k. at 8:30 AM No comments:




Monday, March 9, 2015

prayer and meditation

I have been practicing some form of meditation since 1999, my first year as an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill. I read a book on Taoist meditation techniques and started sitting. I then I about Zen and started sitting zazen. My meditation practice was off and on until 2008, when I entered a Methodist seminary in Durham, NC. I began to be interested in contemplative practices within the Christian church and sought out a mentor for Centering Prayer and started a centering prayer group along with new friends at seminary. I would say that my love for contemplatives started initially when I discovered Taoist sages, Zen monks, Hindu ascetics, and later early Church Fathers and Mothers.

I was drawn to the writings of Thomas Merton and encountered Trappist Monks when I was in seminary during a spiritual retreat. I used to visit Mepkin Abbey (http://mepkinabbey.org/wordpress/) on a more regular basis, and spent a month there as a Monastic Guest while in seminary. My last year in seminary, I became Catholic. I tell people that I came into the Catholic Church through the back door, being pulled by the contemplatives of the monastic tradition.

Currently, I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, I remain Catholic, and only a confession away to be an upstanding member.

My prayer life consists of daily starting my day with intercessory prayer and silence. I have set prayers I have memorized, and I go through them to open my heart and mind to the will of a God of my understanding. I prefer the Quaker term of Divine Presence. I then sit in silence about 20 minutes, and sometimes invoking the sacred word as taught by Fr. Keating in practicing centering prayer if I get distracted. I intersperse my prayer life with zazen, more specifically a sitting practice called shikantaza, which roughly translates to just sitting. I became more disciplined in my sitting while I was in seminary, and often sat with the Buddhist student group.

As a father of a 4 months old daughter, I've had to be little more flexible with my prayer life and meditation practice. When I awake in the morning, I am often waking up to my daughter getting up to start her day. I usually change her diaper, read to her, play with her and sing to her about an hour before she takes her first nap of the day. I pray and meditate while holding her. I am sitting on a couch rather than on a meditation cushion. My sitting on a zafu has been irregular, but I still try to just sit when I hold my daughter on my couch.

My night time prayer has been also more fluid and flexible. I rarely sit on the cushion, but I try to pray and do some deep breathing as I lay in our bed. I try to open myself to my body sensations, to my own breath and the breathing of my daughter and wife.

I will try to return to a more disciplined meditation practice, especially with the sitting posture on the zafu once my daughter sleeps through the night [keep your figures crossed :)].

===

Let’s Grow Together: Interview with EunSung Kim

October 1, 2015
By Jon Berry

https://www.friendsjournal.org/eunsung-kim/



EunSung Kim, 35, is in chaplain residency training in Richmond, Virginia. He was introduced to Quakerism in college. He and his wife, Jocelyn, married under the care of Friends in Washington, D.C. They were accepted into membership of Richmond (Va.) Meeting last year. They became parents last November, and are raising their daughter, Winnie, in meeting. 

The son of a Methodist minister, EunSung went on to try different traditions, including Catholicism and Zen Buddhism, before settling into Friends. EunSung holds a masters of divinity degree from Duke University.

Jon Berry: How did you and your family come to Quakerism?

When Jocelyn and I began dating, I suggested we try different faith communities. I felt it was important for us to share our spiritual lives. Bless her heart, she agreed. We were living in Washington, D.C. We went to a number of churches—Catholic, Russian Orthodox, evangelical. Then we tried Friends. It felt to both of us a community we could be part of. For her, I think, it was the Quaker principle of simplicity and the social activism of Friends. I was drawn to the silence and communal worship. It was nice to sit in silence and experience God for myself. I was so tired of people telling me what to believe or how to experience God. In Friends meeting, I could just come, and sit, and listen.

Jon: What is meeting for worship like for you?

It depends on the Sunday. I usually sit in the back in a rocking chair. Sometimes my daughter falls asleep and sleeps the whole meeting. Having a little human being next to my heart and feeling that person’s warmth while in silence brings such deep gratitude. There’s a wonderful sense of connection in being in silence with my daughter and my wife. Recently we’ve started using the nursery; Winnie is getting older and wants more stimulation. So we’ll bring her into meeting for the first 20 minutes, when the children are present, then take her to the nursery when the older children go to First-day school.

Jon: How do you center yourself?

Just sitting and being still is the first thing. I try to close my eyes, breathe, and feel my body. Then I try to tune into the sound of my own breath. Sometimes, when I’m distracted, I say a prayer, like the Jesus prayer: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” Or a Hawaiian prayer I’ve learned that goes, “Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” Sometimes I just say the first part, “Thank you. I love you,” over and over, until my mind calms and I center into silence.

Jon: What happens to you in meeting?

There are times I feel awakenings. The sense of time in meeting can feel different. Last week, I felt tense coming into meeting. But the silence was really deep. Two Friends broke silence, asking for songs to be sung. After the first song, I settled more deeply. Sometimes I go into meeting thinking I just want silence, but then someone speaks and it connects me to the God of my understanding, and I leave meeting in peace. I hope that as she grows up my daughter experiences this kind of silence. I hope meeting can be a safe place for her to experience, experiment, and discover. I remember being surprised when I first saw young Friends sitting in silence, some as young as six or seven sitting for the whole hour. It’s nice to worship in an intergenerational space.

Jon: How do you see Quakerism working in your life?

I love the Quaker belief in letting our lives speak. It can be at home with family. When we eat, we pray a silent prayer. Recently Winnie has been able to hold both our hands so we make a circle. In my professional life, I’m working toward being a chaplain. I’ve been doing my clinical hours in a hospital setting. I try to see the encounters I have with people in moments of crisis as being a meeting for worship. It’s a sacred space. Something happens that you can’t put into words. I love chaplaincy. It feels natural to who I am and the spiritual life I’ve been practicing. Often I’m the first Quaker people have encountered. Coming to a ministerial role, as a Quaker, is interesting. People want to put authority on me, but it’s not necessarily something I want. Authority is something I see as shared. In meeting, everyone is a minister, even children. Someone once said, after a meeting in which Winnie had been making baby noises, that they really enjoyed her share. Whether you use words, or sounds, or presence, you have a place in Friends. 

Jon: Have you gotten involved in your meeting?

We went to one young Friends meeting in D.C. before moving to Richmond, and after moving went to a few Friendly Eight suppers. But then we became parents and life got busy. We made a conscious decision not to be on a committee when Winnie was a baby. I’ve recently talked with Jocelyn about taking on a role, and have been holding in the Light what that might be. The meeting has been really welcoming. From the time we began coming, people wanted to hear our stories and what drew us to Friends. We really appreciated the process of becoming members. One of my favorite parts was writing the letter to the meeting declaring I wanted to become a Friend. Before we applied for membership, Jocelyn and I took the time to go to the mountains. We stayed in a bed and breakfast, and wrote our letters in a beautiful place. We sat in silence before we wrote.

Jon: Has anything you’ve read about Quakerism especially impressed you?

Thomas Kelly’s writings really speak to me. I particularly like A Testament of Devotion, in which he talks about holy silence and holy obedience. I’ve been drawn to the contemplative life, monastic spirituality, centering prayer. Kelly describes that contemplative spiritual life. I appreciate the importance on living out belief. Silence is not just inner peace but to be useful to God.

Jon: What would you like to see for Quakerism in the years to come?

I hope more young families can come into meeting and feel welcome, with children, even younger children, like we have. Quakerism can be such a safe and welcoming space for families. As for myself, I hope I can become involved with the larger meeting. We attended our first regional meeting last year. It was great. Seeing a huge business meeting done with the help of the Spirit in a discerning way was wonderful. I love the practice of not moving forward if we’re not in unity; it’s not majority will but the will of a Higher Power. I love how people are drawn to Quakerism. Many of the people I’ve met in Quakerism didn’t grow up in meetings. They came to meeting and encountered a particular experience of the sacred. It felt like home. It’s what happened to me.




Jon Berry

Jon Berry is a Friends Journal trustee. He lives and worships in New York City.

Quaker spirituality - The Australian Friend, Reg Naulty, Canberra and Regions Meeting

Quaker spirituality - The Australian Friend

QUAKER SPIRITUALITY

Reg Naulty, Canberra and Regions Meeting


There is a strong interest in mysticism out there. That is shown by the huge public acceptance given to the work of Eckhart Tolle who writes about Zen Buddhism. His first book The Power of Now made the New York Times best seller list and was translated into thirty languages. A later book, A New Earth, has been published in forty-four languages, and an in-depth webinar he made with Oprah Whitney about its main themes has been watched thirty-five million times.

Friends have a strong mystical tradition, and it has been there from the beginning. A mystical experience is a powerful inward feeling which the person who has it spontaneously believes to be an experience of God. Thus George Fox as he was led away to jail:

I was ravished with the sense of the love of God, and greatly strengthened in my inward man. But when I came into the jail where those prisoners were, a great power of darkness struck at me; and I sat still, having my spirit gathered into the love of God.[1]

The word “ravish” has connotations of being overwhelmed and delighted. Among first generation Friends such experience seems not uncommon. Thus Marmaduke Stephenson in 1655: “I was filled with the love and presence of the living God… for it did increase abound in me like a living stream.”[2] 

There were other mystics in the early heroic period of Friends, Isaac Pennington and William Ledra, for example, so that the time seems to have been something of a Pentecost.

Mysticism keeps recurring in Quaker history. In the eighteenth century, John Woolman had “fresh visitations of heavenly love” which flowed through his various concerns into the social environment. In the nineteenth century there was Caroline Stephen, who identifies a pejorative sense of “mystical” employed by bluff, hearty defenders of common sense:

…a mild term of reproach, to convey a general vague dreaminess. Nothing, certainly could be less applicable to early Friends. They were fiery, dogmatic, pugnacious and intensely practical…[3]

In the twentieth century there were two prominent Quaker mystics, Rufus Jones (1863-1948) and Thomas R. Kelly (1893-1941). Jones wrote books about mysticism; Elizabeth Gray Vining devotes a chapter to his mysticism in her biography of him. Jones believed in a state of unification met with “a burst of joy, of rapture and of radiance”. Those who had seen God, he held, should gird themselves for service.

Thomas R. Kelly wrote vividly about mysticism in his book A Testament of Devotion. “I have been literally melted down by the love of God”[4] he wrote, and, at greater length:

… Holy Fellowship reaches beyond {intellectual assumptions} to the immediacy of experience in God, and seeks contact in this fountainhead of real, dynamic connectedness[5].

Why do Friends have this mystical tradition? 

The habit of centring down in Meeting for Worship has a lot to do with it. 

Once we have centred down, it is easy to move into deep prayer, which is one of the main pathways to mystical experience. 

Many of us, when we pray, pray in a perfunctory way with the top of our minds, which is no way to mystical experience.

Some Friends have the idea that mystical experience is reserved for famous people, not for ordinary people. That is not the case. 

The Quaker writer, Howard Brinton, had three hundred journals by non-famous Quakers in his personal library, and he wrote that they were as valuable a source of material on the history and nature of mysticism as are the writings of many more famous mystics.[6] 

A good book on mysticism is Douglas Steere`s Quaker Spirituality.

----

[1]Rufus M. Jones[ed] The Journal of George Fox. Friends United Press. Richmond. Indiana. 1976.p.116

[2] Christian Faith and Practice in the Experience of The Society of Friends. London Yearly Meeting. 1972. Entry 32.

[3] Douglas V. Steere. Quaker Spirituality. Selected Writings. SPCK London. 1984. p.248

[4] Thomas R. Kelly. A Testament of Devotion. Quaker Home Service. London.1979. p. 19.

[5] Thomas R. Kelly op. cit. p.77

[6] Howard H. Brinton. Quaker Journals. Varieties of Religious Experience Among Friends. Pendle Hill Publications. Wallingford, Pennsylvania. 1972. p.25

Herrymon Maurer and the Tao of Quakerism – Quaker Theology

Herrymon Maurer and the Tao of Quakerism – Quaker Theology

Herrymon Maurer and the Tao of Quakerism

by Anthony Manousos

“When I first read Herrymon’s version of the Tao The Ching, I was bowled over,” recalls Steve Penningroth, a biochemist from Princeton University. “What struck me was the commentary. Without it I was lost. Herrymon’s commentary helped me because I had the sense that he was on to something and that he grasped the problems of the world from a non-dogmatic, spiritual and loving perspective.”

“The book changed my life in many ways,” says Glenn Picher, who was 24 years old and had just been graduated from Princeton University when he first encountered Herrymon and his Tao The Ching. “Herrymon had the voice of a prophet. Being a political radical at the time, I found the jeremiad aspect of this work very attractive.”

Even though many twentieth-century Quakers have been drawn to Taoism, 1 Herrymon Maurer’s Tao The Ching is the only book-length work by an American to explore Taoism from a Quaker/Hasidic (or as Herrymon would say, “prophetic”) perspective. (The work of the Korean Friend Ham Sok Hon also deals with Taoism, but from a very different perspective.)

Herrymon’s interest in Taoism and China was lifelong and deep. From 1938-41, during the Sino-Japanese War, Herrymon taught English in West China, where he first became acquainted with Taoism and experienced first-hand the brute facts of modern combat.2 Deeply impressed by Chinese culture and spiritual wisdom, he wrote a fictionalized life of Lao Tzu in 1943.

Herrymon also had broad-ranging experience in the business world and among Quakers. He was on the staff of Fortune magazine from 1942-45, and afterwards was a contributing writer until 1968. He wrote articles that appeared in Fortune, Life, Reader’s Digest, the old Commentary, the New Leader, and other magazines. He wrote books on topics ranging from Gandhi to big business that were published in Britain, France, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. He also edited a book and wrote a pamphlet for Pendle Hill, a Quaker study center, and was known and respected by “weighty” Quakers, such as Anna and Howard Brinton.

After a lifetime of intense and sometimes compulsive seeking, Herrymon finally achieved, in the last few decades of his life, a measure of hard-earned wisdom, tempered with deep compassion, that was of enormous help to those seeking inner peace and clarity for their lives.

I came to know Herrymon when I first began attending Princeton Meeting in 1984. At that time, Herrymon had turned seventy and had recently become a recorded minister. This distinction was lost upon me as a newcomer to Quakerism. I have since learned that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting –of which Princeton Meeting is a part –virtually gave up the practice of recording ministers nearly fifty years ago. 3 Herrymon’s ministry was considered so important, however, that Princeton Friends felt that it needed to be acknowledged.

I learned about “the Way” of Taoism and Quakerism through a small group that Herrymon helped to establish. It was called “The Surrender Group.” Around one third of its members were AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) “graduates”; the rest were recovering ego-holics, of whom I was (and still am) one.

The “Surrender Group” was started in the early 1970s a few years after Herrymon joined AA and turned his life around. Its format was simple: AA’s Twelve Steps were re-cast, in deference to Quaker practice, as “Ten Queries.” Each week participants would focus on a single query: “Are you willing to make Truth the center of your life?” or “Are you willing to give up compulsions and devices?” The questions were simple, but the responses were often deep and challenging. Participants were encouraged to share from their personal experience, and to help others to understand how we could in fact change our lives. I had never experienced anything quite like it before, or since.

What made the “Surrender Group” dynamic was the presence of recovering alcoholics deeply committed to spiritual transformation, and the presence of Herrymon, whose wisdom and humor pervaded the gathering.

“I don’t think I’d be here today if not for Herrymon and the Surrender Group,” says Harriet, one of the group’s original members. “When I first went to the group, I was 29 years old and had just found out that my husband was manic-depressive. Herrymon helped me get through this crisis spiritually as well as psychologically.”

****

When Herrymon died in August of 1998, his passing was deeply felt by his family and Princeton F/friends, but went mostly unacknowledged elsewhere, even in the Quaker world. Herrymon seemed very much like the low-profile Taoist sage.

When I learned of Herrymon’s death, I felt led to write about him, but found very little material to work with. I was surprised to learn that no memorial minute had been written about him. There was apparently no obituary about him even in Friends Journal.

To find out more about this man whose life was as elusive as the Tao, I decided to interview his wife Helen, who still lives in Princeton. From Helen, I gleaned a picture of Herrymon’s life and realized how little about himself he had revealed during the period that I came to know him.

In 1914 Herrymon Maurer was born in Sewickly, Pennsylvania, a small town outside of Pittsburgh. His father was a high school teacher who died in the great influenza epidemic of 1917. Herrymon was sent to Ohio to live with relatives for several years while his mother went back to school. At age seven Herrymon was sent to Pittsburgh to live with his mother and aunt, both school teachers. Herrymon met his future wife, Helen Singleton, when she was 13 years old; and they soon became friends. The Maurer household was dominated by two very strict and formidable women. In contrast, the Singletons were vivacious and easygoing. Among them Herrymon learned to dance and to appreciate the joys of life. Herrymon became best friends with Helen’s brother, as well as with Helen.

Precocious and gifted, with a penchant for sculpture as well as writing, Herrymon was accepted by Dartmouth College. During his freshman year he contracted rheumatic fever and was sent home. He spent a year in bed recovering. He eventually completed his B.A. in English at the University of Pittsburgh.

Seeking fame and fortune, Herrymon moved to New York, where he stayed at the apartment of Helen’s brother. He was soon joined by Helen, and they were married in 1937.

The newlyweds eked out a living doing various jobs, as was common during the latter days of the Great Depression. Helen had been a social worker since 1933, but she ended up working at the New York World’s Fair. Herrymon wrote advertising copy and did public relations work. Helen recalls that at one point their apartment was full of the latest girdles, complete with new-fangled zippers, about which Herrymon had to write something catchy. He hated that job.

When Herrymon was offered the chance to teach English at the University of Nan-King in Western China in 1938, he leaped at the opportunity. Helen was a bit more cautious, but went along with Herrymon’s enthusiasm and ended up teaching at Jin-Ling, a prestigious women’s university. Traveling to China was a long and arduous journey that took six weeks because of stormy weather, and the stay in war-torn China was no less challenging. It was in China that their first child, Mei-Mei (meaning “Little Sister”), was born in 1939.

China made a deep impression on Herrymon, who eventually wrote two books on the subject, The End is Not Yet: China at War (McBride, 1941) and A Collision of East and West (Regnery, 1951). He also wrote a fictionalized life of Lao-Tzu called The Old Fellow (Doubleday, 1943). The End is Not Yet describes the Sino-Japanese war with a keen journalistic eye and celebrates the dogged, down-to-earth determination of the Chi-nese in the face of Japanese aggression. The Collision of East and West is a philosophical as well as historical reflection on the “four-cornered war between China and Japan, between Japan and the United States, between Japan and Russia, and the cultu-ral and political war between China and the United States.” 4

When the Maurers moved back to the United States in 1941, Herrymon began working on these books as well as writing articles for Fortune and Commentary.

They lived for a while in Westchester county, NY, where Herrymon became a member of Chappaqua Meeting in 1943. Here his daughter Ann was born, to be followed by his son Tom in 1945. As Herrymon’s commitment to pacifism and Quakerism deepened, he wrote Great Soul: The Growth of Gandhi, which was published by Doubleday in 1948.

In 1949 he and his family went to Pendle Hill to head up the publications program. There Herrymon edited The Pendle Hill Reader, a collection of essays by Thomas Kelly, Douglas Steere, Rufus Jones, Arnold Toynbee, Howard Brinton, et al. He also edited a selection from John Woolman’s writings called Worship (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #51, 1949) and wrote a pamphlet called The Power of Truth (Pendle Hill Pamphlet # 53).

During this period Herrymon came to know personally Fritz Eichenberg, the Brintons, the Steeres, the Bacons, and numerous other Friends who passed through this unique Quaker “hotbed” for study and contemplation.

In 1950 Herrymon moved to Princeton and became one of the founding members of Princeton Meeting, when it was resuscitated after WWII. 5 There he continued to write about spiritual matters. In 1953 his cogitations on philosophy and religion, What Can I Know? The Prophetic Answer, was published. This turned out to be the last book that Herrymon published about religious matters for nearly thirty years.

Most of Herrymon’s books were written and published before he turned forty. His religious writings are full of what Yeats called “passionate intensity.” In his Pendle Hill pamphlet, The Power of Truth, Herrymon grapples with the question of the “end of the world” from nuclear holocaust. Herrymon argues that if humanity annihilates itself, it is because we have failed to heed the voices of prophets who are been warning and exhorting us to give up our self-destructive egocentrism. 6

Herrymon derides those who put their faith in social engineering or the Social Gospel–no man-made scheme or panacea will save us if there is no inward transformation. According to Herrymon, we must seek “liberation from our own lies and fears and egotism, and thus liberation from the outward pestilences provoked by inward ills. This liberation has many names. It has been called love, non-violence, non-action, pure wisdom. Gandhi gave it a new name, Satyagraha, the Power of Truth” (12). As a solution to America’s racial problems, Herrymon proposes using the same techniques that Gandhi used, thereby anticipating Martin Luther King’s non-violent Civil Rights movement by several years. 7

In Herrymon’s view, Truth is universal, and so are prophets. He sees Lao-Tsu, Isaiah, Jesus, Muhammad, George Fox, John Woolman, and Gandhi as all espousing the same universal Truth. He writes: “I am also struck to find that God as Lao-tzu, the great Chinese Taoist, encountered him is in no sharp contrast to God as the great prophets of Israel encountered him” (p. 56). Herrymon acknowledges that universal Truth may be perceived and interpreted differently because of different social and historical circumstances. 8

For Herrymon, the great prophets are eternally contemporary. He sees Quakerism and Hasidism as “most successful in preserving prophetic vitality” (p. 62). 9

Herrymon was convinced that prophets continue to live among us, often in the disguise of “ordinary people” and friends who have had direct encounters with Truth (this is a belief shared by Quakers and Hasidim). He describes such prophets as

persons of ready humor, but also of deep seriousness. Not one of them has that steady serenity of mind that makes the mystic or the saint. (The prophetic and the serene, I suspect, are not altogether compatible.) These friends may have times of joy, but they have recurrent times of anguish, tension, distaste, and sorrow. There is always the eternal conflict between the inalterably true and the world as it is; the prophetic function is always to bear conflict and anguish and turn them to use (What Can I Know?: 66)

Those who knew Herrymon will recognize this as a self-portrait, for he was a “man of sorrows” who had a wonderful sense of humor and irony, and an abiding passion for honesty and Truth.

After Herrymon’s powerfully prophetic statements, it may seem strange that he wrote no more about religion for nearly three decades. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, he worked sporadically for Fortune magazine as editor and writer. He summed up his detailed knowledge of business in Great Enterprise: Growth and Behavior of the Big Corporation (MacMillan, 1955) –a work that dispassionately treats the rise of corporatism as a fact of life, or as a force of nature, without passing judgment or offering any critique. His professional writings of this period display lucidity, but no trace of inspiration or prophesy.

What caused the prophetic fires to die out, or at least become dormant, in Herrymon?

One answer is that he suffered from chronic alcoholism as well as bouts of depression that sapped his strength and undermined his confidence, particularly in his mid-life. From the 1940s on, he tried every cure imaginable, from psychotherapy to shock therapy. Nothing seemed able to exorcize his inner demons for very long.

Because of his alcoholism and mood swings, Herrymon’s relations with his family were often strained. His wife Helen, a woman of extraordinary faith, love, and common sense, helped to keep Herrymon and the family together during these difficult times. It was Helen who saw the Dr. Jekyll in Herrymon when alcohol turned him into Mr. Hyde.

A psychiatric social worker, Helen was an associate professor at Rutgers University for many years. Her specialty was depression and schizophrenia. She worked at Carrier Clinic in Princeton as a coordinator of social services until her retirement at age 74.

“We managed to get through it,” she says, recalling Herrymon’s drinking and the dark times in her marriage, and laughing. “It was never dull.”

When drinking heavily, Herrymon could at times become belligerent and very un-Quakerly. One Saturday night he got into a fist fight at a bar and showed up the next day at Quaker Meeting wearing sunglasses to cover up his black eye. He was in his forties and the clerk of Meeting when this incident occurred.

One of the worst episodes took place when Herrymon was in his early 50s. One night, when Helen and his family were away, he drank too much and set fire to his bed, probably as a result of smoking. Severely burned, he called a family doctor, who rushed to his house at 4:00 AM and drove him to the nearest emergency ward, thereby saving his life. Herrymon was in the hospital for over six weeks with major burns, and the DTs. Helen was his constant companion from the crack of dawn until midnight. When he came to his senses, Herrymon asked Helen where she had been all those weeks.

A couple of years later, in 1965, Herrymon joined Alcoholics Anonymous. He was fifty-six years old. According to his daughter Mei-Mei, “AA was the greatest thing in his life.” Herrymon sometimes told his friends: “AA saved my life.”

In one of his last articles for Fortune, “The Beginning of Wisdom about Alcoholism” (May 1968), Herrymon writes of alcoholism as “an illness of the magnitude of heart trouble, cancer, and severe mental disorder” and lauds AA as one of the best programs for dealing with this insidious disease.

Thanks to AA, Herrymon finally stopped drinking and found a support group that helped him to regain some stability in his life. Gradually his old passion for Truth (as he liked to call it) revived. He still suffered from depression and mood swings and needed medication (and psychiatric counseling) to cope, but he no longer felt possessed by the craving for alcohol.

With a new lease on life, he started the Surrender Group, became more actively involved in his Friends Meeting, and went back to his “old loves”–the Tao The Ching, John Woolman, and Gandhi. In the mid-1970s he began working on a series of four interconnected books he called The Way of the Ways. These books reflect the major influences of Herrymon’s spiritual life: Taoism, “prophetic” scriptures (including the writings of George Fox and Martin Buber), John Woolman, and Mohandas Gandhi.

In the 1970s, Herrymon also joined the Board of Fellowship in Prayer (FIP), an organization started by Carl Evans, a retired businessman and former Presbyterian missionary in China, in 1949. Deeply disturbed by the Cold War and the threat of nuclear holocaust, Evans placed an ad in the NY Times calling for an interfaith “fellowship in prayer” to promote peace and received an enthusiastic response from Roman Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, and others. The organization eventually received a Lilly Foundation grant, which enabled it to distribute its publications for free. Herrymon learned of FIP through his friend Paul Griffith, a novelist who became editor of FIP in 1966 and continued till his death in 1983.

The following year a young Quaker named Ed Miller became managing editor of FIP, largely through Herrymon’s efforts. Ed Miller was a bright young seeker in his late 30s, looking for a direction in his life, when he encountered Herrymon’s Tao The Ching, which was published by FIP in 1982. Reading it, Ed was astounded.

“This was the Reagan era,” recalls Ed, “and I wondered, ‘How could this guy have published this and not be in jail?’”

Ed bought up five copies to give to friends and then discovered that the author lived in Princeton. He called Herrymon, and they met at Princeton Meeting. There Ed found the spiritual community he was seeking, and a mentor.

“I became Herrymon’s surrogate son,” says Ed. “Herrymon and I had a lot of personality characteristics, and faults, in common. He helped me turn my life around.”

Herrymon’s son Tom had died tragically in 1972, at age 27.

Ed and Mary Beth became members of Princeton Meeting, participants in the Surrender Group, and frequent attenders of the Maurers’ Friday evening gatherings, which sometimes drew as many as 20-30 people–many of them young seekers like the Millers. Working for Fellowship in Prayer, Ed had the opportunity to broaden his spiritual horizons.

When I came to Princeton in 1984 after a stint as a college professor, Ed introduced me to Quakerism and eventually hired me as his editorial assistant at Fellowship in Prayer

This is when I began to study in earnest Herrymon’s Tao The Ching–a work that I found astonishing in its scope and depth. For the past twenty years, I have treasured my dog-eared copy and frequently return to it during my meditations. It remains a buried treasure, however–one that deserves to be more widely known and appreciated.

The Tao of Quakerism

What distinguishes Herrymon Maurer’s version of the Tao The Ching is its recognition that Lao Tzu belongs to a prophetic tradition that connects all religions and times. Herrymon uses the word “prophetic” to refer not to those who imagine that they can foretell the future, but rather to those who believe themselves to be called (often reluctantly) to speak on behalf of what Herrymon (and early Quakers) called the Truth.

“Truth” is not an idea or a philosophic concept, but a way of life, an attitude towards the great mystery of existence that cannot be defined or explained, but can only be experienced.

The prophet’s primary concern is 1) to warn the community that has turned away from Truth, 2) to expose the idols and false gods that prevent us from experiencing Truth, and 3) to show the dire consequences of denying Truth and the blessings that can occur when we return to Truth. The prophets of Israel decried social injustices, such as economic oppression, environmental degradation, and war, seeing them as symptoms or consequences of being out of touch with Divine Truth.

As has been noted before, Herrymon saw Lao Tzu as part of the same prophetic community as Isaiah, the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, George Fox, John Woolman, Martin Buber, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.

For these prophets, as well as for Herrymon, the Way of Truth was not something otherwordly or metaphysical, but something real and practical–a way of personal and social liberation and transformation.

Using a Taoist perspective, Herrymon explores a wide range of contemporary social issues and problems, from sexuality to fundamentalism, from social activism to monetary policy, from publicity-seeking to our obsession with violence and war. At the root of all our problems (and our sometimes knee-jerk responses to them) Herrymon sees self-will or addiction to self. He writes about the current state of ego-centered “conventional” society with wit, irony, and insight.

His style is more formal than that of many popular writers and is at times reminiscent of Dr. Johnson, the eighteenth-century literary and social critic. Underlying Herrymon’s formality is a deep concern for Truth born out of personal struggles. When Herrymon talks about addictive behavior, or obsession with success, or futile efforts to oppose war, he knows whereof he speaks. His satire of the self-serving peace activist is bound to make some Quakers wince:

Suppose, for example, that I have convictions on the subject of peace. I am stricken by the possibility of atomic conflagration and convinced that it is increased by armaments and the threat of war….I argue strenuously for my understanding of history, current events, and future projections. I undertake to gather large crowds of marching and shouting demonstrators, and try to win publicity for them, hopefully television publicity….I orate with emotion. I call names. I demonstrate. I instill fear. I tell other people what to do. But other people, precisely the other people whose minds I seek to alter, see clearly that what I am really seeking is the power to become a celebrity, an authority figure. (48)

The obsessive use of the word “I” is a good indication of where the speaker is really coming from. To become a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, Herrymon suggests, we need to base our activism not on an intellectual analysis or on a personal desire to “save the world,” but rather on a deep commitment to the Way of Truth. This commitment requires giving up our ego-centered perspective and joining in a community of fellow seekers.

Herrymon sees the Tao The Ching as an antidote to one of the most pervasive problems of our time–violence. According to Herrymon, all forms of violence–from gang violence to wars and acts of terrorism–spring from attachment to self. I am apt to resort to violence — whether physical, verbal, or psychological — when I regard myself, my gang, my family, my ethnic group, my political faction, my religion, or my country as the most important thing in the universe. Non-violence springs from a recognition that my neighbor is just as important, just as sacred in the eyes of God, as I am.

The Tao The Ching has long appealed to those of pacifist tendencies. It was composed during a period of Chinese history when China was torn apart by war lords. It contains numerous passages condemning war, many of which speak to our time:

When people don’t mind death

Why threaten them with death? (174)

When armies clash,

The one that grieves wins (169).

A good soldier is not violent,

A good soldier has no wrath.

The best way to win over an enemy

is not to compete with him. (168)

Where armies are

Briars and brambles grow.

Bad harvests follow big wars.

Be firm and that is all:

Dare not rely on force.

Be firm but not haughty,

Firm but not boastful,

Firm but not proud,

Firm when necessary,

Firm but non-violent (126).

Fine weapons are tools of ill fortune;

All things seem to hate them.

Whoever has Tao does not depend on them…

Treat victory like a funeral. (127)

What others have taught, I also teach:

Men of violence perish by it. (139)

Herrymon’s commentaries link these passages with sayings by Western anti-war prophets, such as Jesus, “All they that take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matthew 26: 52), and Isaiah, “Your hands are full of bloodshed, wash yourselves clean, banish your evil doings from my sight, cease to do wrong, learn to do right, make justice all your aim, and put a check on violence” (Isaiah 1:15-17).

Some readers may find it objectionable that Herrymon uses the word “man” in the generic sense rather than inclusive language, but Herrymon makes it clear that Lao Tsu was opposed to patriarchy and to any form of sexism. “While Lao Tsu makes frequent use of the word man, in Chinese a generic term for human being regardless of sex,” writes Herrymon, “Lao Tzu is not patriarchal (in this he is unlike Confucius) and tends to favor the maternal. Among writers of the Bronze Age, when patriarchy completely overcame the matrilocalism of the New Stone Age, he was the one known feminist” (110). Throughout his work Lao Tzu refers to the Tao as a female (often as “the Mother”) and extols the feminine principle over the male. As the ironic Taoist sage says:

All men have their uses;

I alone am stubborn and uncouth.

But I differ most from the others

In prizing food drawn from my Mother (114).

Herrymon may be the first commentator to appreciate the important connection between Taoism and Martin Buber. Scholars are now coming to appreciate that Martin Buber was deeply interested in and influenced by Taoism, particularly the stories of Chuang-Tzu, which he translated and wrote about early in his career. 10

Being an English professor rather than a Chinese scholar by training, I can appreciate the literary value but cannot assess the scholarly worth of Herrymon’s translation. It is clear that Herrymon took pains to be as accurate and careful as possible in his translation. Chinese scholars agree that translating the Tao The Ching is extremely difficult and all translations are colored to some extent by the translator’s perspectives and biases.

The language of the original is so spare that it is often hard to translate, much less interpret. For example, the Chinese characters for Chapter 4:1 literally mean:

Tao empty and use it

seem not full.

Most translators embellish the original with metaphorical and abstract language:

“Existence, by nothing bred, /Breeds everything”: Brynner;

“The Tao is like a well:/used but never used up”: Mitchell;

“The Way is like an empty vessel,/That yet may be drawn forever”: Waley. 11

Herrymon’s only addition to the text is an exclamation point, suggesting a sense of wonder at an emptiness that is somehow the source of everything:

Tao is empty! Use it

And it isn’t used up.

Whenever possible, Herrymon keeps to the concreteness of the Chinese (for examples, he uses the Chinese idiom “ten thousand things” instead of saying “all things”). Herrymon chooses this kind of exactitude even when the results may be somewhat confusing since “existing translations attempt to make [Lao Tsu] understandable,” i.e. confirm to the translator’s interpretation of reality. Herrymon feels that such efforts thwart Lao Tsu’s purpose, which was to avoid “naming things and cogitating theories.” In other words, ambiguity is a necessary part of the Tao The Ching, as it is in life itself. In Herrymon’s view, a translator should not try to make comprehensible what may be intentionally or unintentionally obscure.

Now and then, however, Herrymon uses a Western term to translate an ambiguous Chinese phrase. For example, the conclusion of Chapter 25 reads:

Thus persons are to be looked at:

As a person,

Families as a family,

Villages as a village,

Countries as a country,

Beneath-heaven as beneath-heaven.

How do I know beneath-heaven?

By this. (151)

Herrymon translates “by this” with the Quaker term “Inward Light” and then explains in the commentary why he thinks this term is appropriate. 12

One of the appealing features of Herrymon’s translation is its aphoristic quality–an effort to capture the spirit of the Chinese original. Herrymon eliminates unnecessary pronouns and sometimes uses rhyme to make phrases incisive and memorable,

When Tao is cast aside,

Duty and humanity abide.

When prudence and wit appear,

Great hypocrites are here (Chapter 18: 194).

If the Tao can be Taoed, its not Tao.

If its name can be named, it’s not its name.

Has no name: precedes heaven and earth.

Has a name: mother of the ten thousand things.

For it is always dispassionate;

See its inwardness

Always passionate:

See its outwardness.

The names are different

But the source the same.

Call the sameness mystery:

Mystery of mystery, the door to inwardness. (Chapter 1: 93)

A major purpose of Herrymon’s terse, unembellished translation is to encourage the reader not to cogitate, but to meditate on the text–and on the Tao which inspired it.

Those who are concerned about the pervasive violence in today’s world will be challenged and inspired by Herrymon’s unique translation and commentary on the Tao The Ching. Herrymon wrote not for scholars but for “suffering and seeking human beings” (92). In his view, Tao The Ching is not an historical artifact, but a “living growing thing”–capable of opening our minds and hearts to the Way of Truth, Love, and Peace.

Notes

1. Among them was the Quaker educator and scholar Howard Brinton, who alludes to a Taoist anecdote in Friends For Three Hundred Years. Teresina Havens, a long-time practitioner of both Buddhism and Quakerism, summed up Quaker/Taoist mysticism with this telling passage from her Pendle Hill pamphlet, Mind What Stirs in the Heart:

There is in each of us a deep-flowing River. Some call it Tao or Life source, others the Indwelling Spirit, still others simply Energy. Our life rests upon It; we are carried and cradled by It, as the child by its Mother.

2. Of this experience Herrymon writes: “One day in Chengtu, after a particularly severe bombing, more than twenty wounded Chinese were carried to the lawn of the home of a Western physician. There were no facilities for blood transfusions; the shrapnel wounds were deep; and first-aid measures ensured the lives of only a few of those whose families had carried them to a place where they hoped for help. Few words were spoken. Families and friends knelt on the ground beside the forms from which life and blood were flowing. Eyes attempted to convey the feelings which tongues and lips could not phrase. A scene of suffering; a scene of death . . .”The Westerners view the scene with frustration, saying to themselves, “If we could only do something,” while the Chinese accept the realities of death, and life, with Taoist resignation. “One Chinese–a coolie dressed in a faded blue coat with a ragged towel for headgear–looked up at the physician and recognized the strain in the lines of his face. His own eyes were sorrowful beyond tears. ‘Mei-yu fat-tze, l-sen, ta sze-lo,’ he said gently and comfortingly, ‘There is no help for it, doctor; she is dead’” (The Old Fellow, p. 89-90).

3. Because Friends believe that every member of Meeting is a minister, it seemed unnecessary to single out or record an individual Friend for his or her ministry.

4. In an introduction to this book, the Chinese scholar and former Chinese ambassador Hu Shih writes: “Mr. Maurer is a thoughtful writer who interprets world events with the sympathetic understanding of the true philosopher. For he is philosopher who lives his philosophy. He is a Quaker . . . . He is deeply attracted by Lao-Tze, who taught non-resistance five centuries before Jesus of Nazareth, and by Gandhi, who achieved the great miracle of modern times in winning the independence of India by nonviolence.”

5. The town of Princeton was founded by Quakers, but after the American Revolution, their influence declined and the Princeton Friends Meeting was laid down in the late 19th century.

6. Herrymon’s tone is uncompromising and bleak: “It is essential to grasp the nature of the destruction that we may indeed bring upon ourselves: a destruction not just of evil places or of evil people, but a destruction of all places, all people. For the torment of our times, for the evil in them, for our wars, for our fears, we are all responsible. The pacifist is as responsible for war as the militarist, the doer of good works as responsible for poverty as the oppressor, the man of prayer as responsible for ignorance of Truth as the blasphemer. If but a handful among us were completely given to the light of Truth, our world could not remain sunk in torment. But there is no such handful. There is no remnant. All are responsible; each one is responsible. There is no purely personal salvation; if we do not seek to be joined in Truth with every living human person (and, in a sense, with every one who is dead) we shall be damned separately. There is no indication that the Kingdom of God is to be won by merely personal initiative” (The Power of Truth, pp. 7-8).

7. Herrymon writes that “outward arguments” and changes in laws will not alter racial discrimination: “In the South, Jim Crow is not likely to be broken down until groups of concerned Southerners systematically violate local law and custom and suffer willingly whatever injuries and wrath and mob wrath ensue” (21).

8. Herrymon writes: “I am not trying to overlook the widespread differences in outward appearances, often in basic motivations, that have kept various religions distinct. God is not changeable, but men at different times and places know him differently” (What Can I Know? p. 57).

9. “Both movements retain some strength today, Quakerism through the occasional flashing of its old prophetic light, Hassidism through the writing of the contemporary scholar, Martin Buber, a man strongly marked by the prophetic” (What Can I Know? p. 63).

10. See I and Tao: Martin Buber’s Encounter with Chuang Tsu (1996) by Jonathan Herman. Also, Chinese Tales: Zhuangzi (1991) trans. By Alex Page, with an introduction by Irene Eber.

11. See “On Translating the Tao-Te-Ching” by Michael La Forgue and Julian Pas, in Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue, eds. Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 277-293.

12. Herrymon writes: “The inwardness which Lao Tzu designates by the pronoun this is the Way by which we are taught as well as the Way upon which we journey. That is, men and women follow Light, and it is Light that informs them both about Truth and the road on which it is to be followed” (151).

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Introductory Booklist | Readings about Quakers and Quakerism

Introductory Booklist | Quaker Information Center



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Introductory Booklist

Submitted by QICadmin on Wed, 2011-06-08 12:41

Readings about Quakers and Quakerism

This is a list of suggested readings for beginners in Quakerism. It is slanted towards the liberal branch of American Friends and reflects the biases of the person who compiled it (Chel Avery). It is a selective, "starter" list of titles to choose from in several categories. There are many other fine Quaker books in print, and if someone suggests another title to you, please don't assume that its absence from this list is necessarily a criticism of it.

All the books listed below are available from the Friends General Conference Bookstore (www.quakerbooks.org or 1-800-966-4556). Most are also available from the Pendle Hill Bookstore (www.pendlehill.org or 800-742-3150 ext. 2).

[For different booklists, 

see the one posted by Friends United Meeting (includes pastoral Friends): www.fum.org/bookstore/short_list.htm or

 the one posted by the Friends General Conference bookstore at www.quakerbooks.org/essentials/basic_quakerism_book_lists.php.]

Overview - who are Quakers?

Hamm, Thomas, Quakers in America. (A concise history of the Religious Society of Friends, an introduction to Quaker beliefs and practices, and a vivid picture of the culture and controversies of Friends today. Freshly published.)

Brinton, Howard, Friends for 350 Years. (A slightly updated version of the classic Friends for 300 Years. Either one is fine. Even the more recent version of this book is a bit dated, but it is still a classic, definitive explanation of who Quakers are and how we function, socially and religiously.)

Guides for entry into the Quaker world:

Birkel, Michael, Silence and Witness: The Quaker Tradition. (Introduction to Quaker thought, practice and spiritual life. Interlaces historic writing and current thought.)

Brinton, Howard, Guide to Quaker Practice. (This booklet provides an overview of how the Friends community works--worship, structure, decision making, testimonies, and more. A bit dated, but still excellent.)

Punshon, John, Encounter With Silence: Reflections from the Quaker Tradition. (A small, rich, and readable book on Quaker worship. The writer speaks personally from his own experience as a Christian Friend.)

Pym, Jim: Listening to the Light: How to Bring Quaker Simplicity and Integrity Into Our Lives. (Summarizes liberal Quaker thought and spiritual practice. Language and descriptions of Quaker structures are British. The writer speaks personally from his own experiences as a universalist Friend.)

Smith, Robert Lawrence: A Quaker Book of Wisdom: Life Lessons in Simplicity, Service and Common Sense. (Personal reflections by a lifelong Friend who came of age in the World War II generation, looking back on his roots in a Quaker family and community. Easy read.)

Taber, William: Four Doors to Meeting for Worship. (This pamphlet describes the different levels on which we prepare for and experience silent worship. A good guide to deep and authentic worship.)

The Faith and Practice book of your yearly meeting. (These publications, sometimes called "Disciplines," serve as guidebooks for members. See www.quakerinfo.org/quakerism/fandplinks.html for the ones that are available online.)

Inspirational:

Kelly, Thomas, A Testament of Devotion. (A short book of devotional essays written in the mid-twentieth century. Still widely read among Friends.)

Moulton, Phillips, ed. Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman. (Classic American and Quaker literature. An 18th century New Jersey Friend records his efforts to "walk the walk" of his Quaker faith. Other editions by other editors may be found in libraries, and are equally worthy. Also available on audio cassettes.)

 Earlier version available online in digital form at Bartleby.
West, Jessamyn: Quaker Reader. (Selections from writings of well known early Friends.)

Historical:

Bacon, Margaret Hope: The Quiet Rebels. (Lightweight history of American Friends.)
Newman, Daisy, A Procession of Friends. (Quaker history and principles related as a series of short narratives.)
Punshon, John, Portrait in Grey: A Short History. (More scholarly than the other two, but still very readable.)

If you are considering applying for membership in the near future:
Your yearly meeting's Faith and Practice (see above). If you haven't already taken a good look at it, now is the time.

Gates, Tom, Members One of Another. (This pamphlet describes ways that we evolve in our relationship with the meeting community, what we need, and what we have to offer at different points in the process. Highly recommended.)

For children:

The Quaker Way by the Religious Education Committee of Friends General Conference. (A simple guide to Quaker faith and practice for upper elementary and middle school students. Could be read and discussed with a younger elementary child. The essentials in clear and simple language.)

Advanced reading:

The books below are classics (or in one case, will be), but are perhaps better saved until you have gotten your feet wet.

Bownas, Samuel, A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister. (An early Quaker work providing practical and spiritual guidance on how to nurture and deepen spoken ministry in meetings for worship. Slightly revised for modern readers.) - Available online in downloadable pdf format from Google Books.

Journal of George Fox - any edition. (Currently in print is the version edited by John Nickalls-other editions can be found in libraries. Considered by many to be the founder of Quakerism, Fox provides an account in his journal of his experiences during the early years of the movement.) - 1694 version available online in downloadable pdf format from Google Books. Searchable, digital version available online at the Digital Quaker Collection at Earlham School of Religion.

Freiday, Dean, Barclay's Apology in Modern English. (Classic systematic statement of Quaker faith by the first Quaker theologian. Shorter and annotated versions are also available. Or if you're a serious scholar, go to a library and get the original, unaltered version of Robert Barclay's Apology in 17th century English.)

Wilson, Lloyd Lee, Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order. (Wilson gives the reader both a historical perspective and a contemporary understanding of the deeper meaning of basics like meetings for worship and for business, spiritual gifts, leadings and ministry.)

Live & Recorded Lectures - Pendle Hill - A Quaker study, retreat, and conference center near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Live & Recorded Lectures - Pendle Hill - A Quaker study, retreat, and conference center near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Live Streaming at Pendle Hill

From anywhere you have a desktop computer, laptop/tablet, or mobile device, you can now watch many of the lectures and presentations we have on campus each and every month. Listen to and watch our Monday Night Lecture Series with past speakers such as Eileen Flanagan, Barbara Briggs, John and Diana Lampen, and others. Tune into conference lectures and presentations on topics that are of spiritual or personal interest to you. We are so happy and excited to bring you these wonderful speakers, and have you connect with our Pendle Hill community. Have a conflict? Don’t worry. Most of our recorded lectures will be available on our YouTube channel shortly after the event has “aired.”

NB: All scheduled events are Eastern Time (US & Canada).
Upcoming Live Stream/Recorded Events

The Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture 2021: Radical Transformation ~ Long Overdue for the Religious Society of Friends (Vanessa Julye)
Monday, September 13, 2021 ~ 7:30-9:00pm

Myths of Gender (Cai Quirk)
Monday, October 4, 2021 ~ 7:30-9:00pm

Hope and Witness in Dangerous Times (Brent Bill)
Monday, November 1, 2021 ~ 7:30-9:00pm

Into the Night: Holiness of Darkness (Rev. Rhetta Morgan)
Monday, December 6, 2021 ~ 7:30-9:00pm
Past Live Stream/Recorded Events

A Quaker Theological Ecosystem (Christy Randazzo)
Monday, August 2, 2021

Better Than Good: Seven Testimonies for Quaker Caregiving (Windy Cooler)
Monday, June 7, 2021

Healing the Disconnect (Marcelle Martin)
Monday, May 3, 2021

Gospels for Our Times: A New Translation Inviting Dialogue and Tolerance (Sarah Ruden and David Rosenberg)
Monday, April 19, 2021

The Gathered Meeting and Embodied Quaker Voices (Stanford Searl)
Monday, April 5, 2021

Returning to Creative and Spiritual Playfulness (Jesse White)
Monday, March 1, 2021

A Celebration of Disciplined Listening: Learnings from Couple Enrichment at Home and in the Meeting (Mike and Marsha Green)
Monday, February 1, 2021

Re-creating Hope (Francisco Burgos)
Monday, January 4, 2021

Healing Ancestral Trauma: What is Epigenetics and Why Does it Matter? (Erva Baden)
Monday, December 7, 2020

What Happens Wednesday? Preparing Ourselves for the Work Ahead (Eileen Flanagan)
Monday, November 2, 2020

Can Quakers and Others Help Prevent an American Slide Into Dictatorship? Hint: Nonviolence Will Be Key! (George Lakey)
Monday, October 5, 2020

Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture 2020: The Road to Pendle Hill (Thomas D. Hamm)
Saturday, September 19, 2020

First Monday Series: Planting in an Earthquake ~ Balancing Patience and Urgency in a Time of Change (Ricardo Levins Morales)
Monday, June 1, 2020

First Monday Series: The Jesus Way in the World Today (Shane Claiborne)
Monday, May 4, 2020

First Monday Series: Love in a Time of Coronavirus (John Calvi)
Monday, April 6, 2020

First Monday Series: The Search for Common Ground in the Midst of Division (Mary Wade and Drick Boyd)
Monday, March 2, 2020

First Monday Series: Creating Beloved Community by Supporting Faithfulness (Marcelle Martin)
Monday, February 3, 2020

First Monday Series: Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love ~ Four Essentials for the Abundant Life (J. Brent Bill)
Monday, January 6, 2020

First Monday Series: Being & Belonging in Beloved Community (Rev. Dr. Joni Carley)
Monday, December 2, 2019

Poetry and Prayer: Poems to Deepen the Language of the Heart (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Monday, October 28, 2019

First Monday Series: Hope at the Intersection of Climate, Race, Justice, and Democracy (Friends Economic Integrity Project)
NB: Click to view handout with additional information and resource references in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
NB: Click to view short biographies of the presenters in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
Monday, October 7, 2019

First Monday Series: What the River Told Me: Reflections on Love, Oneness, and the Living World (Christopher Swain)
NB: Click to view Christopher’s PowerPoint presentation in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
Monday, September 9, 2019

First Monday Series: Good News for the Poor/Oppressed (Steven Davison)
Monday, August 5, 2019

First Monday Series: A Desert Theology of Liberation – Entering the Journey of God’s People as Refugee, Outsider, Slave, and Exile in the Urban Desert (Raj Lewis)
NB: Click here to view Raj’s PowerPoint presentation in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
Monday, June 3, 2019

Friends’ Peace Teams: 25 Years of Peacemaking (Val Liveoak)
Monday, May 20, 2019

“…a few exceptions…”: Philadelphia Quakers and the Civil War (George Conyne)
Monday, April 27, 2019

Three Great Themes of the Bible: 2. Peace/Nonviolence (Sarah Ruden)
NB: Click here for a transcript of Sarah’s talk in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
Monday, April 22, 2019

Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture 2019: Tumult, Turmoil and Truth – Vital Quaker Witness Today (Diane Randall, FCNL Executive Secretary)
Monday, April 1, 2019

First Monday Series: Confronting the Role of Antisemitism in Preserving Power Structures (Rabbi Mordechai Liebling)
Monday, March 4, 2019

Three Great Themes of the Bible: 1. Compassion (Sarah Ruden)
NB: Click here for a transcript of Sarah’s talk in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
Monday, February 18, 2019

First Monday Series: The Healing Power of Telling Truth About the Past (Samuel Lemon)
Monday, February 4, 2019

First Monday Series: Money, Debt, and Liberation (Pamela Haines)
Monday, January 7, 2019

First Monday Series: Liberated or Unhinged? A Quaker Woman’s Witness to War (Lyn Back)
Monday, December 3, 2018

First Monday Series: How Direct Action Campaigns Serve Personal and Social Liberation (George Lakey)
Monday, November 5, 2018

First Monday Series: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times – How Our Present Global Crisis Could Liberate Us from Ego and Its Empires (Patricia A. Pearce)
Monday, September 3, 2018

First Monday Series: Liberation Begins with Being There (Dr. Chloe Schwenke)
NB: Click here for a transcript of Chloe’s talk in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
Monday, June 4, 2018

A Heart Story: Artist’s Talk (Arla Patch)
Thursday, May 17, 2018

Black Fire: An African American Quaker Seeker-Activist in a White Supremacist Nation (Dr. Hal Weaver)
Monday, May 14, 2018

First Monday Series: Can We Decolonize Time? Thinking About Settlement, Justice, and Indigenous Oral History (Jill Stauffer)
Monday, May 7, 2018

Truth and Healing Conference Keynote Presentations
Truth and Healing Keynote (Dr. Denise Lajimodiere)
Truth and Healing Keynote (Mark Charles)
Truth and Healing Keynote (Paula Palmer)
Thursday, May 3 – Sunday, May 6, 2018

The Keithian Controversy (Madeleine Ward)
Monday, April 23, 2018

Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture 2018: Holding Tension – Making a Place at the Table for Continuing Revelation (Sarah Willie-LeBreton)
Monday, April 2, 2018

First Monday Series: Hidden in Plain Sight – The Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware (Chief Dennis J. Coker)
Monday, February 5, 2018

First Monday Series: Coming Alive – Discerning the Next Chapter of Quaker Service (Christina Repoley)
Monday, September 4, 2017

First Monday Series: This Worldwide Struggle – The International Roots of the Civil Rights Movement (Sarah Azaransky)
Monday, August 7, 2017

First Monday Series: Working Towards Wholeness Within and Outwardly (Greg Woods)
Monday, June 5, 2017

Expanding Democracy Conference Plenary Sessions
Expanding Democracy Plenary (Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler)
Expanding Democracy Plenary (Jonathan Matthew Smucker)
Expanding Democracy Plenary (George Lakey)
Expanding Democracy Plenary (Ricardo Levins Morales)
Thursday, May 11 – Sunday, May 14, 2017

First Monday Series: The Healthiest Forest – Biodiversity and Old-Growth (Joan Maloof)
Monday, May 1, 2017

The 2017 Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture: Quakers Addressing Israel/Palestine – Advocacy or Reconciliation? (Stephen Zunes)
Monday, April 3, 2017

First Monday Series: Reaching Beyond the Choir (Jonathan Matthew Smucker)
Monday, March 6, 2017

First Monday Series: Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got It Right – and How We Can, Too! (George Lakey)
Monday, December 5, 2016

Moral Economy Conference Plenary Sessions
Moral Economy Plenary (Gar Alperovitz)
Moral Economy Plenary (Judy Wicks – click to view her slideshow images)
Moral Economy Plenary (Esteban Kelly)
Moral Economy Plenary (Mark Engler & George Lakey)
Thursday, December 1 – Sunday, December 4, 2016

First Monday Series: White Allies in the Fight for Racial Justice – Yesterday and Today (Drick Boyd)
Monday, October 3, 2016

The 2016 Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture: Raising Quakers in a Secular Society (Emma Lapsansky-Werner)
Monday, April 4, 2016

BCP Keynote: Restorative Practices at the Root of Deep Democracy and the Beloved Community (Kay Pranis)
Thursday, March 10, 201

First Monday Series: The Slave Down the Street (Carol Metzker)
Monday, March 7, 2016

First Monday Series: Let us be what Love will do (.O)
Monday, February 1, 2016

First Monday Series: Parallel Journeys – A Pilgrim’s Way Home (Christiane Meunier)
Monday, January 4, 2016

First Monday Series: Still Here – The Lenape Today (Rev. Pastor J.R. Norwood)
Monday, December 7, 2015

First Monday Series: The Witness of God in Everyone – Toward an Inclusive, Contemporary, Quaker Theologizing (Jeff Dudiak)
NB: Click here for a transcript of Jeff’s talk in Acrobat Reader (PDF) format.
Monday, November 2, 2015

First Monday Series: A Great People to Be Scattered – The Life and Times of Pendle Hill (Doug Gwyn)
Monday, October 5, 2015

First Monday Series: Faith and Work – The Struggle for Labor Rights and Corporate Accountability in the Global Economy (Barbara Briggs)
Monday, September 7, 2015

First Monday Series: Creating a Culture of Peace in Western Uganda (John and Diana Lampen)
Monday, August 3, 2015

FGC Gathering 2015 ~ Plenary Session (Parker J. Palmer)
Thursday, July 9, 2015

The 2015 Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture: A Theology of Togetherness – A Quaker Pastor Speaks (Phil Gulley)
Monday, May 4, 2015

Ending Mass Incarceration and the New Jim Crow ~ Interview (Michelle Alexander)
Thursday, April 30, 2015

First Monday Series: Strategic, Successful, and Spiritually Grounded Activism (Eileen Flanagan)
Monday, April 6, 2015