tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post7236377638045039005..comments2024-01-31T15:10:55.111+00:00Comments on Transition Quaker: What Can We Say?Craig Barnetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16201061939693242954noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-42010321884862052015-02-12T19:19:47.235+00:002015-02-12T19:19:47.235+00:00Jim, I don't see you characterizing the experi...Jim, I don't see you characterizing the experience of Presence as individualism. Instead, I see you discerning that with the loss of traditional Quaker Christianity there came a hyper-individualism to replace it; not the Presence. Further, I see you saying that it would be better to have the tradition in place as a formative structure than the hyper-individualism that has usurped it. Your ideas, if I have correctly understood your thought, are in keeping with the wisdom of our tradition, both according to Jesus (in many places but most clearly in Mt.5) and according to Fox. In his tract "The Sorcerer and the Adulterous Seed," Fox upholds the tradition, the Law and the Testimony (prophetic witness), when he writes: "Now who comes to the Law and to the Testimony, they come to the light; for thy Law is light, but the familiar Spirits peepers and mutterers leadeth from the light, the Law & Testimony, and so brings people from seeking into their God." <br /><br />I question whether the tradition will ever find its place again in the Liberal Quaker community. My hope instead is in the thoughtful, the listening, the reflecting person: the person who like Weil disciplines her mind and heart because she needs truth like a body needs health. When I see (or read) this in another human being, then I feel hope.<br />Pathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04915369728649066397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-77560264387045028932015-02-09T19:03:37.271+00:002015-02-09T19:03:37.271+00:00Hello Jim,
The message of a conscious anchored a...Hello Jim, <br /><br />The message of a conscious anchored and a conscience informed by the direct and immediate experience of Presence itself rather than corporate or common consent traditional or ideological forms is not a message of individualism. To characterize this experience as individualism is to belie a misplaced understanding of essential nature of the experience. <br /><br />Hyper-individualism is identity or meaning in and through the manifestation of the individual's ideology, desires, and feelings. That is, the an individual's self-conscious or identity is anchored in his or her outward ideas, desires, and feelings, and seeks manifestation of them without regard to anything else. That is, conscious is anchored in and conscience is informed by the individual's set of outward thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. <br /><br />The progressive movements detachment from outward traditional corporate or common-consent forms was progressive to the extent that the message was one of faith in and experience of the immediacy of Presence itself; rather than outward traditional or corporate forms. That progressive impulse was hijacked by an impulse to replace the immediacy of inspired Presence itself with another set of outward constructs. This regression back to identity in and with outward forms merely became a replacing of outward traditional forms with other outward forms that slowly became traditions in themselves.<br /><br />Faith in and experience of the immediacy of Presence is neither corporate (common-consent) nor individual. This faith and experience is taught by, guided by, informed by, Presence itself which replaces individual or corporate outward thoughts, desires, feelings, with the light and guidance of Presence itself. In this experience, we no longer look to our own outward constructs or that of other people (teachers or professors) or a group of people to anchor conscious and inform conscience. This is Being/being gathered in Presence itself. This gathering is neither corporate or individual. Presence is the Gathering. kfsaylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14180375154787300539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-85152690188278603672015-02-04T16:06:48.205+00:002015-02-04T16:06:48.205+00:00Part of what you are writing about, I think, is ca...Part of what you are writing about, I think, is called, in some religious contexts, 'formation'. The idea behind formation is that you allow the views and practics of the tradition to transform you. You do this by adjusting and acquiescing to the tradition. If this sounds abstract, the idea of formation can be understood with analogies to more ordinary activities. For example, when learning chess you learn the game by conforming to its rules. Similarly, when a scientist learns the practices of experimental observation and replication, the scientist is being 'formed' by the traditional practices of what it means to be a scientist.<br /><br />I believe that Quakers have lost any sense of formation; of being formed and transformed by the Quaker heritage. What has replaced formation is a kind of hyper-individualism where the Quaker community becomes an occasion for one's own self-expression, particularly in the political realm.<br /><br />Chuck Fager, an American Quaker historian, last year published two books on Progressive Quakers. On page 237 of his book 'Angels of Progress' Fager writes, "The move from group to personal conscience was, in fact, a key plank in the Progressive Friends platform, and I contend that its acceptance by Hicksites (and more slowly, by the Orthodox) could be counted as the movement's first important achievement."<br /><br />This shift from a corporate witness to individual conscience has undermined any kind of distinctive Quaker presence. But it is understandable; hyper-individualism is pervasive at this time. I don't know if Quakers can recover a sense of being formed by their own tradition, though personally I think it is worth a try.Jim714https://www.blogger.com/profile/06135451195351824085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-11869760412932540242015-02-04T10:28:05.299+00:002015-02-04T10:28:05.299+00:00I think the Canterbury Testimony was important but...I think the Canterbury Testimony was important but I feel it will be political action that will change our commitment to a Green environment. That is why I put my efforts into the Green Party. I understand "the small is beautiful argument", but really the swell in Green Party numbers is coming from young socially aware working people, not retired Quakers.<br /><br />I think that Quakers have lost touch with modern society and do not reflect the issues of the culture we live in.<br /><br />It would be lovely if by non investment in speculative investments,this witnessed to the super rich and the politicians that we were against the disparity of rich and poor in this country. In fact all it does is diminish my pension. We need to find more modern testaments that will impact on our world.ZoeAinsworth-Grigghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05734552032135928587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-71570640390061690712015-01-30T18:44:15.158+00:002015-01-30T18:44:15.158+00:00Hello Craig. Penington also says in his essay &quo...Hello Craig. Penington also says in his essay "The Authority and Government which Christ exuded out of his Church" found in volume one of his compiled "Works:"<br /><br />"When the Spirit moves in any one to speak, the same Spirit moves in the other to be subject and give way: and so every one keeping to his own measure in the Spirit, here can be no disorder, but true subjection of every spirit; and where this is wanting, it cannot he supplied by any outward rule or order, set up in the church by common consent: for that is fleshly, and lets in the flesh, and destroys the true order, rule, and subjection."<br /><br />In this spirit of subjection to one's measure of the spirit, and for conscience sake, I can only respond to your query (remembering you solicited responses) by saying, there is no value or service in common consent as guide or teacher in matters of the spirit and the Spirit. The extent to which we seek to balance common consent or community testimony with direct immediate experience of Presence itself (which is not, by its very nature, individualism or individualistic) is the extent to which we destroy the true order and rule of Presence itself. Outwardly expired community testimonies do not serve to increase the measure inward Light, they, by their very expired nature, destroy it. Community testimony, to the extent it is common consent, is not a valid offset or compensation for directly experienced Presence itself. It destroys the experience by its very nature.<br /><br />To extent to which a group of people act out of directly intuited Life itself, is the extent to which inspired inknowing Presence rules rather than outwardly expired principles or rules imposed by common consent. Those ruled by inknowing Light, have no wish to impose outwardly expired forms, only to share the Life itself and nurture each other in the Light; trusting the inward working of Presence itself to illuminate the conscience and conscience of others. Presence itself is the Rule, the Guide, the Community.kfsaylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14180375154787300539noreply@blogger.com