Advices and queries, 2
May. 7th, 2019 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
notreallystarsI've been thinking about this one since I posted the last one. I was going to leave it longer but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, so I might as well just go ahead. This is the one I have the most difficutly with. This is the one that makes the Christian roots of the Quaker faith most obvious. I have a bit of wrangling to do.
2. Bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ. Are you open to the healing power of God’s love? Cherish that of God within you, so that this love may grow in you and guide you. Let your worship and your daily life enrich each other. Treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you. Remember that Christianity is not a notion but a way.
- Quaker faith and practice, Advices and Queries
So. There's a lot to unpack here. The first thing to know, before I go into this, is that although Quakers use language found in most Christian traditions, they often mean something very different by it. Quoting from actual Quakers is probably helpful here: "the Quaker picture of what God is like is not only vague, but also so far removed from the way other groups usually use the word 'God' that it's bordering on misleading if you make it sound like Quakers believe the same thing as other religious groups." Relating to Christ specifically one person believes that: "'Christ' was the mystical, universal aspect of the figure of the Son of God - something inward, spiritual, and accessible to all - while 'Jesus' was the physical incarnation who had little relevance to today and whose followers made specific claims about him as an individual which excluded those from other cultures and those who couldn't accept certain beliefs."* This is much easier for me to work with than the God and Christ from the Anglican faith in which I was raised.
From that foundation, the instruction to 'bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ' is much easier to interpret in a way that makes sense to me. If the spirit of Christ is inward, mystical, and universal as opposed to external and vaguely historical, this essentially asks the reader to bring their life under the ordering of 'that of God within', which is a concept I'll go into later. Allow that of God within me to order my life? What would that look like? I think that would mean taking more time to listen to it, whatever 'it' is. I think that spending time listening to it would mean that the way I make choices about my life might change.
'Are you open to the healing power of God's love?' Um...not really? That would be nice though. Spend more time listening appears to be the answer to this one as well. If I keep going to Meeting then maybe that will grow somehow? A silent hour affords plenty of time for listening, after all.
'Cherish that of God within you, so that this love may grow in you and guide you.' Right. 'That of God in everyone' has become a cornerstone of Quaker belief. It's a phrase that was used once in a letter from George Fox that has taken root in the Quaker tradition. When I was at school they used to really hammer that quote home, it was their favourite thing to read to us and as a result is deeply ingrained in the way that I think about myself and other people. Incidentally, I think that this way of thinking about people is part of the reason that patients tend to like me - I carry with me an awareness of something sacred within each of us that makes it easy for me to treat them well. This belief is part of why I prefer talking about the Light to talking about God. The concept of 'God' is in many ways personified in my mind, it makes very little sense to me for that person-adjacent concept to be spread out within everyone.
It hadn't occurred to me before I started writing this out that, given the way I've interpreted 'Christ' above, this passage is all speaking about the same thing. It asks the reader to attend to the inward light, that of God within them, or whichever other way someone might choose to express it. The same concept is addressed by the encouragement to let worship and daily life enrich one another, which they must inevitably do if you pay attention to that which is sacred within you. 'Treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you' says, again, the same thing. If God is within you, then your experience of God will be guided by your attention to that indwelling Light.
'Remember that Christianity is not a notion but a way.' Again, if the 'way' of Christianity is attention to God then...we've addressed this. I didn't know that this was where I was going to end up. It's interesting that writing something out can lead me to a different place than I thought was I was going to go!
I really do like the Quakers.
*Both quotes are taken from Quaker Quicks: Telling the Truth About God by Rhiannon Grant.
2. Bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ. Are you open to the healing power of God’s love? Cherish that of God within you, so that this love may grow in you and guide you. Let your worship and your daily life enrich each other. Treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you. Remember that Christianity is not a notion but a way.
- Quaker faith and practice, Advices and Queries
So. There's a lot to unpack here. The first thing to know, before I go into this, is that although Quakers use language found in most Christian traditions, they often mean something very different by it. Quoting from actual Quakers is probably helpful here: "the Quaker picture of what God is like is not only vague, but also so far removed from the way other groups usually use the word 'God' that it's bordering on misleading if you make it sound like Quakers believe the same thing as other religious groups." Relating to Christ specifically one person believes that: "'Christ' was the mystical, universal aspect of the figure of the Son of God - something inward, spiritual, and accessible to all - while 'Jesus' was the physical incarnation who had little relevance to today and whose followers made specific claims about him as an individual which excluded those from other cultures and those who couldn't accept certain beliefs."* This is much easier for me to work with than the God and Christ from the Anglican faith in which I was raised.
From that foundation, the instruction to 'bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ' is much easier to interpret in a way that makes sense to me. If the spirit of Christ is inward, mystical, and universal as opposed to external and vaguely historical, this essentially asks the reader to bring their life under the ordering of 'that of God within', which is a concept I'll go into later. Allow that of God within me to order my life? What would that look like? I think that would mean taking more time to listen to it, whatever 'it' is. I think that spending time listening to it would mean that the way I make choices about my life might change.
'Are you open to the healing power of God's love?' Um...not really? That would be nice though. Spend more time listening appears to be the answer to this one as well. If I keep going to Meeting then maybe that will grow somehow? A silent hour affords plenty of time for listening, after all.
'Cherish that of God within you, so that this love may grow in you and guide you.' Right. 'That of God in everyone' has become a cornerstone of Quaker belief. It's a phrase that was used once in a letter from George Fox that has taken root in the Quaker tradition. When I was at school they used to really hammer that quote home, it was their favourite thing to read to us and as a result is deeply ingrained in the way that I think about myself and other people. Incidentally, I think that this way of thinking about people is part of the reason that patients tend to like me - I carry with me an awareness of something sacred within each of us that makes it easy for me to treat them well. This belief is part of why I prefer talking about the Light to talking about God. The concept of 'God' is in many ways personified in my mind, it makes very little sense to me for that person-adjacent concept to be spread out within everyone.
It hadn't occurred to me before I started writing this out that, given the way I've interpreted 'Christ' above, this passage is all speaking about the same thing. It asks the reader to attend to the inward light, that of God within them, or whichever other way someone might choose to express it. The same concept is addressed by the encouragement to let worship and daily life enrich one another, which they must inevitably do if you pay attention to that which is sacred within you. 'Treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you' says, again, the same thing. If God is within you, then your experience of God will be guided by your attention to that indwelling Light.
'Remember that Christianity is not a notion but a way.' Again, if the 'way' of Christianity is attention to God then...we've addressed this. I didn't know that this was where I was going to end up. It's interesting that writing something out can lead me to a different place than I thought was I was going to go!
I really do like the Quakers.
*Both quotes are taken from Quaker Quicks: Telling the Truth About God by Rhiannon Grant.