While exploring the Quaker faith and principles, I have been trying to figure out whether or not I believe in God. It took me years to lose my belief in God, the faith that had been with me ever since I can remember. At first, when I was about twenty years old and questioning, it seemed impossible not to believe in God. Now I wonder if it's possible to believe again.
I am grateful for the work I did toward disbelief. It let me shed the assumptions, requirements, demands, and oppression of my early church life. For the first time, I was able to think about myself as something other than weak, failing, and sinful.
Later I felt that something was missing in my life. That something was spiritual practice. I practiced meditation just a little bit but it was very hard without a guiding concept and I didn't make myself continue. I found Wicca and embraced it for its openness to different spiritual practices and its reverence for nature and the female as well as the male. The idea of magic was not something I understood as a means to influence things materially, but as a connection to a greater good power. This connection could be strengthened within myself and bring joy.
But Wicca started to fall to the wayside of my life, too. Again, there was no firm guiding concept to make me feel it was necessary to practice Wicca. It was just something kind of cool to do.
Now Quakerism offers me the chance for a community of people who want to live their lives mindfully. They don't write down or recite creeds. They encourage members to live not by the letter of the guiding principles but by the spirit of them, because "the letter kills, the spirit creates life." Living in harmony with the environment, working against racism, protesting war, and speaking plainly are all important to Quakers as a whole. I love these ideals, though they are hard to follow. I especially struggle when it comes to pacifism.
Quakers do not enforce a belief in God. They do point to Jesus as one of the highest examples of the right way to live. Many Quakers also refer to Gandhi, Buddha, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other spiritual leaders as examples of the same thing.
This post has become a spiritual exploration for me and it feels good to get it down. But what I meant to write about was the example of Jesus in one particular area of life: living in harmony with the environment.
I don't know if Jesus did much (that is recorded) to care for natural resources. I would say that environmental concerns are more important and urgent today than they were in his time, except that the use of natural resources has always affected people's lives. The people who don't have access to the best natural resources (or the money that comes from selling them) will be disadvantaged in any time or place.
What is so sustainable-minded about Jesus is the way he encouraged people to live. To him, following God was more important than any possession. Sharing resources was a moral and physical imperative (think loaves and fishes). He was a friend to the poor, sick, and outcast, and put their needs before his by leaving home, speaking to crowds of people no matter how tired he was, and acting against the greed of people who had more than they did. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a more princely steed.
If we're feeling brave and reckless like I am, we can translate his actions into a modern setting by saying that Jesus would:
1. Celebrate Christmas with prayer and community service, not presents.
2. Give his possessions to people around him who needed them.
3. Work for peace, justice, and love instead of making a career in one of the many industries that exploit people and resources.
4. Start a blog about love and simplicity and courage.
5. Join peaceful protests.
6. Refuse to buy an SUV, no matter how cool it looked or how many kids he had with sporting gear to tote around, and buy a used hybrid instead.
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4 comments:
I love it! Especially the blog part. Oh man now I want to start a blog and pretend I'm Jesus.
I'm so excited you're going back to our roots with the Quakerism. You know our quaker ancesteors were military heroes too, so maybe pacifism isn't your thing. Jesus wasn't really a pacifist, he was all about standing up for people, whatever it took. Oh the spirit vs. letter thing is soo Pauline. I'm talking about the nondisputed letters of course, which is half the ones attributed to him in the bible. Let's see, I'm thinking Galatians is a good example? I should have this down since I'm grading papers on it.
I didn't realize our Quaker ancestors were in the military. I know that not all Quakers feel the same way about nonviolence, even though it's such an important principle overall to Quakers. Isn't Paul the one that people always accuse of being misogynist and bigoted? It would shed some light to think of his writings in terms of following the spirit vs. the letter.
Yes that's Paul and that view of him is pretty much the opposite of true. Half the letters attributed to him are pseudonymous, written later and don't agree with much of anything the real Paul said. He was really quite a feminist and hardly anti-semitic.
I'd like to know a lot more about Paul's legitimate letters and your other views of the Bible, especially which parts are false in your educated opinion. I, too, hate when people bolster their own arguments and wishes by quoting the Bible.
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