The Election and Fox's 'Ocean of Light and Love'

On the eve of this frightening election, words spoken more than 350 years ago have helped me.

They come from George Fox, who founded the Quakers.

England was in the throes of a tumultuous, bloody civil war at the time. Fox was a young, uneducated, deeply troubled man. He was literally adrift in the war-torn country, and searching for “Truth.” He could not find it anywhere. Not among the “professors” (read “pastors”) nor in the Bible.

Nonetheless, in this time of peril, he had a vision (one among many) of an “Ocean of Darkness and Death” being covered by an “infinite Ocean of Light and Love.”

He continues in his journal that the “darkness" compelled him to learn the “conditions" of all so that he could speak to them. From this darkness, the Light leads him, and us, to “openings”  — leads us to love.

This 2016 political campaign, terrible as it has been, terrible as its outcome could be regardless as who wins, may be the “opening” we all need.

Strangely, many, perhaps a majority, of us are united in voting not for one candidate but against the other — the lesser of two “evils” as we see it.

For there to be reconciliation, it’s not helpful to argue over which candidate is which. Our pain in the darkness of negativity is shared regardless of how we voted.

If we can move beyond finger-pointing and blame, yes beyond hate, we have the opportunity to draw closer together, to find unity and even agreement on the nation’s needed course.

Clearly we all suffer from our “bubble” lives….from our isolating “conditions” as Fox described them. His vision tells us that Light will lead us to explore our differing “conditions” and find healing in understanding and love.

It’s worth reading the “Ocean of Light” passage in his journal: If it helps, you can embrace, or merely accept or read past Fox’s religiosity.

Here is the passage:

"I cried unto the Lord, saying, “Why should I be thus, seeing I was never addicted to commit these evils?” and the Lord answered that it was needful I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions? and in this I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that also I saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings….”  1652

Practical Spirituality

At the heart of Quaker life — and potentially everyone's life —is connecting with our spiritual leadings and putting them into practice.

With this in mind, the imminent annual session of Northwest Friends (the North Pacific Yearly Meeting) is focusing on the topic “Being Practically Spiritual: The Integration of Inward Life and Outward Action”

As part of the four-day proceeding in Tacoma beginning Wednesday, Friends will meet in worship groups devoted to various aspects of the topic. Quakers call this “worship sharing.” The small groups of roughly ten always begin their sessions in silent worship. Out of the depths of silence, the participants are invited to speak to the topic. Between each speaker’s words, we return to contemplate what has been said in the silence before another person speaks.

The shared words are inspired by pre-selected quotations and focused through questions, or “queries.”

Much thought goes into the selection of the quotations and the framing of the accompanying queries.

Those for this year's topic cry out to be shared with readers of The Red Electric, whether you are a Quaker or not.

The quotations and the queries for the four sessions may lead you to ask how you integrate your inward spiritual life with “outward action.”

There is much to ponder here. Consider, reading one and responding to it first before moving on. Indeed, the reading of these might well be done in four “sessions” with yourself and perhaps others.


Session 1, Thursday

Being practically spiritual in relation to myself.

The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.
--Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

For God can be found…There is a Divine Center into which your life can slip, a new and absolute orientation in God, a center where you live with him and out of which you see all life through new and radiant vision, tinged with new sorrows and pangs, new joys unspeakable and full of glory.
--Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion

Queries to consider:

What does living within the Divine Center mean for me in ‘the noise and clatter’ of my everyday life?

Which practices help me become--and which hinder me from becoming--more mindful of, more attuned to the workings of the Spirit in my daily life?

Do I center my life in the awareness of the presence of God so that all things take their rightful place? (Adapted from Faith and Practice, North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends)


Session 2, Friday

Being practically spiritual in relation to those I touch in daily life.

(I was) convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator and learn to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men but also toward the brute creatures.
--John Woolman

What do I mean by growing into wholeness? It is working at being all we were meant to be. (Most of us only live partial lives.) It is seeking integrity, striving to be what William Penn called George Fox, “an original and no one’s copy.” It is not wearing a mask. It is acknowledging our strengths and gifts without false modesty, and accepting our weaknesses and limitations as part of us. It is springtime and winter. It is light, and it is also darkness. It is being present where we are, seeing the personhood of others, saying “thou” to them. It is being at home in our bodies, aware of their needs, and it is being in touch with that of God in us.
--Elizabeth Watson

Queries to consider:

When have I experienced the integration of the inward life and outward action in my own life and the lives of those I relate to most intimately (including the ‘creatures’ I may share my life with)?

What nurtures my growth into wholeness? How do I nurture that growth in others?

How do I make my home and Meeting places of friendliness, peace and renewal, where God is real for those who live there and those who visit? (Adapted from Faith and Practice)

Session 3, Saturday

Being practically spiritual in relation to my community.

Jesus said… ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second one is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
--Matthew 22.37:39

There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human Mind, which in different Places and Ages hath had different Names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep, and inward, confined to no Forms of Religion, nor excluded from any, where the Heart stands in perfect Sincerity. In whomsoever this takes Root and grows, of what Nation soever, they become Brethren.
--John Woolman

Queries to consider:

What am I doing to build “the beloved community?”

Who do I envision as embodying the pure principle that John Woolman testifies to? What have their lives meant to me? What are the fruits of such embodiment?

Do I practice the art of listening to my neighbor, even beyond words? (Adapted from Faith and Practice)


Session 4, Sunday

Being practically spiritual in relation to our world.

When we confront injustice, when we engage in Spirit-led service, when we speak prophetically to the world we live in and witness to the world we know is possible (and already here among us), when we are instruments of the Spirit for reconciliation, healing, and mutual understanding, we are testifying to the Truth through our experience of that Life and Love and Power that takes away the occasion of all war. That is remaking the world in far more effective ways than we can through our anger, grief, passion, and social action—no matter how well-intentioned.
--Noah Baker Merrill

I know more firmly than ever that the way of Jesus—of Gandhi and Woolman and Fox and Penn—is the only way worth traveling. But I also have some inkling of the discipline required if we are truly to enter into God’s way. The needle’s eye is closed to those of us who hold wealth to ourselves, to the self-interested, or the self-indulgent. Our lives can be of good use in this world only if we dwell in the Spirit that was in Christ Jesus, stay in the Light, and walk firmly in the way he showed us: the way of love, truth, identification with the poor and oppressed, poverty, non-possession, purity and humility.
--Carol Reilly Urner, from The Needle’s Eye: A Philippine Experience

Queries to consider:

When has the “Life and Love and Power that takes away the occasion of all war” broken into my life?

What does dwelling in the Spirit look like in my daily life?

Do I search diligently for ways of assuring the right of every individual to live in dignity? (Adapted from Faith and Practice)

An Ocean of Ink

Quakers made the front page of the New York Times last Friday.

Was the story about the Religious Society of Friends' on-going struggle for peace?

Was it about the effectiveness of the Quaker lobbying group, the Friends Committee on National Legislation?

Was it about the fact that there are far more Quakers in East Africa than there are Quakers elsewhere?

Was it about the "timeliness" of the Quaker testimonies: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community and Equality and how they speak to today's world?

It was not.

The story was about a "tense" division between the Friends Seminary (in essence a Quaker preparatory school), tucked away in lower Manhattan, and the New York Quarterly Meeting, a Quaker religious governing body.

Excuse me if my eyes glaze over. The story may have been of interest to a relative handful of Times' readers. Quakers no doubt read it with raised brows.

As a journalist and as a Friend, I was saddened because I realized that the Times editors had just blown their quota of front-page Quaker stories for a decade. Quakers deserve better (see above).

On Sunday I was still grumbling about the story and the Times' definition of front-page news. In the course of being with Friends at our meeting house, I had occasion to consider Quaker founder George Fox's revelatory vision of an "Ocean of Light." In his journals, he describes his epiphany this way:

I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.

I've always related the Ocean of Light to Quakers' silent worship. Our worship room happens to be graced with a large, central skylight. The light well draws the sun's warmth and light into our worship. Light and silence; silence and light.

I have more trouble with the image of an "ocean of darkness and death." Death is as real as life. And darkness defines light. Indeed I have found as I have grown older that the prospect of death increasingly defines and enriches what I do with life. Could death recast "life"?

So what is this "ocean of darkness"?

Suddenly, with the Times story on my mind, it came to me. INK! It is a pitch-black sea of ink.

An ocean of stories about petty (or not-so-petty) conflicts written with barrels of ink. It is the ink that each morning greets me with the terrible news of the world and puts me in a sour mood until I push aside these black dispatches. It is the ink that obsesses over the foibles and tragedies of humanity. It is ink that so often blots out and ignores the light of love.

I confess that I smiled as this strange, inky thought came over me. I knew I would likely write about it, using the Internet's equivalent of ink. These very words you are reading may not be an "Ocean of Darkness," but they do constitute a puddle of black even as, I pray, they may reflect some light.

And so, dear reader, contemplate the "Ocean of Light" in the purity of silence....

The Truest Story

In the silence of this morning’s Quaker meeting, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t be sitting in this spartan sanctuary if it weren’t for the literal version of the New Testament story.

I’ve always tried to see through that over-the-top story to the historical Jesus. The Jesus who didn’t walk on water and feed the multitude. The Jesus who wasn’t resurrected. (Thomas Jefferson set out to tell the unadorned story in his “Jefferson’s Bible,” which I highly recommend.)

But the historical Jesus, the mere human being, wouldn’t have had anywhere near the same impact as the mythological Christ. He would have been, well, just another historical figure, or, worse, he might have been utterly forgotten.

In short, the story as it has come to be told (for whatever reasons) — not the historical events — had delivered me to a Quaker Meeting House, just as it has shaped the actions of millions of others, Christian and non-Christian alike. One of those Christians was George Fox, the most influential and fervent of the early Quakers. Without his responding to the story, there would be no Quakers, no meeting house in Portland Oregon.

And without those, I would be home nursing my third cup of coffee and reading the Sunday New York Times.

Such is the power of one story among billions of stories.

All events become some kind of story, be it gossip or gospel. Because of the distortions of perspective, time and memory, those narratives become half truths and — should they survive — myth.

We are guided by distorted narratives of events — large and small.

That may sound like a bad thing. In many cases it is. But in many instances, the truth may simply be too hard to take. Think of the Jesus on the cross who is not resurrected. The tragedy cries out for Christ's resurrection. The story tellers provided it as a triumph and a powerful story that survived.

Limited human perception and self-serving selection are filters for a reason. Without our ability to exclude we would suffer overload and even tragedy. Today we might call it post-traumatic stress.

So our stories are heavily edited. And, like the Biblical story, they are blatantly embellished.

For that reason, our "back story" should be one of caution, even scepticism.

Still, stories, for all their fabrication, undeniably motivate us, set our course and deliver us to our destinations.

Today, as I thought of the compelling Biblical story, I was reminded of dozens of other stories (about confusion, war, excess, greed, isolation, love, charity, joy and fulfillment) that had lead me to the silence at our meeting house.

Silence, I decided, tells the truest story.