My last post used traditional religious language. I talked about God, and discerning God’s will, and what we might mean when we claim that this is what we are doing. But I also alluded to the fact that some Quakers don’t use “God-language” at all.
A comment on the blog picked up on this, and talked about how language can function either as a barrier or a bridge. And I recognise that my own use of religious language can create a kind of barrier: some people will feel excluded by it, or will conclude very early on that what I am saying is not for them. What should we do when communication meets this sort of barrier?
I was reminded of a paradoxical suggestion that Simone Weil makes in “Gravity and Grace” - that the identical thing can sometimes be, at one and the same time, both a barrier and a means of connection. She gives the example of two prisoners in adjoining cells who learn to communicate by tapping on the wall between their cells. The wall is both the thing that divides them, and their means of communication (hence connection). I think this story has something to say to our issues about religious language.
There are three unsatisfactory ways in which Quakers can (and sometimes do) respond to a wall created by the use of divergent language. Better options are available, but they are hard work and require patience.
One unsatisfactory response is to recognise that the wall is there, but to try and persuade ourselves that it doesn’t really matter. This is the response that says, ultimately the things we are concerned with can’t be put into words anyway. This move wants to replace speech with silence. But Quaker practices around silence can easily (if we’re not careful) turn into silencing. The Quaker path isn’t primarily about silence - rather, it’s about a kind of dialectic between silence and speech. The Quaker silence, at its best, is vibrant: a place where people can be heard into speech. The price we pay is that sometimes people are heard into disagreement, and we need to reconcile ourselves to this.
A second unsatisfactory response is to try to pretend that the wall doesn’t really exist at all. This is the move that says, we’re using different words, but we all really mean the same thing. It sounds tolerant, but it’s a repressive form of tolerance, because it tries to stifle the possibility of genuine divergence. In truth, there are four possibilities: we use the same words and mean the same thing; we use the same words and mean different things; we use different words but mean the same thing; and we use different words and mean different things. And we can’t rule out any of these four options at the outset.
The third unsatisfactory response is what you might call the Pink Floyd option: “tear down the wall”. In other words, if particular forms of language turn out to be divisive, we need to abandon them at once. But what would happen in Weil’s prison, if you tore down the wall between the prisoners? Perhaps the prisoners would meet each other face to face. Perhaps. Or perhaps they would turn their backs on one another and each hide in a corner of their respective cells, because the necessary foundation of trust for face-to-face communication hadn’t been established. I’m put in mind of something therapists sometimes say, about respecting the client’s resistances. When it comes to the Pink Floyd option, I want to know when and how the wall comes down, and who decides.
Is there a better approach? Yes: it’s to leave the wall in place for now, but start tapping on it from both sides and see what happens next. One person tries to explain why they use the language that they do, and how they understand it. The other person does likewise. And pretty soon the linguistic barrier between them has become the starting-point for fruitful discussion, and the thing that stopped them talking has become the thing that they talk about. Perhaps after a bit of tapping, the prisoners decide that they will jointly dismantle the wall, or a bit of it - a few bricks, so they can speak directly as well as tapping. Or they make a plan that one day they will walk out of their respective cells and meet somewhere else entirely (Rumi’s field?).
You may have heard of “Chesterton’s fence”. This is the principle that says, never dismantle a fence until you understand why it was put there in the first place: more generally, don’t change a system until you know why it is the way it is. I’m proposing a comparable principle of “Weil’s wall”: which goes, when faced with an apparent barrier to communication, ask whether you can turn it instead into a basis for connection.
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Four and a half problems about discerning the will of God
1. Counting the problems
Quakers don’t vote.
Quakers vote in elections, like everyone else. Indeed, Quakers are positively encouraged to take part in politics and public life, and I suspect many of us go to the polling station from a sense of duty even when we don’t really feel like it.
But when it comes to our own decision-making, Quakers don’t vote. This is the case, whether it’s a local group deciding what colour to paint the meeting-house walls, or a national meeting of a thousand or more deciding whether to support equal marriage. If there is strong disagreement, the likely conclusion will be that we’re not yet ready to make a decision.
What are Quakers doing? Is this decision-making by consensus: an attempt to find a lowest common denominator that everyone can live with, even if nobody really likes it? I suspect that in practice it’s sometimes like that, but most Quakers would say this isn’t what we’re aiming for.
Sometimes the aim is described as trying to find the sense of the meeting.
A more traditional explanation is that Quaker decision-making is a process of discernment - specifically, discerning the will of God.
I think there are four and a half problems with this way of putting it. That is to say, there are four problems that are widely discussed among Quakers; and there’s a possible further problem, but as far as I can tell nobody seems much troubled by it, which is why I call it a half problem.
Here are the four familiar problems.
First, some Quakers don’t talk about God at all - they don’t “use God-language”. Secondly, some Quakers who do talk about God, don’t think that God has a will: this way of picturing God seems too human-like (or “anthropomorphic”). Thirdly, some Quakers think the idea that you might actually know anything about what God wants is presumptuous, or fanciful - how are you supposed to find out? And fourthly, some are simply repelled by the idea of discerning the will of God, because it reminds them of all the evil that has been done over the ages by people claiming to act in God’s name.
And here is the half problem.
Does Quaker decision-making assume that there is always a right answer, and that our task is to find it and act on it? At first sight, talk about the “will of God” suggests a kind of spiritual SatNav that tells us, at each junction, whether to turn left or right. Is this what we think is happening? Or do we think there are usually a number of good answers, or possible answers, so that our task is to pick one of them? In which case, how do we choose? If we’re looking for the best answer, that’s not very different from looking for the right answer. On the other hand, if the aim is “identify all the permissible answers, and then choose one that everyone can live with”, then that’s not very different from seeking consensus, and certainly doesn’t seem to have very much to do with God.
Although I think the four familiar problems are important, I want to focus instead on the half problem, about whether Quaker decision-making assumes that we’re looking for the right answer. It seems to me that this cuts across some very familiar Quaker debates about God and about decision-making, in quite an interesting way.
I want to start by drawing on some ideas about theatrical improvisation.
2. Improvisation, blocking, and acceptance
Broadly, speaking, actors can do two things. They can memorise a written script, and enact it; or they can improvise. The vast majority of public performances are scripted, with an occasional role for improvisation (perhaps to cover up when something has gone wrong). Pure improvisation is much rarer, though it is often used as a training exercise for drama students.
Keith Johnstone’s fascinating book Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre is both a defence of improvisation, and an explanation of the techniques needed to make it work. Central to his analysis is the notion of an offer, and the possibility of either blocking an offer, or accepting it.
Two actors, A and B, are asked to improvise a scene. One of them makes the first move: for instance, A might say, “When do you think this bus is going to arrive?” A is making an offer to B - which you could spell out as, “Let’s act a scene that begins from the premise that we’re waiting at a bus stop”.
B could accept the offer: “I think it’s due in 10 minutes, but it’s often late”. Or he could try something more inventive (but still accepting): “Good God, you’re Gerald! I haven’t seen you in 20 years!” Or alternatively he could try to send the scene down a completely different track of his own choosing: “What do you mean? This is a doctor’s surgery!” In this last case, B is refusing to accept A’s offer: he is blocking.
Offers run all the way through improvisation, not just at the start of a scene. And blocking isn’t invariably a bad thing - but repeated blocking, especially at the start of a scene, prevents the action from developing, and may mean that the scene has to be abandoned altogether. By contrast, acceptance opens up possibilities, and allows a scene to move forward.
There will, of course, be many different ways of accepting an offer - some more interesting or imaginative than others, but none obviously “right” or “wrong”.
For instance, an offer might be ambiguous, and the acceptance might resolve the ambiguity (in a way that itself amounts to a further offer).
A: What are you in for?
B: Appendicitis. What about you?
A’s offer is consistent with a scene set in a hospital, a prison, or a sports stadium hosting a multi-event athletics competition. B chooses the first option, and the scene can now develop from that point (unless A blocks).
Once you’ve grasped these concepts, you can see them play out in the improvised drama of everyday conversation.
A: Have you ever been to St. Kilda?
B: Yes, isn’t it fascinating. A shame about the military installation, though.
A: Have you ever been to St. Kilda?
B: I haven’t, but the Scottish island I really love is Jura. Do you know it?
A: Have you ever been to St. Kilda?
B: Why would I want to do that? It’s just a lump of rock.
The first example is a straightforward acceptance. The second is a a more nuanced and qualified acceptance, but still allows space for the conversation to develop. The third is a hard block, and is likely to kill the conversation altogether.
When we talk about discernment, it sometimes sounds as if we think that God holds the entire script, but might dictate it to us line by line if approached in the right way.
Bu what if that’s the wrong model? What if we’re in something that’s more like an improvisation, where God and ourselves are both participants? In which case, the questions that arise in discernment might look something like this:
- Is there an offer here?
- What is being offered?
- What would blocking look like?
- How might we accept the offer?
- What would be a boring way to accept?
- What would be an interesting way to accept?
3. Improvisation and God
The parable of the talents is in chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel. Here it is, in the English Standard Version. At the start of the story, a man is going on a journey, and he calls his servants and entrusts to them his property.
The master in the story doesn’t set any particular task. In fact, he leaves no instructions: he just leaves a certain number of talents with each of the servants. It’s clear that he wants them to do something: but what, exactly? He has no script for them. But he hopes to be favourably surprised by what they do.
This is a story about improvisation, and so it begins with an offer. Two of the servants accept the offer, and we don’t know all the details, but we know that it works out well. The third blocks. Worse still, he makes his blocking move at a point where it is too late for the master to change course. If he had blocked before the master left, then the master could have made other arrangements: for instance, he might have given the single talent to someone else instead. But as matters stand, the part of the scene that involved the third servant is frustrated beyond hope of rescue. No wonder the third servant is cast into outer darkness at the end.
Interesting question: what would have happened if the third servant had accepted the offer, traded, and lost the lot? Would he still get consigned to outer darkness? I would very much like to think that the answer is no. Blocking often guarantees failure, but acceptance doesn’t guarantee success, and there’s always an element of risk when there isn’t a script to follow. If the master wasn’t willing to accept that risk, then he should have left more precise instructions.
Quaker debates about God follow a familiar pattern. Should we use the word “God” at all (or should we talk instead about the Divine, Spirit, etc)? Is God immanent or transcendent? Personal or non-personal? Objectively real or symbolic? And I’m suggesting we focus on a different question, one that cuts across these debates. Namely, is listening to God like following a script, or is it more like taking part in an improvisation? And, as will be clear from the discussion above, I think the latter answer is well worth reflecting on and exploring. If for instance we get a strong leading that we need to do something about X, or pay attention to Y, or find out more about Z, then I don’t think the script/SatNav model fits very well with what is going on. But if we understand these leadings as offers, and if we think our task is to decide whether or how to accept them, then that seems to make much more sense. This way of looking at things takes the “will of God” seriously, but leaves us with a more radical and interesting kind of freedom than does the simple binary choice between obedience and disobedience.
I came across this quotation the other day (from a novel by Ron Hansen), and I think it reflects some of what I’m trying to get at:
We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.
Sunday, February 14, 2021
Becoming Quaker
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
(T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”)
I read these words sometime in early 1991, and eventually they helped to change my life.
I was brought up Catholic; but in 1986 at the age of 21 I had decided that for the time being I couldn’t carry on with it, and that I didn’t really know what I believed about God. What followed was a great deal of perplexity, confusion, and mental strain. Four years later, at the age of 25, I started seeing a Jesuit priest in Oxford to try to to make sense of it all.
His name was Ted Yarnold. We talked, and he suggested books for me to read, and he arranged for me to spend a few days staying at a Jesuit retreat house in Birmingham. Ted was kind and generous with his time, and I liked him - but our interactions were very wordy. And while all of this was going on, I stumbled across the passage I’ve set out above, and it came to me that what I really wanted to do was to find God through silence. My first thought was that I had heard of something called Julian Meetings (named after Mother Julian of Norwich), where people met for silent contemplative prayer. But, I thought, don’t be silly, you can’t have an entire religious practice based on Julian Meetings. And then I thought, what about the Quakers - isn’t their worship based on silence? At the time, that was pretty much the only thing I knew about Quakers, but it was enough to make me want to explore further.
When I said this to Ted he was baffled, and not a little exasperated - he had worked hard on my case. But I persisted, and in early 1991 I went to my first Quaker meeting, at Westminster Meeting House in London.
I stayed with the Quakers for about a year, but I wasn’t ready to make a permanent commitment. Nevertheless, I found my experience of Quaker worship very powerful; I experienced quite a lot of insomnia at that time, not because of anxiety, but because of a sense of being churned up inwardly. My experience in 1991 planted a seed; many years later, it sprouted again.
In 2014 a series of small, unspectacular prompts and nudges made me start looking at Quakerism once more. A couple of years later, I started regularly attending Meeting for Worship at Lewes.
And yesterday I was accepted into membership.
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Mary Oliver's Grasshopper
Here is a very well-known poem by the American poet Mary Oliver, called “The Summer Day”.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
The final two lines are very often quoted. Taken out of context, they sound like a challenge, a sort of existential shock therapy. But read in context, they are more like a defensive manoeuvre. She is saying something like this: here is how I have been spending my day, and if you think I have been wasting my time, then what are you doing that you think is more important?
At the heart of the poem is a grasshopper - the focus of Mary Oliver's delighted attention. There is awe, gratitude, astonishment, a sense of having been blessed, and also something that is understood as being analogous to prayer: kneeling down in the grass, while at the same time admitting to not quite knowing what prayer is.
What is all of this about? It’s to do with paying attention to the world, and also to your own act of paying attention: noticing yourself noticing the world, and experiencing a sense of surprise at finding yourself as an awake, alive, breathing being on a the surface of a planet. The Jewish writer Abraham Heschel calls this “radical amazement”:
Radical amazement has a wider scope than any other act of man. While any act of perception or cognition has as its object a selected segment of reality, radical amazement refers to all of reality; not only to what we see, but also to the very act of seeing as well as to our own selves, to the selves that see and are amazed at their ability to see.
This mode of experience doesn’t prove anything, show you any new facts, or put you inside some special story in relation to which other people are outsiders. But it re-enchants the world: the shift is rather like what you might experience on hearing a familiar piece of music played by a really exceptional musician. The kind of attention that Mary Oliver is describing is a form of love. This love encompasses, but goes beyond, the particular aspects of the natural world that she is describing; ultimately, it is directed towards the unknown source and ground by virtue of which she is able to experience what she experiences and perceive what she perceives. Put more simply, Mary Oliver is not explaining, but exemplifying, what it might mean to love God.
(This is an extract from a longer piece that I posted in 2019. I thought it might work better as a freestanding post. Ben Wood's discussion of the same poem is well worth reading.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)