by Joann Neuroth:
In 1846, Michigan lawmakers enacted this provision into law: “the preceding provisions of this chapter [on marriage] shall not affect marriages among the people called Friends or Quakers, nor of any other particular denomination, having any peculiar mode of solemnizing marriages.” Until a recent modernization of the marriage license form made Quaker use possible, we used this citation each time we witnessed a marriage. We crossed out “By the powers invested in me by X, I married this couple,” and wrote instead “On this date we witnessed these people marry each other.” In Michigan, at least, we are legally recognized as a “peculiar” people.
I’ve been musing lately about what, if any, practices in my life are “peculiar” enough to give an interested observer the sense that I am following internal Guidance from my Inner Teacher rather than cultural convention or just my own preferences. It’s not that I don’t feel called to counter-cultural truths; it’s just that they don’t often find their way into my practices.
For instance, my fellow FGC workshop attenders and I were deeply moved in July as we came to the shared conviction that we will never stop destroying our planet (and with it the miraculous, experiment with Life that God has undertaken here) until we commit to live as if WE BELONG TO THE WORLD (subject to its laws and limits), acknowledging that the world does not belong to us (to exploit and control). When asked what we should do once we understand this, Ishmael (the teacher we met in the book of the same name by Daniel Quinn) says it is of necessity a matter of changing one mind at a time: we should teach 100 people what we’ve learned and inspire each of them to teach 100 more. But, wait a minute … am I really willing to become that “peculiar” nutcase who buttonholes everyone and bangs on them about ecological disaster? That can’t be right. OK, admittedly I could get a bit more skilled than that – learn to open conversational lead-ins and judge people’s willingness to listen etc. But still if I’m to carry that Inner conviction that we need urgent paradigm shifting, I’m going to be experienced as “peculiar.” How willing am I to be that?
Or here’s another. At that same FGC Gathering, I was also challenged and moved by a plenary speaker who made a powerful case that in my passionate defense of the Gazan people, it is important that I refrain from demonizing Hamas. It is so easy for me to fall into contrasting the innocent victims with the culpable terrorists, with the implication that if the latter could be isolated it would be okay to wipe them off the face of the earth. It’s true that I vehemently disapprove of their methods (as I do Israeli methods) but it’s also true that peacemaking means even enemies are accorded a place at the table, where we can work to find common ground. But I’m a long way from willingness to speak up for Hamas when the Middle East comes up in family conversation. Why so unwilling to be that “peculiar” in faithfulness to a truth I accept?
Am I willing to take questions like these into worship? Am I fencing off any answers that would take me outside the smooth, acceptable mainstream? When I still myself and ask for Guidance, do I mean Guidance that won’t leave me feeling odd or peculiar? Am I satisfied with that qualified surrender? What might open up if I expanded my willingness? I‘m looking for places (perhaps baby steps?) where I’m willing to walk cross-current to my culture. Join me in pondering. What do you hear when you and Spirit speak of questions like these?
There are certainly a number of ways to interpret the Genesis story. Here’s one alternative. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil points to our propensity, perhaps inescapable, of judging everything by whether it’s to my individual benefit or detriment. It may be a necessary process as we are born knowing nothing, and strive to learn what we must to survive. But it inevitably means seeing this self as unique and separate from others and from the world. And it is a death, of sorts, in separation from god, others and the manifest universe. And we are ejected from Eden where god sees everything as good.
In some senses we must make judgements as we make choices in life, but that’s unique to embodied individual life It’s a relative judgement. At the highest spiritual level I don’t believe god makes good and evil judgements. Everything he/she/it has created just IS.
And the way back to Eden? Finding that inner Self that is not defined by all the characteristics of our outer lives, and is perhaps the closest we come to being Spirit and thus “worshiping in spirit and in truth.” And opening this space also opens to a source of wisdom, peace, joy and other characteristics of god that spread like a rainbow spectrum. We can work in consonance with god in the unfolding of creation, not just for our own benefit or only in our own wisdom. And it can be a beautiful way to live. Not that our lives will be free from tragedy in the individual sense, but it’s a life in wholeness including all the possibilities of creation.