Chords and Discord

On Sympathetic Resonance and the Value of Disunity

n earlier draft of this article was titled “Vibes and Sparks” and printed in our August table of contents.

When I was a 12th grader at the school where I now teach, my advanced physics teacher captured my imagination with a story about waves. These undulating forces seem orderly, well-mannered, and measurable: we capture their frequencies and amplitudes, and we harness them for our radios and x-rays. Yet waves themselves have the power to harness whatever lies in their path, finding unexpected harmonies or wreaking havoc.

On April 12, 1831, six dozen soldiers of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps headed back to barracks after a training mission in Manchester, England. They marched by way of the Broughton Suspension Bridge, spanning the River Irwell. It is easy to imagine the young men’s laughter as they discovered that their marching caused the bridge to bounce in time with their cadence. The men whistled a marching tune, their enthusiasm amplifying their steps, their steps amplifying the bridge’s vibrations. As the head of the company approached the far side, the men heard a series of sharp reports: the support cables snapped, the bridge collapsed, and 40 men were thrown into the shallow water below. All survived, though not without injury, and the British Army enacted a policy requiring soldiers to break step when crossing bridges.

Ideas, identities, and ideologies can vibrate in resonance within our communities, sometimes beautifully and harmonically, like the overtones that resonate within a piano when a musician sounds a sympathetic chord. Our Quaker practices invite us to vibrate at our own frequencies, at our own amplitudes, and provide room for those wavelengths to mingle in harmony and dissonance until our crests and troughs begin to smooth, to even, and to sound in unity: a shimmer we experience as Truth. But today, we see in the wider culture an instinct for the insular. We are taught to regard with suspicion or fear any belief or understanding that does not amplify our own beliefs and understandings. We march, on bridges to nowhere, in lockstep: our certainty, fear, or algorithmic capture driving our fervor, amplifying our resonance; we flirt with catastrophic collapse.

We are taught to regard with suspicion or fear any belief or understanding that does not amplify our own beliefs and understandings. We march, on bridges to nowhere, in lockstep: our certainty, fear, or algorithmic capture driving our fervor, amplifying our resonance; we flirt with catastrophic collapse.

Through my work at a Quaker school and in this cultural moment of extraordinary discord, I find myself repeating, The way to be countercultural is to remain in community with those we disagree with. These words are a mantra in conversation with students, families, and colleagues. In this corner of experience—the Liberal, unprogrammed world of East Coast Quaker education—I will readily admit that we sometimes conflate Quakerism and left-wing politics as if they are the same religion or, at the very least, parallel tracks leading toward the same just world. And perhaps there are some similarities between religious faith and political belief, especially now that party affiliation has come to serve as a convenient (or inconvenient) shorthand for any number of ways we might define ourselves. Religions rest on foundations of belief and on pillars of practice, while political parties articulate the planks that undergird their campaigns, policies, and actions.

Yet it’s worth remembering that Quakerism is a religion without a creed. It’s important to distinguish this idea from the “DIY creed” that this creedlessness is often assumed to mean. Quakerism does not have its own creed, nor does a Quaker adopt a creed of their own design and call it Quakerism. We are not just sans-creed; we are anti-creed.

In 1652, George Fox asked that most foundational query, “What canst thou say?” To translate, “You are perfectly comfortable telling us what Christ or the apostles have said, but what do you say? Are the words you speak coming from your inner Light? Where are the Scriptures inside yourself?” Here, Fox does not ask his flock to rewrite the gospel, each one a private revelation of God’s own Truth. Instead, he asks us to speak with humility, with great care, and with reverence for the personal revelation of God’s Word inside ourselves—most crucially, inside everyone, made known and made whole only through speaking, colliding, harmonizing, and clashing.

From these words, we see the diversity of faith and belief expressed in Quakerism today. We see the Evangelical expressions of Quakerism, with a focus on the life and exceptional divinity of Jesus Christ. On the opposite pole of that spectrum, we see the Universal Light, where much of East Coast Quakerdom lies. At my school, we teach Quakerism with a universal, humanistic approach, but we recognize that the Quaker core—the presence of the Divine spark, the belief that one’s life is a testimony to one’s faith, and the commitment to continuing revelation—is present at the center of all expressions of Quaker faith.

We often use the phrase: “The Truth is continually revealed.” The emphasis here is outward-facing: We are meant to take from this not the message that I have a great truth that the world must hear. Instead, we are meant to always remember that only together is the Truth revealed. When Fox asked “What canst thou say?” he reminded his listeners not to repeat what they have memorized from Scripture. He called for a higher, Truth-filled, God-led expression of the personal experience of the Divine. We each carry pieces of a whole: the wholeness of understanding leads to our discernment of Truth.

Edward Burrough, an early Quaker, explains in his 1659 pamphlet To the Present Distracted and Broken Nation of England how our communally discerned Truths lead us to what we believe and what we do:

And we are not for Names, nor Men, nor Titles of Government, nor are we for this Party, nor against the other . . . but we are for Justice and Mercy, and Truth and Peace, and true Freedom, that these may be exalted in our Nation; and that Goodness, Righteousness, Meekness, Temperance, Peace and Unity with God, and one with another, that these things may abound.

The idea of Truth within Quakerism is best considered alongside fact. Facts, as they say, are facts: statements that describe material reality, and whose veracity is tested against that reality. Truths might best be thought of as paths, as guides toward right action. I was talking with a friend once about the death penalty, and she said, “Of course you’re against it; you’re a Quaker.” I’d never thought of it that way before. Actually, I believe I’m a Quaker because I’m against the death penalty. That is, I am led toward equality, toward peace, toward integrity, and toward community, Truths that guide me toward rightness and Light, and therefore, I am against the death penalty.

Within our faith, there requires some measure of control. Though some see in the tale of James Nayler the plain truth that there will always be those who would use our lack of creed as license to lay claim to new, untested holy truths, others might critique Fox’s tight grip on leadership within the early Quaker movement. Perhaps both perspectives are valid: Fox feared that Nayler’s ministry would bring disrepute to the Quaker movement, and Nayler’s followers were insular, their bridge torn apart by their ever-amplifying feedback loop. In examining our history, we see we have tools to lend our culture in this moment, to guard against insularity and ward off certainty. We use worship to reflect inwardly, and we listen to the reflections of others as we decide how we are led, how the divine spark within us urges us to act, and how we find Truth. The act is both collective and individual. And though Quakers seek unity through this structure, we may still offer a countercultural perspective to those outside Quakerism on how we might listen for and value disunity.

Another person might value community as much as I, and may conclude that the death penalty is a fulfillment of justice for the community. Though we disagree and though I may question my friend’s interpretation of their Light Within (just as I must always question my own), we are led to our beliefs along the same path: through community. Finding common ground across our moral centers can allow us to better understand and even empathize with the beliefs that others hold. We are strings in sympathetic resonance, not soldiers in mindless lockstep. Our understanding of continuing revelation must include a commitment to seeking out those dissonant wavelengths, to checking our own frequencies and amplitudes, to hearing—to listening for—discord. When we hear only certain ideas, we come to conflate fact and belief, rendering us unable to perceive or comprehend another perspective, deaf to the resonating chord. Quakers’ instinct for the countercultural moment highlights the importance of discord: of the odd note that changes the tone, the feeling, the world. 

We each carry a spark of Light; it is only through sharing that the Truth is revealed. 

When we hear only certain ideas, we come to conflate fact and belief, rendering us unable to perceive or comprehend another perspective, deaf to the resonating chord. Quakers’ instinct for the countercultural moment highlights the importance of discord: of the odd note that changes the tone, the feeling, the world. 

When my father died, we held a memorial meeting for worship to celebrate his life. As I sat in the meetinghouse, awash in my grief, I found myself uncharitably annoyed by the people who spoke. I listened, thinking, “Who is this guy?” or “What does she know?” Because he was my dad, it seemed clear to me that—with the possible exception of my mother—I clearly knew him the best. 

Yet, as I listened to my father’s colleagues, his Baltimore Bicycling Club buddies, his Sierra Club friends, and his brother, I came to understand how it is that we each hold a piece of the whole. Some sparks—my father was a private man; my father was a gentle man—ignited again and again, yet rather than this repetition diminishing the spirit by becoming trite or cliched, it served only to brighten my father’s light and the piece of it that we all hold, because I recognized it as a wholeness I also knew. The room vibrated in sympathetic resonance. 

Other sparks came as surprises. A young protege of my dad shared that he had received thoughtful and generous marital advice from my father. Having just watched my father punctuate his final months of frustration and futility with outbursts directed at my mother, I was inclined to dismiss his words as the sort of vague platitude one hears at funerals, despite their seeming sincerity. Yet, upon reflecting on the small piece of my parents’ 40-plus-year marriage that I was lucky enough to witness and countless other glimmers of my dad’s light over the 34 years I knew him, I recognized the Truths that guided my father: generosity of spirit, vicarious excitement as someone young embarks on something that had brought joy to him, and yes, a penchant for advice-giving. 

In that room, we held the wholeness of my father’s light in the center. It belonged to all of us and none of us, and the light was made brighter for its sharing. 

When we welcome a wide range of viewpoints and perspectives, we make continued progress toward Truth. The question “What does she know?” may be answered with a shrug, or simply with “something.” 

The very phrase “viewpoint diversity” is freighted with a weight beyond the words’ literal meaning. It is trolled by those who would espouse their bigotry and claim viewpoint diversity to be some kind of sanctuary, as if within the right to free speech, there is not also the attendant responsibility to defend the morality of our views. Nevertheless, these words convey in simple terms the principle that communities which expand the range of perspectives they allow—that is, communities with greater viewpoint diversity—will experience some consequence of that expansion. We must attend to the positive consequences, though we must also attend to the challenges. Quakers believe in hearing multiple views because it is only by sharing that the Truth can emerge. A creedless Truth will take many forms. Here we are again prepared to offer countercultural advice to a culture in need. 

Viewpoint diversity is closely tied to freedom of speech. A community that values diversity of thought seeks to protect the rights and freedoms of all members of the community—those who speak, those who listen, and those who then think and form their own opinions. This last idea is best described as freedom of conscience, a value vital to Quakerism since its birth, and which included a rejection of state-mandated belief. 

If—as we have said about the education Quaker schools offer—the world needs what our children can do, then we must cultivate in our children the ability to think for themselves. Quaker communities can provide guidance: “What canst thou say?” The world does not need more parrots, repeating the ideas of others and claiming them for their own without examination. 

Children and adults alike need the freedom to understand their own beliefs, and they need the freedom to explore the whole, rich world of beliefs, so they can listen for the recurring themes, find their paths, and follow the glimmers of light that catch their eyes. We walk together, not pausing to correct the other’s step until it matches our own but sharing our unique rhythm and appreciating theirs: how often we find ourselves falling into step beside a friend and then falling out again, in and out, as we walk together. We listen for our Light not just to know what we believe, not just to know what others believe, but to understand why we believe what we believe. 

Let us reject the cultural current that would have us form a regiment of soldiers, marching in unison, our amplitude building to a thunder that drowns out all other sound. We are seekers, musicians, our fragile songs providing a surprise, a beacon, an invitation, each of us inching closer, one by one and all together, in dissonance and harmony, reflection and refinement, toward that asymptotic, elusive Truth. 

As Quakers, we have tools at the ready to work through the most challenging aspects of this commitment. We are practiced in the use of queries. Queries can diffuse a moment of challenge by reminding us to return to our core. We can ask, for example, “How does this proposal promote simplicity in our community?” We can ask queries to deepen our understanding: “What would change my mind?” We can ask to understand another perspective: “What are the other arguments?” We use worship and build moments of reflection into our days. We worship together to build community and to find the Light within one another. We rely on our testimonies to guide our explorations and light our paths. 

And finally, there is grace. We grant grace to each other and grace to ourselves, understanding that we cannot all, all the time, speak from the core of spiritual depth and proclaim revelatory Truths one after the other. 

It turns out, Fox isn’t asking us to make every declaration a revelation from on high. I suspect he is asking us to hear all pieces of wholeness; walk down all the paths; and then return to our consciences, to our lights, to God, and know better the pieces of the whole we carry. 

Without a creed, Quakers are asked to trust each other and ourselves to reach moral truths through moral grounding. Within Quaker education, that means teaching our students how to think. We impart the paths of Quakerism and Quaker education, and trust that our students will reach beliefs, conclusions, and understandings grounded in the testimonies, knowing that each of us carries the Divine spark that fuels continued revelation. 

In his 1993 To Know as We Are Known, Quaker author and educator Parker Palmer writes: 

In a pluralistic society, the way to truth is to listen attentively to diverse voices and views for the claims they make on us. The bond of listening holds the cosmic community together—careful, vulnerable listening for how things look from this standpoint and that and that, a listening that allows us not only to know the other but to be known from the other’s point of view. 

Let us reject the cultural current that would have us form a regiment of soldiers, marching in unison, our amplitude building to a thunder that drowns out all other sound. We are seekers, musicians, our fragile songs providing a surprise, a beacon, an invitation, each of us inching closer, one by one and all together, in dissonance and harmony, reflection and refinement, toward that asymptotic, elusive Truth.