We Cannot Do This on Our Own

I was sitting quietly in Quaker worship when an older, frail man stood up trembling and began to speak. He was moved deeply and on the verge of tears. He spoke softly, and it was hard to hear much of what he said. What I was able to hear sounded vulnerable and tender. I leaned in closer and tried to listen. He was clearly feeling lost and in despair. “What can I do to try to address the overwhelming problems that we are facing today?” he asked. “Do we as Friends have the Spiritual resources we need to take on such a giant task?” I had an opportunity to speak with this Friend after the meeting, and I told him how much I appreciated his message. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “We need Jesus. We need Jesus now more than ever if we are going to find the spiritual strength to stand up to, and to resist these evil powers. We cannot do this on our own.” I had heard a message like this given by a Friend in my own home meeting many, many, years ago. It was during a different war and fear-filled time, but it was the same message, and it has remained with me ever since. Here it was again, just as deep and powerful. 

For me, the message that we cannot do this on our own is the building block for all that follows. It was and still is my starting point for talking about what Quakers believe. Quakerism cannot simply be a set of ideals: a list of SPICES and platitudes about “that of God in everyone.” A faith based on ideals has always felt like an insurmountable bar to me, one that I cannot reach.

Like it all depends on me, and that doesn’t work! I ask, “Where is the power, the strength I need to be able to live this way?” “How is it possible to make this faith practical and functional in my everyday life?” My search for this Life and Power—greater than my own—has taken me many places. I often felt discouraged and let down by empty words and overly idealistic promises. In these moments of despair, I have asked, “Where can I find a source that I can trust to teach me and give me the guidance, strength, and grace I need?”

Robert Barclay was in a similar place when he first entered a Quaker Meeting. As he wrote in An Apology for the True Christian Divinity in 1678: 

Not by strength of arguments or by a particular disquisition of each doctrine and convincement of my understanding thereby, [I] came to receive and bear witness of the Truth, but by being secretly reached by this Life: for when I came into the silent assemblies of God’s people I felt a secret power among them which touched my heart, and as I gave way unto it, I found the evil weakening in me and the good raised up, and so I became thus knit and united unto them, hungering more and more after the increase of this Power and Life whereby I might feel myself perfectly redeemed. . . 

Is there a power we can experience together today that can hold down the evil within us and raise up the good? My Friends meeting, Middletown Meeting in Lima, Pa., has a monthly program where Friends share their spiritual journey and what it is that draws them to Quakerism and to meeting. This meaningful sharing makes clear the primary purpose of our coming together is to experience this “secret power” among us and in us that can hold down the evil and raise up the good. We want to encourage and support one another in this journey and to find ways to carry this experience out into the world. 

We are learning that as we wait, not in our own strength but in our mutual dependence on a Power greater than our own, this gift of the Divine Presence comes to us. The Presence is not of our own making. It does not matter what condition we are in when we arrive at worship or what our week has been like; it doesn’t all depend on us! What matters most is that we are open and willing to listen to God’s voice in our hearts. When we are open, we can feel this secret power working in us and among us, bringing us closer to God and one another, and knitting our hearts together. 

In our time of “do-it-yourself religion,” have we forgotten that this secret power is a gift and not something we can make happen ourselves? Do we recognize that it involves a willingness to be taught and an openness to being tendered and changed inside? Early Friends were young people who had come to the end of their own resources. Religion for them was empty of life and full of hypocrisy. It was simply a bunch of words and lacked the needed power to change them inside. They searched for, waited, and listened to hear and feel the work of this secret power. As they waited, it became clear to them that they no longer needed to keep searching for someone who could tell them what to do. They found a trusted Guide within them who could teach them. They stopped going to church where they’d been told what to believe and how to live. The Spirit taught them and opened up a completely new understanding and experience of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. When his parents were very concerned and asked him why he was no longer going to church George Fox quoted 1 John 2:27 (NIV): 

As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. 

In my own search, I have tried both liberal and evangelical religion and neither of them has worked for me. I found both of these forms of religion to be extremely judgmental, dogmatic, and exclusive. They both at times helped point me to Jesus as my Inner Guide, but then their own agendas took over. They both wanted to tell me what to believe and how to live by their dogmas, books, and authorities. 

My agenda is to find a practical faith that comes from Jesus and to follow his Light within. I need a Guide that I can trust; that has no agenda of its own, except to help me learn how to be a more loving and caring person—and not necessarily more religious! I find that people who already think they have the answers (religious or not) are not particularly open to listening to Jesus teach them. The Bible is pretty clear on that one! 

Listening and following the Guide within is not an individual experience. We need to search together for what the Spirit is saying to us today. This is not a “you follow your guide and I will follow mine.” We clearly need each other to listen better and discern better what this secret power feels like in our meetings and community life. We need each other’s help finding ways to bring this more consistently into our daily lives and be better vessels for listening. We need each other’s help to learn how to carry this redeeming work of God’s love into the world. I know that I cannot do this on my own. I need the help of others seeking to learn this way. I need the help of my meeting, and, most important, I need the help of a Higher Power and trusted Guide. 

I met an Episcopal bishop from South Korea at Pendle Hill Study Center outside Philadelphia, Pa,  this past spring. I asked him what had brought him all the way to Pendle Hill. He said that he had been praying for a long time for new life to come into his church communities: that his churches are struggling to speak to the needs of people today and especially young people. As he continued to pray, he was regularly drawn to the verses from John 15:14–17 (NIV): 

You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

He felt that the Spirit was telling him the new life he was looking for was related to these verses. He wanted to find out more about what it means to know Jesus as your friend and what it might mean for his churches to come into this experience together. So, he started searching on the Internet about this. Up popped Quakers. He had never heard of us before, but it looked like maybe we could help him learn what it means to be a friend of Jesus, as this is how we received our name. Then up popped Pendle Hill, and he said to himself, I need to go there to learn from the Friends what this means. So he came to Pendle Hill from half way around the world on this quest. 

We had many wonderful conversations during his stay at Pendle Hill. God seemed to be tendering his heart and mine too, as we grew closer together each day. We looked at early Friends’ experiences, the Scriptures, other writings, and we shared from our own lives. Together we spent time waiting for the voice of the Guide within. All of these things helped us to discover what it means to listen and learn from Jesus, our Inner Teacher and Friend. It was hard to say goodbye when he left to go back home to South Korea. I feel that what we found together was as close as you can get to experiencing what is at the very heart of Quaker beliefs.