The old strictures sought to keep Quakers focused on their religious calling. As Damon D. Hickey explains (The Southern Friend, Volume XXVII, Number 2, 2005) them, “This cross, this obedience that was called for, was in the broadest sense the death of self-will and obedience to the inward Christ. … Thus, worldly amusements, especially dancing, were a waste of precious time and unfit the mind for devotional exercises. Music was the devil’s instrument. The Lord called his people to leave the world’s friendships, vain fashions, … sinful amusements, which would include the movies, the theatre and the dance. Perhaps this part would not much apply to our readers, but … in nearly all the so-called Quaker Colleges and Preparatory Schools dancing is practiced.”
He continues to quote 1943-44 writings by North Carolina Wilburite Anderson M. Barker, who argued that by yielding to Christ the Ruler
He will rule out all hurtful reading, and preserve all from putting too much time upon the news, and other such readings, to the neglect of the Bible and other good books, which have to do with our eternal interests.
Then there’s the quotation, “We Quakers only read true things,” told by a boy returning three novels he’d borrowed from a neighbor. Or what is erroneously sometimes called a Quaker hymn from North Carolina, which is usually heard these days in folk music circles, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” Or the recorded ministers who dragged me to an apple barn in Ohio for my first contradance, only to hear the next morning an elderly friend wearing a bonnet rise and wag a finger into the air, warning us of “that evil amongst us known as folk dancing” – while others looked down, sheepishly, trying to suppress a grin.
From the beginning of the movement, we have Margaret Fell’s objection to the strictures of a “silly gospel” that took hold, all the same.
Or later Quakers who accepted things that bind and pinch, as long as they’re chosen.
Or the struggle to keep a vibrant faith and intellect, rather than a barren one.
Always, the tension, in Scripture, between one world, “And God saw that it was good,” and another, sometimes called the ways of the world or even the wayward world.
So the challenge is in keeping a focused life that avoids becoming simply barren.
Let me point to the proportions of the classic meetinghouses – elegance as simplicity – plus the emphasis on philanthropy. Poetry as prayer.
So here we are, with our love of movies, music, theater, visual arts – and a tad of guilt?
I hear an echo of my father, with his passion for big-band music and some of the old hymns, “It would be a lesser world without music.”
I think, too, of a couple who lived without electricity as part of a strict economy that allowed them to focus full-time on calling and playing for country dances.
So here we are, with a visitor asking after the rise of worship – “Are you the pastor?” Before I could say anything, a voice behind me: “He is, he just doesn’t know it.”
Look, I want everyone to sit on the facing bench (elders gallery) at least once a year. “Her turn – next, a child.” Facing each other across history.
~*~
For more on my poetry collection and other reflections, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 