As I reflect on the many facets of my life to this point – including the zig-zag route that has led me to here – I realize what draws them together is the two central metaphors I’ve found in the early Quaker movement: divine Light and the corresponding Seed. One, as spirit, draws forth; the other, as physical matter, responds. These two, however abstractly, are embodied in both my writing and spiritual practice.
Not that anything’s been quite that easy or direct, even before our current dark times.
At least I haven’t been alone.
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In my fiction, they’re most prominent in Kenzie’s Tibetan Buddhist discoveries in the novels Pit-a-Pat High Jacks and Subway Visions and in Jaya’s practices in Yoga Bootcamp, Nearly Canaan, and the Secret Side of Jaya.
Not to be dogmatic in any of this. What I have now is what I found missing in both the Protestant circles where I grew up and the Eastern practices later. The second, as the ashram, was a step that taught me to sit in silent meditation as well as to live in community, lessons that flowered in relation to my Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren circles that followed.
Trying to live in the “real world” of employment and a partner and family definitely thickened the plot as these have unfolded. As I’ll concede, a spiritual life needs to be grounded. That is, the gritty realities.
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Trying to be faithful to the Way as it has opened before me was hardly the path I would have expected. It has, though, been blessed with mutual irradiation, in Douglas Steere’s brilliant term, including a Greek Orthodox infusion.
More recently, attempting to get back to some of the basic hatha yoga exercises, has inflicted the humbling blunt recognition of what 50 years of neglect can do to the physical body.
And cutting through the platitudes and BS of the literature remains a challenge.
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These elements drive the essays of my book Light Seed Truth, examining the three central metaphors of Quaker Christianity. It really becomes a different way of thinking.
Here are some of the things I’ve noted along the way.
I’ve been a Quaker for nearly four decades now, coming to the faith of my ancestors by chance after living and working on a yoga farm in Pennsylvania. Lately, I’ve been uncovering a revolutionary understanding of Christ and Christianity – one the early Quakers could not fully proclaim in face of the existing blasphemy laws but experiences they couched in metaphors of the Light, Seed, and Truth. As I systematically connect the dots 3½ centuries later, I’m finding a vibrant alternative to conventional religion, one full of opportunities to engage contemporary intellectual frontiers, individual spiritual practice, and societal crises. As an established writer – a professional journalist, poet, and novelist – I’ve organized these insights into a book-length manuscript. Would you like you to see it?
What I’ve found is an astonishing course of religious thought no one else has previously presented systematically. Reconstructed, their interwoven metaphors of the Light, the Seed, and the Truth provide a challenging alternative to conventional Christianity, one full of opportunities to engage current intellectual frontiers ranging from quantum physics and Asian spiritual teachings to psychology and contemporary poetry.
Embedded under the conventional interpretation of the scriptures and teachings about Jesus is an alternative definition of Christ and Christianity.
When early Quakers in mid-1600s Britain experienced this as their “primitive Christianity revived,” they were forbidden by the blasphemy laws from proclaiming their understanding openly. Instead, they couched it in overlapping metaphors of the Light, the Seed, and the Truth.
Embracing holy mystery, I’ve found the Hidden Path emerges.
Forget everything you’ve heard about Christianity. Let me show you an alternative portrait of Christ, and a much different practice that results. It can change your life. For starters, you need to realize that Christ is bigger than Jesus.
I can introduce you to the Universal Christ, which is quite distinct from Jesus. It can transform your spiritual understanding and make your life deeper and richer.
This can revolutionize your experience of Christ and what it means to be Christian.
This is not simply an intellectual exercise, but a visceral awareness
The results will startle and provoke, not just across the spectrum of today’s Society of Friends, but among Christians everywhere.
Sometimes I experience the act of writing as prayer. Neither is done for outward compensation, much less any guarantee of results, but rather to open one’s heart and mind to what is eternal and true – and attune oneself to that, regardless.
Culling my collection of photography and tearsheets, I’ve recognized I no longer desire to travel many places I haven’t been, but would rather revisit places I have. Either in person or, in the case of Tibet or Japanese temples, in my thinking and study. I also recognize that could change, given different economic circumstances and an influx of free time.
I now seethe early Quaker vagabonds were Dharma bums, too. The itinerant ministry proffers its own humor.
Quakers are still around, all right. And more relevant than ever. Just listen.
You can find it in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain it.
Jnana's Red Barn 