Tag: Quaker

MINDING THE FAITHFUL LIGHT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Living in New England, I’ve become enamored with lighthouses. My fascination has nothing to do with the quaint impression many tourists carry but rather an awareness of the ways these now antiquated emblems of peril define our landscape. Along the water, if you can identify the light, you know where you are. Believe me, there are places that would otherwise be difficult.

The night ocean, as I’ve also discovered, can be anything but romantic. It’s a different world from the one visitors encounter during the day. Cold, windy, wet, threatening, even on many summer nights. Yes, on a balmy evening, especially with moonlight, it can be magical. More often, a night ocean can be downright spooky.

Along the dark coastline, the flash of light can help you place yourself in the scene. You triangulate your position using the lights. Each lighthouse beacon has an identifiable pattern – one flash every five seconds. Or ten. Or two flashes. Their colors may be unique in that place, too – blue, green, or red, instead of clear.

The most powerful beams reach out 20 miles or more over the water. Think about that – the light doesn’t scatter but holds together using a technology that predates the laser. How much we take for granted!

And to think, in the old days the illumination came from whale oil or similar fuels.

These days it can be a 110-volt bulb the size of your thumb.

The mechanism that shapes the beams is itself a remarkable piece of technology – the Fresnel lens. Developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel in 1823, it’s a large sculptured glass cone, where each overlapping leaf joins to focus the ray into one. The larger ones are the size of a child, with the light from inside. Remarkably, these are much thinner than a conventional lens for the job would be – thus allowing more light to pass through and the lens to be mounted in a rotating base. (One we’ve visited floated in a 500-pound pool of mercury.)

A section of a 4th order Fresnel lens is featured on the cover of my booklet.

Just as incredible can be the tales of the lighthouse keepers and their families – lonely work, often tedious, cold, staying awake through the night, put at risk by the storms. Nothing nostalgic there, being faithful.

As I look at the light and its tower, my mind leaps to the universal application of light as a metaphor of religion and spiritual experience. It’s especially prominent in the writings of Quakers (Society of Friends), where it frames an understanding of an alternative Christianity – one earlier generations never dared voice completely. Still, the Light led them in fresh directions – and can still do the same for us today as it reaches far, including into the human heart and mind.

Light 1~*~

For your own copy, click here.

DAYTON’S LEADING REPUBLICAN PLUMBER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Decades ago, after hearing mention that my family had Quaker roots in North Carolina, I began the genealogical detective work that now fills my Orphan George Chronicles. Although I’d independently come to the Society of Friends and become a formal member, I was surprised to hear that my family had been Quaker and that there were Quakers in North Carolina – my, have my eyes been opened!

In the genealogical work, I chose to begin with my great-grandparents – people I’d never met in the flesh.

But when my father died, the focus shifted. I realized only one person remained who might be able to fill me in on questions of his childhood and parents, and that was his “baby sister.” That would mean getting to know her – and her parents – without all of the filters that had always been applied by my mother, who had issues of her own. (Oh, for these family dynamics!)

It became a rich and fascinating project, given all the more incentive when we met my aunt and her husband, a retired university dean, at the airport. It was a first-time encounter for them and my brood, yet he swept up my younger one in his arms and proclaimed, “It’s so good to have another Democrat in the Hodson family!” The party activist suddenly had a favorite uncle. Make it great-uncle-by-marriage if you will, he got the crown.

At that point, my aunt remarked that Grandpa’s slogan, painted on all of his trucks and on the calendars he mailed out each year, was “Dayton’s Leading Republican Plumber.” She promised to send a photo of the vans all lined up on the street. “You didn’t know that? It was even on his stationery and bills.” This was something I’d never known, although he did sign one of his last notes to me as “formerly Dayton’s leading Republican plumber,” a comment that long puzzled me. Through much of the spring and summer I wound up following up on her reactions and insights to her childhood and adolescence, which to my surprise (the word of the day) paralleled my own, especially in regards to their now-Methodist church, the denomination I grew up in. At last, I could finally look directly at my grandparents through all the memories and scattered bits of data I could assemble, as well as all the material I already had, doing genealogy. It was like being given a key, at last.

Grandma and Grandpa at family reunion & Aunt Irma Hodson
Grandma and Grandpa at family reunion

My aunt suggested I correspond with a surviving first-cousin Dad’s age, who wound up also contributing memories, and the result was a remarkable project, not quite memoir but more a realization of finally knowing my grandparents, pro and con, for the first time – years after their deaths – as well as questioning many of our ingrained expectations: just what are grandparents supposed to be, do, or look like, for instance. Unexpectedly, I reconnected to more feelings/memories from their house on McOwen Street than to the house I grew up in on Oakdale Avenue. Some of the stories that turned up, like my dad’s desire to be a sports writer or a big chicken dinner Grandpa arranged to help pay medical bills for one of Mom’s best friends, are priceless. From an intellectual perspective, the project also illuminates the difficulty of knowing – it often meant triangulating something in the middle of three often contradictory sets of perceptions. More importantly, to some extent, I’ve finally been able to reconnect with more than a few fragments of my childhood.

From my end, there’s little I’d say was happy in all of that childhood. But there are things I can finally claim and appreciate, and even rework or rewire. Much of my adult life, as I’ve found in Dad’s genealogy (Mom’s is entirely different, and far more gothic than she ever would have admitted) has been a matter of reclaiming many of the values and practices Grandma and Grandpa rejected in their move to the up-and-coming industrial city. I never knew that my Hodson ancestors were Quaker or that Grandma’s were Dunker (Church of the Brethren), very close to Amish and oh-so Pennsylvania Dutch. But they rejected all that, with some values somehow surviving, however invisibly.

Some discoveries still amaze me. The fact that Grandpa accomplished all he did with nothing more than a grade-school education, for one thing.

Or that his two best friends in adulthood were both a decade older than himself, and both died within a year – one of ALS, the other in a car collision. Since he was the youngest of three sons, I wonder about the dynamics.

There’s much, much more I’ve uncovered along the way. As you can guess, it’s a long story. Today would have been his birthday.

AN ESSENTIAL ROLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Within a religious tradition – I’m tempted to say any religious tradition – there are wise, seasoned guides. The ones who know from their own faithful practice what temptations and struggles the aspirant will face and how to overcome them.

Known in the various traditions as guru, swami, roshi, rinpoche, abbot, mother superior, bishop, or simply elder, among others, the best of these are adept at listening and then asking the right question.

In doing so, they hold the individual and the spiritual teachings together. As I know from my ongoing Quaker practice and earlier training.

These poems pay homage to that role.

Elders 1~*~

For a free copy of the chapbook, click here.

THE LOYAL OPPOSITION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

One of the astonishing by-products of the Quaker movement was the two-party system.

Before the Quaker leadership presented its historic Peace Testimony to King Charles II in 1661, a political faction was supported by arms – or an army of its own. It’s something we’re still seeing in conflicts around the globe.

Quakers, however, proclaimed:

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move into it, and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight any war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.

Quite simply, without removing themselves from political and social revolution, Friends avowed to do so on the basis of argument and example, rather than brute force and violence. They would suffer another two decades of fierce persecution before seeing their vision upheld.

What they created was the possibility of a loyal opposition – one that would press for change and speak out for the oppressed, the way the prophets did in the history of the Hebrew Bible – while still respecting the office of existing authority. To work, moreover, it had to be a two-way street, as the Bible stories also demonstrate.

What seems to have happened in recent decades in the larger American political scene is the loss of that mutual respect, despite differences. Any loyalty to the larger good is lost in the process.

We need to get back to that two-party foundation. Or Woodpecker will keep pounding.

BEYOND SUPERFLUITY AND VANITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In college, I went through a soul-searching crisis that questioned whether we could justify subsidizing symphony orchestras or opera companies or art museums and the like in light of the economic inequities in our nation and world. And then I noticed how much of an entertainment industry flowed through the ghetto and Third World, too. That is, everybody has art (even those old Quakers, in a few restricted forms) — it’s not necessarily about money but a need for expression. And all of the emotions and aspirations that go with it. As well as the big bucks, for the big jobs.

In my trials after college, I eventually found myself moving among Friends and then, in time, a few who had grown up under the old restrictions that banned fiction, theater, and even music. Harsh as the old discipline was (and I could have never lived under it), there was also a valid criticism – especially of the superfluous nature of so much of the artistic effort and the egotism so rampant in its ranks.

Maybe the early Friends saw, too, how much the arts were a function of the royal court and its fashions. Or a gilded church. Even the way arts were used to veil the upper crust from the populace and its labors. It turns outs the original Quakers were also picking up on a dialectic from the earliest days of the Christian church, one that contended acting arose in counterfeiting thoughts and actions, many of them of an evil nature.

Within the memory of Quakers, at least, the fine arts have come a long way from the 1650s, pro and con.

Still, proscribing many of the arts did focus Friends on other matters, including abolition and nonviolence. It channeled creative energy into mathematics and science, architecture and industry, poetry and journalism (“We Friends only read true things,” as one Quaker purportedly said, regarding a neighbor’s stack of novels). Go ahead, tally the other fields.

On the other hand, how much of our own focus is deflected by our apparent indulgence? Or how much of it is enriched and deepened?

So how do we make peace with that seemingly artless side of our legacy? Let me suggest we begin with a consideration of “only true things” in our practice. Back to the deeper expression, the part that reflects Truth that goes beyond quantifiable facts. We might even begin with questions of quality or justice or compassion. And then, as they say, the plot thickens.

LEARNING FROM THE MONGOLIAN REINDEER HERDERS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

With my plunge into yoga discipline early in my adult years, I came to an appreciation of non-Western ways of perceiving the world around us. For someone rooted in scientific, empirical , Aristotelian logical thought, this came as a jolt. Or, as Gary Snyder has argued, every poet must have an appreciation of some archaic system of awareness, be it astrology, I Ching, tarot, palmistry, well, you get the picture. Just listen and look.

What I’ve come to appreciate is the alternative wisdom carried by Native American elders, gurus of all sorts, and the range of those labeled shamans, East and West.

And so, at last summer’s sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, I was intrigued by an opportunity to view a movie on Mongolian shamans. It’s a remarkable work, by a registered nurse who has worked for two decades with nomadic reindeer herders in Mongolia. Having earned their trust and respect, and realizing their own vulnerability in the face of global changes, the shamans allowed her to film their healing ceremonies.

As I viewed the documentary, I was struck by how much of what she observed leads into Tibetan Buddhism, too.

This is remarkable work. What is healing, anyway? From a Christian point of view, I can say healing can differ from a cure. So just what happens in a shaman ceremony? And where can Eastern and Western health care interact? How much of our physical state is a reflection of our emotional and spiritual conditions.

We might wonder, too, how the Nativity stories would appear from the world view of the  herders, how much their insights would inform us about shepherds and angels. Would a stable be that much different from the homes where the shamans enact their rites? As for the Magi? Or the heavenly wonder? Or even an oppressive political and economic presence? As the Gospel message insists, the world needs healing, no doubt about it.

To learn more of the reindeer herder perspective, go to Nomadicare.

PLACING THE TRUTH IN ANOTHER LIGHT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

As one traditional Quaker query was read aloud during a meeting for worship, one of its phrases began echoing within me: “Truth in the heart.”

How remarkable! Not in the head but rather the heart! Truth, which we see so often as ground in facts and logical consistency, is now assayed not in the brain but rather in the core of our affections.

As early Friends used the word, Truth is much more of a verb than an immutable object. Think of the progression from true to truer to truest. Maybe you can sense that motion in the slightly fuller expression of that day’s query, asking if we, individually and as a group, heed “Love and Truth in the heart” …

As I said, a remarkable phrase.

REVISITING THE EARLY CHURCH, IN PART

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

While walking to Quaker Meeting one Sunday morning, I heard a familiar hymn from my childhood wafting from the open doors at St. Mary’s. About a block later, still humming along, I realized it was the Protestant hymn, “Faith of Our Fathers.”

Well, I thought it was a Protestant hymn, especially now that this music is as likely to be heard in American Catholic services as in the mainstream Protestant ones, which have been drifting toward the newer pop-influenced praise songs. (A musically literate friend, by the way, dubs the rocking chants the Rupture songs.)

Imagine my surprise in learning the hymn in question was written to commemorate the English Catholics martyred in the schism that created the Church of England!

Either way, the questions remain, Whose father? And which faith?

And, as a digression seen in genealogy, we can add that it’s often the mother’s faith that’s followed.

Still, any way you want to look at this, I think it reflects a widespread sense of an earlier “golden age” of faith. Early Quakers, for instance, insisted that they weren’t intent on reforming Christianity, but rather restoring it to a richness from “before the great darkness of apostasy that set upon the church,” something I’d deduced meant from before the first Nicene Council.

And, for balance, many later Quakers looked and still look to the upheavals of that first generation or two of the Society of Friends as a golden era of faithful devotion, something a closer reading of history will challenge.

Now that image of the early church has in turn been challenged in my reading of Richard E. Rubenstein’s When Jesus Became God, which focuses on the tribulations leading up to the Nicene Council and then flowing out of it.

The fact that both major sides in this confrontation were so violent, often as roving mobs, continues to rattle me, along with their allegiance to priests and bishops and the secular power those clergy already carried, even when Christianity itself was at odds with the Roman empire.

More subtle is the emerging schism between the Greek-speaking Christians of the eastern Mediterranean, with their complexity of thought and love of philosophical speculation, in contrast to the more action-oriented Latin-speaking Christians to the west, who lost much of the subtlety of the debate. Already, the tensions between the metropolitan bishops, or theoretically equal “popes,” of the eastern Mediterranean sea and Rome were mounting. If Rubenstein is right, the schism between the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholics was taking shape even before the Nicene Council, no matter how later history records the tragic events.

All of this leaves me asking just when the church moved from synagogues and home-based circles into a priestly class abetted by passionate mobs in the streets.

As Rubenstein repeats, there came a point when Jews were no longer part of the discussion but were rather persecuted.

Now, let us consider. Could that be when “the dark night of apostasy” arose?

MAINTAINING A GROUP IDENTITY IN A WIDER COMMUNITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Seeing radical religion continued through an elder-and-student succession over the generations also sets it apart from the wider society. In practice, it also invokes a circle of learning, all working together.

Sometimes, as in monasteries, the circle receives support from the wider society. At other times, it is based in circles of families whose identity somehow stands apart from the wider society. Upholding those values requires passing the teachings and practices down through the families.

This has been the history of the Jewish people, for starters, the preservation of a unique vision of justice and philanthropy, a critical stance from the mainstream, the independent role of prophecy in which political and social rulers are placed under a more absolute authority, monotheism rather than polytheism.

We see it, too, to some extent in minority and ethnic communities as they attempt to maintain their unique identities and cultures.

The Amish, of course, stand out in America as they pursue this.

One of the complications is that it can lead to a relatively small gene pool when it comes to finding a spouse.

In the Church of the Brethren, the annual sessions, which alternated between the East Coast and the Midwest, were often followed by marriage announcements. In other words, it was the place to go if you were looking. The shared values heightened the chances for a successful union, we can suppose.

For Quakers, the boarding schools allowed for some wider mixing than one would find in the home village. Still, the lines could tangle in time, even with a strict ban on first-cousin marriages. I remember a conversation with one young couple who told me they were also third cousins or some such. Don’t think it was aunt and uncle, but it seemed that complicated at the time.

Maybe that’s why I wasn’t shocked by the complex, tangled family lines presented in Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex or even the incest. (As others have noted, the reason the incest taboo is so universal is simply that the practice has likewise been so universal.)

In the novel, persecution leads to brutal oppression and massacre. The generations are torn apart. And then, somehow, they continue. What shocks most is the violence and hatred and related moral failures of the more “civilized” ships that fail to come to the rescue of innocent victims. But that returns us to thoughts of the wider society, doesn’t it.