"Good day, Friend."
"Good day. How is Truth prospering in thy parts?"
Think about how you would respond if someone began a conversation this way.
I might say "Truth prospers in the genuine excitement I see in Raya (who was interviewed very well and gets to travel with Model UN to Greece this year.) Truth prospers in the honest work that most students do to prepare for class.
Truth suffers in the students who cheated on the test I gave in class yesterday. Truth prospers at the avocado stand where, when I hesitated at what seemed like a high price, the young man weighed the bag in front of me and explained the price.
Apparently I choose extremely large avocados."
Early Quakers were not given to idle talk. But this "honesty" is also not what they meant by Truth, according to Wilmer Cooper in his mop-water-soaked pamphlet on Integrity.
Listen to Fox's idea of where Truth is found: "I was to direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures, by which they might be led into all Truth."
He does not say "I was to direct people to the Scriptures"; the Spirit was the destination.
Truth, according to Fox, is not about secondhand knowledge of God, but firsthand experience. He hoped we would have experiences of Truth that we felt compelled to obey. I imagine this like a call to a profession- an experience so convincing that "teaching!" or "nursing!" or "coding!" is what I am meant to do, that I obey the call and pursue that path.
For Fox, Truth was revealed through the life and teachings of Christ, so the Scriptures count. But the truth was only "authentic if it was grounded in first-hand experience of the living God."
This week Emily Dickinson showed my class that the pursuit of truth might inspire less-than-Quakerly meditations. We read this poem together.
We discussed how she seems to revel in the spectacle of death simply because it offers the the satisfying certainty that she is not being lied to. The eyes of someone dying in anguish glaze over, and -op!- now I know you're for real; Now I'll pay attention, enough to register with pleasure the beads of sweat, festively "strung" across your face. No matter that it's a deathly anguish which produced them.
We also studied empathy this week - this poem was an effective counter example.
When I asked the students "Does Ms. Dickinson seem like a Quaker?" many said "Yes!" because of the demonstrated importance of honesty and truth. But if the Quaker understanding of Truth is grounded in our first-hand experience of God, we can hardly rejoice when it is found in the pain of death.
We might look instead at another Biblical reading of Truth that Cooper brings up - one found in the old testament, coming from the word "emeth" and oftener translated "Faithfulness."
That is, the faithfulness of God. My understanding of truth is grounded in my experience of the faithfulness of God. Simply put, I have been taken care of, and given what I need, every single day of my life up till now. That is the truth, and it is the truth upon which I build my faith in tomorrow.
"Good day. How is Truth prospering in thy parts?"
Think about how you would respond if someone began a conversation this way.
I might say "Truth prospers in the genuine excitement I see in Raya (who was interviewed very well and gets to travel with Model UN to Greece this year.) Truth prospers in the honest work that most students do to prepare for class.
Truth suffers in the students who cheated on the test I gave in class yesterday. Truth prospers at the avocado stand where, when I hesitated at what seemed like a high price, the young man weighed the bag in front of me and explained the price.
Apparently I choose extremely large avocados."
Early Quakers were not given to idle talk. But this "honesty" is also not what they meant by Truth, according to Wilmer Cooper in his mop-water-soaked pamphlet on Integrity.
Listen to Fox's idea of where Truth is found: "I was to direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures, by which they might be led into all Truth."
He does not say "I was to direct people to the Scriptures"; the Spirit was the destination.
Truth, according to Fox, is not about secondhand knowledge of God, but firsthand experience. He hoped we would have experiences of Truth that we felt compelled to obey. I imagine this like a call to a profession- an experience so convincing that "teaching!" or "nursing!" or "coding!" is what I am meant to do, that I obey the call and pursue that path.
For Fox, Truth was revealed through the life and teachings of Christ, so the Scriptures count. But the truth was only "authentic if it was grounded in first-hand experience of the living God."
This week Emily Dickinson showed my class that the pursuit of truth might inspire less-than-Quakerly meditations. We read this poem together.
| I LIKE a look of agony, | |
| Because I know it ’s true; | |
| Men do not sham convulsion, | |
| Nor simulate a throe. | |
| The eyes glaze once, and that is death. | 5 |
| Impossible to feign | |
| The beads upon the forehead | |
| By homely anguish strung. |
We discussed how she seems to revel in the spectacle of death simply because it offers the the satisfying certainty that she is not being lied to. The eyes of someone dying in anguish glaze over, and -op!- now I know you're for real; Now I'll pay attention, enough to register with pleasure the beads of sweat, festively "strung" across your face. No matter that it's a deathly anguish which produced them.
We also studied empathy this week - this poem was an effective counter example.
When I asked the students "Does Ms. Dickinson seem like a Quaker?" many said "Yes!" because of the demonstrated importance of honesty and truth. But if the Quaker understanding of Truth is grounded in our first-hand experience of God, we can hardly rejoice when it is found in the pain of death.
We might look instead at another Biblical reading of Truth that Cooper brings up - one found in the old testament, coming from the word "emeth" and oftener translated "Faithfulness."
That is, the faithfulness of God. My understanding of truth is grounded in my experience of the faithfulness of God. Simply put, I have been taken care of, and given what I need, every single day of my life up till now. That is the truth, and it is the truth upon which I build my faith in tomorrow.
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