Treating Someone Like Family... That's the Problem.

This last holiday season reminded me of something that happened to my little sister. 

After I had moved out on my own, but my little sister was still a child. Something happened with my Aunt's family. My Aunt, her husband, and all 5 kids moved in with my parents. Suddenly, instead of 3 people living in a decently sized house (Mom, Stepfather, and one kid), it was 10 people under one roof that was way too small.

My cousins were loud and always yelling at each other. Picking on each other just short of bullying. They were used to just grabbing anything that the other sibling had that they wanted. Basically, a normal, slightly dysfunctional, large family.

For my little sister it was incredibly traumatizing. She was Home-schooled. Used to a quiet environment where the adults read, watched TV, and spent their days on the computer (my parents were early adopters). She hated every minute of it. Just wanted my cousins to stop taking her stuff and leave her alone. Resented every insult (they thought she was over sensitive when they picked on her). Basically, it became her version of a living Hell (mine is going through a retail store closing).

After my Aunt's family moved out. My sister refused to have anything to do with my cousins for a long time. Actually, it was only recently that she started talking to them...

One day I was visiting the oldest of my Aunt's children. My cousin (who is now 35) said to me. "I don't know why your sister hates us so much. We treated her just like a sister." I told her the honest truth. "That is probably actually the problem. Do you like how you and your siblings treat each other?' (The dysfunction never really stopped.) It was like a light dawned in my cousin's eyes.

Since we grew up in it. We often don't realize how dysfunctional our own family dynamic is. It's only when someone else points it out to us, that we realize we have a problem.

This is honestly a major problem for most new couples. Either the new SO has their boundaries ignored and becomes resentful. Or the reverse happens, and the new SO violates boundaries and is offensive to the other family members. Which makes it even harder when there are actual issues....

The same thing definitely happens in Church and Business. Honestly, if I am interviewing or going through orientation at a new job and someone says to me "we're like a big family here" it's one of my warning signs that it might be a bad place to work.

Churches are even worse about it. If someone doesn't agree with specific Doctrines, or live up to unspoken (or even spoken but inappropriate) standards. The church can become an incredibly hostile place for that person. To be frank, the vast majority of the Nones and the Dones state this as the reason they no longer attend church. Honestly, it's happened to me with my wife's church once (a specific location, not the whole Denomination).

While it has never happened to me. I know for a fact that  churches and meetings in my own Denomination of The Religious Society of Friends can be like that as well.

So, we have to ask ourselves. When we say we treat everyone like family. Is that a good thing or a bad thing.

Yes, even Hitler.

"There is that of God within every one." This is what I feel is the core of Quaker Faith. What I think informs all of our other testimonies and beliefs.

Since is spend so much time around people of faith who are not Friends. I frequently get asked what Quakers believe. 

A question that is unfortunately easier to answer in the negative with Hicksite Friends, with what we don't believe and do. There is a very good reason for this, and one that I hold as a positive. It is because we recognize that people's individual spiritual journey is just that, individual. Unlike other Denominations, we are not defined by whether or not we believe in the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus, or what we consider sinful. We are more defined by our commitments to Integrity, Peace, Justice, Equality, and caring for the world.

Since I have been asked so many times "What do Quakers believe" my response has been refined to "There is so much variety between Quakers that isn't really an answerable question. However, I can tell you that our core belief is that there is that of God within every one." Weirdly enough, I've been asked more than once. "What, even Hitler?" I do have a ready answer to that. "Sometimes they make it really hard to see."

On the whole, everyone has trouble recognizing That of the Light in challenging people. We look at someone who we see as irredeemably evil... and our minds just won't let us see the better aspects of them. 

We also let this happen when we are dealing with people we just don't agree with. We decide that because we think they are wrong, there is nothing worthy about them, but that is a topic for another day.

Getting back to my original point. Yes Adolf Hitler had The Inner Light (another name for That of God). He chose to ignore his Light. The same can be said of many other people. Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, just about any American CEO or Hedge Fund manager, and one person whose name I'm sure will spring to everyone's mind by my not naming him.

While everyone does have a measure of the Light within them, listening to the Light and following it is a choice. We also have what I think of as The Inner Dark, what I have heard Evangelical's refer to as The Voice of Satan. In psychological terms it is the collection of biases, prejudices, hatreds, self centered beliefs, and personal aggrandizement that we all fall prey to. 

It would be so easy to give a long list of examples of people who followed the Light, and those who followed the Dark. Examples that would give the idea that it is an either or binary choice. Instead, I'm going to talk about a much more complicated figure.

In America Mahatma Gandhi is viewed as the ultimate Holy Man. A figure of inspiration when it comes to peace and nonviolence. Gandhi is an inspiration to many Generations of Friends (a specific positive example). I cannot speak to how he is viewed in India, but I am fairly certain that he is a national hero. 

So, imagine my surprise when I read about an effort inspired by the American movement to remove statues of controversial racist figures from public view. In Ghana, my Sister-in-Law's home country, the students were fighting to remove a statue of Mahatma Gandhi from their campus. 

Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer originally, who worked in Africa... on the side of oppression. It would be fair to characterize  Gandhi's work in South Africa as about elevating Indians above the native African population. (For more on this subject I recommend this article Was Mahatma Gandhi a Racist) 

In Mahatma Gandhi I see a figure who both gave in to his Inner Dark, but then redeemed himself and followed the Inner Light.

While I am definitely no apologist for Adolf Hitler. I'm sure that there were many points in his life where Hitler could have chosen to follow his Inner Light... He never made that choice. Instead he followed his Inner Dark to the point where he is the example of The Ultimate Evil that everyone has in their hearts. Including mine.

In short, yes, even Hitler had That of God within him... Hitler chose not to listen.

Morality always advances.

There is one quirk of Quakerism that outsiders may not be familiar with.

Friends place personal revelation above scripture.

The Bible is important, but when it comes right down to it. We consider it to be just one way to commune with the Light.

Quaker reliance on personal revelation dates back to our founder George Fox. Fox preached that within  every person there is a measure of the Holy Spirit. In it's modern form we refer to this as, "That of God in Everyone," or "The Light Within."

Quaker Silent Worship has as it's express purpose reaching towards that light. It is an attempt to commune with the Spirit and receive God's wisdom.

This wisdom is then meant to inform our actions and guide us in a careful and caring life.

We follow personal revelation because of a simple fact. Over the last Two-Thousand years morality has advanced. It continues to do so. In the past the Divine was only able to reveal what the people alive at the time were ready to hear.

I tend to see the history of the Judeo-Christian tradition as a maturation process. You have the early Hebrews. Who were violent, arrogant, and obsessed with purity and cleanliness. Like a young child (who very often can be described by my previous sentence) they needed a lot of rules. Just as you need rules telling a small child not to hit their sister, or pull a vase down on themselves. The Ancient Hebrews needed rules telling them not to eat un-refrigerated and non-preserved pork and shellfish in the desert.

Then you have the loosening of the rules with Yeshua of Nazareth. Just as with a teenager, you are able to rely on your children to make their own judgements. Yeshu made it clear that the intent behind the rules was more important than the letter of the rules. That God is love, and following God will always produce love in this world.

Now, for the most part society has advanced to adulthood. Morality overall has advanced to the point where the Divine does not need to intercede directly on a constant basis.

Just as adults only need their parents when they ask for help. We only need Divine Assistance when we ask for it. Although, like any good parent, sometimes he will help us with something more difficult without actually letting us know.

Of course there are those who ignore current Morality and the guidance of the Divine. Who, for whatever reason act in selfish and short sighted ways. Who instead of loving their neighbors, find reasons to hate and exclude. Who like the proverbial Tax Collector, only love those who love them.

Following the Light we receive guidance to care for everyone. For all people contain That of God within. Even when it is so hard to see.

I Want to Be Thomas K. Beecher When I Grow Up.

In my post Hometown Heroes I mentioned that I wanted to know more about Thomas K. Beecher. If only because one of my ancestors helped create the statue of Rev. Beecher.

Since that blog I have gotten the chance to tour the Park Church downtown. I discovered that Rev. Beecher was the sort of man that all Christians should aspire to be

Rev. Beecher has a bad case of more famous older sibling. His older sister Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Which of course is still required reading in many schools today, over 150 years after it was published. Like her, he was an abolitionist.

The Park Church that Rev. Beecher was pastor of was actually founded by abolitionists. Quite a few of the members were active conductors on the Underground Railroad before the end of the Civil War. At least 800 fugitive slaves passed through Elmira on their way to Canada. I'm positive that he had a hand in some of those activities.

Rev. Beecher was also close friends with another literary giant. He would play billiards and debate with his buddy Sam regularly. Sam wasn't the church going type (I've read his "Letters From The Earth" so I totally understand that), but his wife and daughters were members of the Park Church. Why Rev. Beecher even performed Sam's marriage to his wife Olivia in her family's mansion (the current site of which is a strip mall, take that as you will). Sam is better known by his pen-name, Mark Twain. I can't help but envy Rev. Beecher's friendship with Mark Twain. I have long wished I could have gotten to know Mark Twain personally.

Rev. Beecher gave the "indigent" a place to clean up and rest (which tells me how old my town's homeless population is). His study was my City's first library. He helped create the local school system. He was even a carpenter and helped the townspeople build and repair their homes. A fixer, a creator, a caretaker, an educator, and a spiritual leader. From his talents and actions, you can see that he was a man that tried very hard to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

When Rev. Beecher retired as the pastor of the Park Church, he handpicked his successor and hired her himself. Yes, that is correct. In the 1890's he hired the first female pastor ordained in his denomination Annis Eastman and her husband to oversee the church he had built.

Rev. Thomas K. Beecher was such an influence that even the placement of his statue was symbolic and purposeful. With his church standing behind him, and him watching out and over the town.

I see so much of what I admire in a man of Faith in Rev. Beecher. I am somewhat awestruck at what I learned on the tour. While he and I are from different denominations, we both belong to the same religion. I am inspired to be a better Christian in the way he was. To do as much good, and bring as much love and kindness into the world.

I know that Quakers have so many stories in our past that are as vibrant and inspiring as Rev. Beecher's is for the Congregationalists. I can't help but wonder where that spark is now for the Religious Left? Shouldn't every Friend and Progressive Christian try to be as devoted and giving as he was? Shouldn't everyone no matter their Faith or lack thereof try to live up to this example?