Quaker Basics: Experiencing the Living Spirit through Convincement and Conviction
Quakers experience the Living Spirit that speaks to our human condition. We experience the power and grace of the Living Spirit in the good, glorious, all-is-well times and in the hard times, when we fall short, are inadequate, become the perpetrator. In small groups to reflect and talk on how you experience the Spirit in every moment, every person, and everywhere. Then we will share insights with the whole group, and celebrate the beauty and value of life for the pure joy of it.
Convincement
As Quakers, we have met the Spirit; it is irrefutable and convincing. As I would be if I met you. If someone told me you did not exist, it would not matter. I would be convinced, because I had met you and knew you existed. And so when we experience the Living Spirit. Our practice is to notice the vibrancy of the Living Spirit anew in every moment and to live in the joy of being alive. We were called the Children of God. We need to bring our child’s mind to delighting in every part of the day from morning through nighttime.
Margaret Fell (1652) describes her moment of convincement, “I cried in my spirit to the Lord, ‘We are all thieves, we are all thieves, we have taken the Scriptures in words and know nothing of them in ourselves’.… I saw it was the truth, and I could not deny it; and I did as the apostle saith, I ‘received the truth in the love of it’. And it was opened to me so clear that I had never a tittle in my heart against it; but I desired the Lord that I might be kept in it, and then I desired no greater portion.”
Quakers experience that essence of life that George Fox (1657) called the eternal, that “which was before the world was.” Experiences of the Living Spirit mayoften come as special mountain-top, glorious, or all-is-well moments. They may come as significant moments of insight or grief. But they may come as we delight in the ordinary breeze, sun, stars, blossoms, gentle smiles, or daily wonder at being alive. We may notice our breath and heartbeat and wonder about their source. Life is valuable. I am alive. I am valuable. Nothing I can say or do can make me any more valuable than I am right now. We’ve arrived. This is life, this is enough. A. Barratt Brown (1932) describes this so well, “It is a bold and colossal claim that we put forward – that the whole of life is sacramental, that there are innumerable ‘means of grace’ by which God is revealed and communicated – through nature and through human fellowship and through a thousand things that may become the ‘outward and visible sign’ of ‘an inward and spiritual grace’.”
Such an awareness softens and opens us, without possessing. In fact, we call ourselves Friends because we experience this inward tendering. Jesus said I will no longer call you servants, I will call you friends if you do what I direct, and that is to love each other (John 15). Love is to feel a tender affection for and a sense of the preciousness of another, while free to take leave without ill judgment or retribution. Life comes and life goes, that’s its nature. Let go, don’t hold on, and celebrate life anew each day.
As the Religious Society of Friends we turn our attention to loving all life: ourselves, others, and the natural world. Being alive becomes praying without ceasing, staying relaxed and non-anxious in this current time and place, and noticing the creative, healing, regenerative movement of the Living Spirit. Our sense of that mysterious, creative Source of all life in all life convinces us.
Note: In this original Quaker insight, the second coming did not refer to another individual. It referred to “the rising of the Christ within.” That every person is a Child of God with a direct experience of the Living Spirit. That we should strive to be our perfect, authentic part of the perfect, divine whole. Early Friends were incarcerated for blasphemy. They claimed to be Christ—God manifested in human form raising up the good, true, and loving, and illuminating the cruel, false, and unloving within ourselves, others, and our societies.
Quakers experience the Living Spirit that speaks to our human condition. When we meet the Spirit at times when we are humbled and brought down low, we find conviction.
Conviction
The word conviction comes from ‘convicted.’ When we fall short, fail, make mistakes, feel inadequate, or become the perpetrator, we experience the Spirit in a whole new way beyond our own egos. Many traditions see mistakes or failings as the cracks through which God comes. Mistakes allow us to learn. Weaknesses allow us to need others in genuine ways that create community. Failings allow us to experience unequivocal and unconditional love and grace of Life. Without a sense of Spirit in hard times, we experience failings as humiliation that wounds our egos and leads to violence, retribution, and revenge. With a sense of the Spirit in hard times, we find humility, compassion, and conviction. This is a very different experience of the Spirit than in the glorious or all-is-well times.
Some shortcomings arise from wounds that may turn into distress patterns and frozen needs that lead to reliving or reenacting our unresolved pain and unmet needs. Today we better understand how these effects of trauma may lead to cycles of violence, greed, control, envy, self-centeredness, narcissism, idolatry, hatred, strife, seduction, or addiction. Trauma sets in when we feel our needs outstrip our resources. We feel overwhelmed and freeze, especially when we feel caught alone. When we can experience the Spirit in these moments, we sense the endless resource of the Spirit. We are much less apt to feel overwhelmed and alone, and so less apt to experience trauma. This full awareness of the Spirit heals us and makes us resilient to trauma. The attention of spiritual companions contradicts the isolation, which heals. And taking action to express our inward experience in outward form keeps us from freezing and thereby helps us become more resilient to trauma.
John Woolman (1763) speaks of the healing power of universal love and our part in lessening each other’s distresses, “Our gracious Creator cares and provides for all his creatures. His tender mercies are over all his works; and so far as his love influences our minds, so far we become interested in his workmanship and feel a desire to take hold of every opportunity to lessen the distresses of the afflicted and increase the happiness of the creation. Here we have a prospect of one common interest from which our own is inseparable, that to turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives…”
Other shortcomings arise when we suffer or feel lost, unloved, afraid, mistreated, or hurt by others’ neglected or abused, at any age, but especially when we were young. To heal, we have to be ready to heal. We may not be ready to give up our pain, heal, or forgive ourselves or others. But when we are ready, we often cannot do it alone. We need the support of others and the power and healing grace of the Spirit.
Quaker practice is not a formula. We open to the very real, palpable Inward Power of life itself — to create, love, heal, nurture, and transform. Live in the power of the Living Spirit. Learn from mistakes. Offer strengths. Show compassion and mercy, while standing up for ecological and social justice. Robert Barclay (1648–1690) describes a mature Quaker community, “For, when I came into the silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power among them, which touched my heart; and as I gave way unto it I found the evil weakening in me and the good raised up; and so I became thus knit and united unto them, hungering more and more after the increase of this power and life….”
Quaker practice is not a set of beliefs or values. It’s a practice that grows from the direct experience of experimenting with the Spirit working in our lives. It’s ironic that through failings, mistakes, and pain along with the glorious and all-is-well moments, the Spirit can heal us. Then we see life as beautiful, joyful, and uplifting, and we become a cheerful, energetic, loving people.