I want to capture these clues, these slights of hands, in hopes that in the collecting we might discern creative ways forward. But one clue does not make a good blog post, and often when I discover them, all I see is their twinkling. Each twinkle seems unlikely to illumin much of the way forward, and yet perhaps collected ... so this blog post will be a cumulative effort, a little here and there, and perhaps it will be a reader that slips behind the clues into the mystery.
Lets start with the one that I just found.
"To become a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, Herrymon suggests, we need to base our activism not on an intellectual analysis or on a personal desire to "save the world," but rather on a deep commitment to the Way of Truth. This commitment requires giving up our ego-centered perspective and joining in a community of fellow seekers." Source
This clue right now seems to be about joining together with others who care deeply, and committing our selves to the deeper way of Spirit's desire for us, vs my desire for the prisons. Learning to pray less from my personal agony over conditions and challenges, and to pray more from within the Big Heart that holds us all and all potential ways forward.
The article continues: "Non-violence springs from a recognition that my neighbor is just as important, just as sacred in the eyes of God, as I am." and I substitute: Non-violence springs from a recognition that every prisoner & every victim is just as important, just as sacred in the eyes of God, as I am.
and sites Isaiah: "All they that take up the sword shall perish by the sword" (Matthew 26: 52), and Isaiah, "Your hands are full of bloodshed, wash yourselves clean, banish your evil doings from my sight, cease to do wrong, learn to do right, make justice all your aim, and put a check on violence" (Isaiah 1:15-17).
..."Lao Tsu’s purpose, which was to avoid "naming things and cogitating theories." To this I hear to stop calling the current system names in a childish way saying this is bad, this is wrong, I hate that!" and to stop seeking a theory of change that arises out of the existing conditions and approaches to what I call the problem. Ambiguity is an essential part of the way.
In the footnotes: 6. Herrymon’s tone is uncompromising and bleak: "It is essential to grasp the nature of the destruction that we may indeed bring upon ourselves: a destruction not just of evil places or of evil people, but a destruction of all places, all people. For the torment of our times, for the evil in them, for our wars, for our fears, we are all responsible. The pacifist is as responsible for war as the militarist, the doer of good works as responsible for poverty as the oppressor, the man of prayer as responsible for ignorance of Truth as the blasphemer. If but a handful among us were completely given to the light of Truth, our world could not remain sunk in torment. But there is no such handful. There is no remnant. All are responsible; each one is responsible. There is no purely personal salvation; if we do not seek to be joined in Truth with every living human person (and, in a sense, with every one who is dead) we shall be damned separately. There is no indication that the Kingdom of God is to be won by merely personal initiative" (The Power of Truth, pp. 7-8).
These comments came while reading: Quaker Theology #6 -Spring 2002, "Herrymon Maurer and the Tao of Quakerism" by Anthony Manousos
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