The Tao of Quakerism

Since returning from my trip to the East Coast, I have been editing one of the hidden masterpieces of Quakerism: Herrymon Maurer's translation of the Tao Teh Ching, with a Quaker/Hasidic Jewish commentary. Herrymon was my mentor and friend when I first came to Princeton Meeting in the early 1980s. He was a "recorder minister" and a sage who kept a low profile for reasons I explain in my article on Herrymon and the Tao of Quakerism. See http://www.quaker.org/quest/issue6-3-Maurer01.htm)

I'd be very interested in your thoughts about my article or about Herrymon's commentary on the Tao Teh Ching. He has written over a hundred pages by way of introduction, with a powerful prophetic critique of our society, from the standpoint of Taoism and Quakerism, or as Herrymon would say, simply The Way. I am submitting this for possible publication by Quaker Universalist Fellowship, or perhaps a trade publisher. It needs to be back in print!



The Tao/Virtue Classic Commentary


1. Tao Can’t be Taoed

If Tao can be Taoed, it's not Tao.
If its name can be named, it's not its name.
Has no name: precedes heaven and earth;
Has a name: mother of the ten thousand things.

For it is
Always dispassionate:
See its inwardness;
A!ways passionate:
See its outwardness.

The names are different
But the source the same.
Call the sameness mystery:
Mystery of mystery, the door to inwardness.

Beyond words is Tao! The opening passage of the Tao Teh Ching has the vigor of the first sentence of the book of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But here majesty is admixed with paradox and humor. The impact of the first line is multiplied by an additional meaning that hinges on a divine pun, "If the path can be followed, it's not the path," and also by a derivative meaning with the sense of "If God gods it, he's not God."

In the original, the word constant modifies the second use of Tao in line one (and in line two the second use of name). It has been omitted in translation because the impact of the rhythm of the sentence, as significant as the sense, is upset, and because the Western reader is not likely to imagine Tao as anything but an absolute. In Chinese, Tao also means Path or path, since ancient times its primary meaning, and the modifier constant is needed to differentiate the extraordinary from the ordinary. (Except, of course, that the ordinary is more extraordinary than the extraordinary.)

The phrase ten thousand things is usually rendered as all things and the phrase heaven and earth as the universe. Chinese ideographs encourage concreteness.


2. Takes No Credit

When all beneath heaven
Know beauty as beauty,
There is not beauty.
When all know good as good,
There is not good.

For what is and what is not beget each other;
Difficult and easy complete each other;
Long and short show each other;
High and low place each other;
Noise and sound harmonize each other;
Before and behind follow each other.

Therefore the sage
Manages without doing,
Teaches without talking.
He does not shun
The ten thousand things:
Rears them without owning them,
Works for them without claiming them,
Accomplishes but takes no credit.

Because he does not take credit,
It cannot be taken from him.


Beyond opposites is Tao! Often assumed to be a statement of the relativity of values, this chapter is actually a song of praise to the beyond-everything wholeness of Tao. Any thing less than Tao is so immensely less that the differ ences between anything less and its opposite are of little significance. A turning from ordinary differentiation enables the sage to find closeness to Tao and enables him to accomplish but take no credit.

An eighteenth-century Hasidic teacher, Yehiel Michal of Zlotchov, noted that "if there were no evil, there would be no good, for good is the counterpart of evil. Ever lasting delight is no delight. .. the fact that evil confronts good gives man the possibility of victory." [Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: Early Masters, New York, Schocken Books, 1947, p. 144]


Beneath heaven is typically translated as the world, a place of many meanings and a term of no location. There fore, in classical Chinese, means simply that there is a link 'between what goes before and what comes after, but not , that there is a causal or even sequential relationship. The logic of the Chinese language includes an indeterminism of intermingling happenings, which are not strictly causal. In this translation, for, hence, now, so, also, and thus often substitute for therefore.


3. Doing Nothing-doing

If you don't exalt the worthy:
People then will not compete.
If you don't prize rare goods:
People then will not steal.
If you don't show what is covetable:
The people's hearts won't be upset.

Thus, when the sage rules,
He empties hearts
And fills bellies,
Weakens ambitions
And strengthens bones.
He leads the people
To not-know and not-want,
And the cunning ones
To dare not do.
By doing nothing-doing,
Everything gets done.

Setting an example of contention is a typical occasion for contention. Quaker John Woolman, writer of journals and worker against slavery, wrote in the eighteenth century about "ways of living attended with unnecessary labor. .. which draw forth the minds of many people to seek after outward power and to strive for riches, which frequently introduce oppression and bring forth wars." [Considera tions of Pure Wisdom and Human Policy, 1768]
Isaac Penington, a seventeenth century devotionalist, wrote about the value of not knowing: "Be still and wait for light and strength and desire not to know or compre hend …” [Letters, John Barclay edition, p. 173]

When the sage empties hearts and fills bellies, he meets needs but shuns covetousness. He
also encourages humility. In Chinese, empty-hearted means humble. As for the full belly, eating at a shared table has long been held as worshipful among Chinese as it has among Jews.
The famous adage of wei wu wei, here translated as doing nothing-doing, is the positive form of wu wei, literally not-do, and thus signifies do not-do. Its full meaning, to be grasped only in context, embraces not alone the wisdom of non-interference but in addition the forcefulness of taking action in the realm of the inward: i.e., the realm of nothingness that is accessible only through humility. In this realm, humility is positive and passivity is dynamic; purposive action is static. Nothing -doing gets things done; something-doing does not.


3. Use Emptiness!

Tao is empty! Use it
And it isn't used up.
Deep! It seems like
The forebear of
The ten thousand things.
It blunts edges,
Unties tangles,
Harmonizes lights,
Unites all dusts.
Submerged and existent!
I don't know whose child it is.
It looks to be the source.


Apparently different in manner and meaning from Lao Tzu's hymn of praise is the hymn of praise of the later Isaiah, but the common sense of awe is nearly identical.

Who ever measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
or ruled the skies off with a span,
or held the dust of earth inside a measure,
or weighed the mountains in a pair of scales,
the hills within a balance?
Who ever moved the mind of the Eternal,
or gave him lessons and advice?
Who ever was called in to give him counsel?


Who ever taught him how to act, or showed him
what to do? [Isaiah 40: 12-14, Moffatt translation.]

Differences in the outer clothing of words are swallowed up in wonder at the pervasiveness of the Undefined, the Unknown, the Ever -present, whether the nameless and inexplicable YHVH or the nameless and inexplicable Tao. John Woolman says:

"There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places arid ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brothers in the best sense of the expression. Using ourselves to take ways which appear most easy to us, when inconsistent with that purity Which is without beginning, we thereby set up a government of our own and deny obedience to him whose service is true liberty." [Considerations On Keeping Negroes, Part Second, 1762]

Becoming a Friend of God: The Spiritual Journey of a Sufi Quaker

"Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you." [From the Hadith Qudsi, or The Holy Sayings of Mohammad, which are believed to come directly from God.]

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:21

The First Steps in my Journey as a Sufi Quaker

I became a Friend, that is, a Quaker, in 1984 at about the same time that I encountered my first Sufi, a Tamil-speaking teacher from Sri Lanka named Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. I met this Sufi saint in Philadelphia, where he was well known and much appreciated by many Quakers. Some Friends even joined his Fellowship.

At that time I was editing a multi-faith publication called Fellowship in Prayer (now called Sacred Journey). The pay was modest, but the perks were priceless: thanks to this job, I had the opportunity to interview and worship with a remarkable array of spiritual leaders from various faith traditions.

One of my assignments was to interview Bawa Muhaiyadeen, who who first came to the United States in 1971 and established the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship in Philadelphia. This Fellowship grew to over 1,000 followers in the Philadelphia area, with branches spreading throughout the United States and Canada, as well as Australia and the UK. I knew very little about Sufism at this time, but I was eager to learn more about it. Having just earned my Ph. D., I asked one of Bawa’s followers a decidedly academic question:

“I have heard that Eastern religion emphasizes union with God, while Western religion emphasizes communion with God. What does Sufism emphasize?”

The man smiled, paused to reflect, and then replied, “If a plane is flying at 30,000 feet, and another plane is at 20,000 feet, but you are on the ground, what difference is it to you the altitude of the planes?”

This zinger was just what I needed at the point in my spiritual journey. I realized that to understand Sufism, it wasn’t enough just to ask academic questions. I would need to walk the path, or at least one very much like it.

I want to make it clear that I’m not belittling academic studies. I have the utmost respect for scholars of religion, particularly ones like Huston Smith and Karen Armstrong, who have dedicated their lives to promoting interfaith understanding. If you want to know about Sufism, I heartily recommend the work of Carl W. Ernst and Annemarie Schimmel. I have also provided a short list of books by and about Sufis for those who want to delve more deeply into this topic.
But books alone will not give you a taste of Sufism, any more than cook books will give you a taste of haute cuisine. To understand Sufism, or any other religious practice, you must acquire first-hand knowledge and experience. As the Psalmist says: “Taste and see!”(34: 4).

For the past twenty five years, I have practiced Quakerism and had close friendships with Sufis who have opened my heart and mind to what it means to be a “Friend of God.” During this time, I also followed the example of Huston Smith and learned about various religions by practicing them. For nine months, I lived in a Zen Buddhist center in Providence, RI, and practiced meditation. Perhaps not coincidentally, Coleman Barks, one of the most popular translators of the great Sufi poet Rumi, was a student of my Korean Zen master, Soen Sa Nim. The spiritual world is indeed a small one, with many interconnections!

I also spent a year at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for study and contemplation near Philadelphia, where I studied with many outstanding Quaker teachers, such as William Taber, Sonya Cronk, and William Durland.

Since 9/11, I have adopted many Muslim practices, such as fasting during Ramadan, praying five times a day, and worshipping with Muslims whenever I have the opportunity. I read the Quran daily along with the Bible. Prior to 9/11 I didn’t have a single Muslim friend, but today some of my dearest and closest friends are Muslims, and I have come to feel a part of the Muslim “family” here in Los Angeles. To these kindred spirits, I owe an eternal debt of gratitude for opening my mind and heart to the spiritual dimensions of Islam.

In 2002, I published a pamphlet called “Islam from a Quaker Perspective” which attempts to explain Islam to Quakers, and Quakerism to Muslims, in the most succinct possible way. This pamphlet was co-published by three Quaker organizations—Friends Bulletin, Wider Quaker Fellowship, and Quaker Universalist Fellowship—and circulated over 5,000 copies in 100 countries. It was even translated into German. In this pamphlet, I focused on mainstream Islam and deliberately omitted any reference to Sufism. I did this in part because I wanted Friends to understand what the majority of Muslims believe and practice, and to appreciate what James Michener called “the world’s most misunderstood religion.”

Now I would like to go deeper and explore the inner world of Islam and Christianity as I have experienced it through my study and practice of Quakerism and Sufism. I will explore a wide variety of motifs which are interwoven with the theme of spiritual friendship:

1) Simplicity: how we simplify our lives to become closer to God. This is practice shared by both Sufis and Quakers.

2) Importance of women in both traditions. Both traditions honor the spiritual power and wisdom of women and produced great women teachers/saints.

3) Ecstatic devotion to God. Thomas Kelly (who wrote "Testament of Devotion") is the Quaker I consider to be closest in spirit to the Sufis. In this section I will discuss how we can imagine God as both Friend and Lover.

4) Social witness. Sufis, like the Quakers, often stood in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, and challenged the rich and powerful. To be a Friend of God means to be a Friend of “the least” among us.

5) "Universal" vs. Islamic Sufism.

6) Methods of enhancing God consciousness through ance, chanting, and silent meditation. Techniques for developing intimacy with God.

7) Story telling/parables. Both Sufis and Quakers avoid theologizing, preferring instead to convey their theology through stories and narratives.

8) Attitude towards scripture. Both Sufism and Quakerism lay more emphasis on direct experience of the Divine than on the written word about the Divine.

9) "Hidden saints." In both traditions, there is the recognition that some of the most enlightened souls are not necessarily widely known. They do their work quietly, behind-the-scene, as it were. Cf. the sage in Taoism. Being a Friend of God means a willingness to embrace anonymity.

10) Intellect and spirit. Both traditions take non-dogmatic approach and welcome seekers who question traditional ideas about religion.

11) The "double search," as Quaker theologian Rufus Jones called it. We are seeking God, but God is also seeking us.

My hope is that what I have to share abut Sufism and Quakerism will inspire you to go deeper in your spiritual life and to become more intimate with the source of truth within you and within others.

Mysticism and the Path of Friendship

Sufism and Quakerism are often regarded as mystical branches of their respective religious traditions. Mystics are usually solitary individuals who have had compelling inward experiences of the Divine. But Quakerism, with its emphasis on silent worship and the direct experience of God/Christ through the Inward Light, has been described as a form of “group mysticism.” Sufism has also been regarded as a form of “group mysticism” since many of its practices—chanting the names of God (also called zikr) and dervish dancing—are corporate, not individualistic. Sufism and Quakerism also refer to its practitioners as “Friends,” or more precisely, as “Friends of God/Truth.”

I don’t want to engage in an academic comparison of Quakerism and Sufism, however useful and interesting that might be for scholars of religion. Instead, I would like to suggest how Quakerism and Sufism can help bring us into an intimate relationship with God/Truth. Such a close, intimate and loving relationship with the Divine is, I believe, at the heart of both religious faiths, and the ultimate source of our inner peace and happiness.

I also want to explore questions such as: What does it mean to be a “Friend of God”? And how does one become a Friend of God? And how does being (or seeing oneself as) a Friend of God influence how one lives one’s life?

I realize that some may find the word “God” or “Truth” off-putting. Some may doubt or deny existence of a transcendent being, while others may imagine God as an impersonal force (“Light” of “Eternal Goodness”) and find the idea of “befriending” God to be strange or naïve.
Depending on our beliefs, we can relate to the universe or Ultimate Reality in a virtually limitless variety of ways. At one end of the spectrum, we can see the universe as a hostile place governed by impersonal forces with which we can have no relationship. Such, for example, was the tragic vision of Thomas Hardy. At the other end of the spectrum, we can see the universe as a benign place from which human beings emerged for a reason or were created for a purpose. Walt Whitman (who was a great admirer of the Quakers, particularly the famous Quaker preacher Elias Hicks) had this optimistic view of the universe. One of the goals of religion is to help us find and embrace a life-enhancing relationship with the universe, and with its Creator/Sustainer.
Early Friends called themselves “Friends of the Truth,” which was another way of saying “Friends of God” since Friends used the word “God” and “Truth” interchangeably. Quakers later adopted the name the “Religious Society of Friends.” (“Quaker” was a derisive name given to early Friends by their opponents, but it has come to be accepted and widely used without its negative connotation.)

The term “Friend of God” (wali or waliullah) has been used by Muslims to describe those who demonstrate a high degree of God-consciousness. The term “Friend” has also been applied to Sufis in general. (Indeed, in Sufi writings, God is often referred to a “The Friend.”) A website from the Chishti Sufi order makes clear that becoming a friend of God is, or should be, the goal of our spiritual life:

A dervish [Sufi] is a friend of GodAnd a friend of a friend is a friend,So if you don't know how to be a friend of God,Try to be a friend of a dervish.

Friendship is of course a key component in many religious traditions, not simply of the Abrahamic faiths. The Buddha was once asked by one of his students if friendship is an important part of the spiritual life. “No,” replied the Buddha emphatically. “Friendship is everything in the spiritual life.”

The spiritual life is about being in a healthy, life-enhancing relationship with oneself, other people, life in all its forms, and the Divine. There are many names for such a relationship: spiritual friendship, agape, or simply love.

Jesus summed up the spiritual life with two commandments: “Love God and love your neighbor.: These two commandments can be a bridge for the three Abrahamic faiths, as a group of Muslim scholars recently pointed out in a document called “A Common Word.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus went a step further and gave his students a single commandment: “Love.” If we love selflessly, Jesus said, and if we are willing to sacrifice our lives for our friends, then we become Friends of Christ and of God. It is this passage that inspired George Fox to call his followers “Friends of Truth.”

Members of the Religious Society of Friends regard friendship, in its deepest sense, as the core of our faith. The 17th century Quaker William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania) spoke eloquently about friendship: “A true friend unbossoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.” Friendship for Penn was a spiritual bond that enhanced life and transcended death: "Friendship is the union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond thereof virtue… Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.”

With these words in mind, let’s look at the nature of spiritual friendship as it was understood by Sufis and Friends.

The Scriptural Basis for Being “God’s Friend”

Sufis describe their saints as “Friend of God” (waliullah) in part because this epithet was used to describe Abraham, who is considered the first Muslim, i.e. the first human being to surrender to and find peace with God.

Yet the idea of being a “Friend of God” is problematic to those who think of God as the Creator of the Universe, the “Lord of Lord and King of Kings,” the transcendent Other. As Aristotle pointed out in the Nichomachean Ethics, friendship implies equality and likeness. It is hard to imagine being friends with one’s boss, or even one’s parents, much less with the transcendent Creator.
Yet Abraham is called “a friend of God” in the Quran as well as in the Bible (see Surah 4.125). In the Bible Abraham is called a "friend of God" three times (2 Chroni. 20: 7, Isa. 41: 8; and James: 2, 23). The bond between God and Abraham was so close that God called him "My friend" (Isaiah 41:8). Abraham is also called a Friend of God in the New Testament: “And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend” (James: 2, 23).

Was this bond of friendship based on obedience? Or love? Or both? Conservative theologians (whether Christian or Islamic) tend to emphasize that Abraham became a friend of God because he obeyed God’s will. Certainly Abraham was faithful to God, but so were other prophets, such as Noah and Moses. What made Abraham different from these other prophets was not his obedience, but his intimacy with the Divine. He and his wife entertained three angels in their tent who were emissaries from God (in some Christian traditions, these angels are regarded as manifestations of the Holy Trinity and are depicted as such in iconography). When God wanted to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham was able to bargain with God. It is clear that Abraham enjoyed an intimacy with God that no other prophet, except Jesus, experienced.
For this reason, Muslims refer to Abraham with the special epithet Khalilullah (“Friend of God”). The term “khalil” has a much deeper meaning in Arabic than the word “friend” has in English, as one commentator explains:

But the English word 'friend' does scant justice to the idea of khalil which, in Arabic, denotes the dearest or most sincere friend who has no rival in the love and reliance placed upon him. (Daryabadi, The Holy Qur'an, Vol. 1, p. 91A).

This is the kind of intimacy that Sufis strive to achieve in their relationship with God. As the Quran makes clear, God is not only transcendent, beyond whatever we can know or even imagine, God is also immanent: “nearer to [us] than [our] jugular vein” (Sura 50:16).
Jesus also conceived of God as immanent and accessible, like our “papa” (as “Abba,” the homely Aramaic term for “father,” has sometimes been translated). Jesus does not refer to God as a Friend, but he does call on his disciples to become his friends and, by extension, friends of God. Jesus said, "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" (Jn. 15: 14).

Becoming a “Friend of God” may seem like a impossible goal, like becoming a saint. But Sufism and Quakerism both teach that everyone has the potential to become a Friend of God. Indeed, becoming intimate with one’s true self, and with the universe, is the goal of our spiritual life; and these traditions teach us it is not as difficult as one may think.

As the Tao The Ching teachers, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And as the Jesus and Mohammad both make clear, if we take a single baby step towards God, God will rush to embrace us with love and friendship deeper than anything we can imagine. I will now examine some of the steps that can lead us closer to friendship with God.

My Journey as a Quaker Interfaith Peacemaker

This Sunday, Dec 16  I gave a talk on "Quakers and the Interfaith Movement"  sponsored by the Interfaith Study Group, at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. When I arrived, I realized that my printer had run out of paper and I didn't have the last ten pages of my talk. So I "winged out." I let people ask me questions about Quakerism and they were so eager that every time I answered a question, half a dozen hands flew up, wanting to know more. It was a teacher's dream!

I was also pleased that Jill was able to share her reflections about Quakerism and about an interfaith program to help homeless families called "Family Promise." I was so happy that Jill and I are working together as a team.... thereby fulfilling our wedding vow that "the Prince of Peace has brought us together for a purpose greater than either of us can imagine..."

Here's a draft of what I intended to say:

I want to thank Betsy Perry for inviting me to speak at this occasion, and I want to thank the Pasadena synagogue for hosting this event. I admire very much Rabbi Grater’s deep commitment to peace and justice work and I know several members of this congregation are active supporters of my wife’s concern, affordable housing, and have gone to City Council meetings to raise this issue. Betsy and I met at All Saints this spring during the series on nonviolent activism, “A Force More Powerful,” led by Rev James Lawson. Betsy is delightful person and has come to my home to take part in discussion groups relating to peacemaking and the bible. I love the work that All Saints is doing, like hosting the MPAC conference—I hope it went well.  If I were not a Quaker, I’d probably be attending All Saints. In fact, when the IRS began hassling All Saints because of George Regas’ controversial sermon on “Who would Jesus vote for,” I became a solidarity member of All Saints.  I am delighted to be able to share with you something about the Quaker approach to interfaith peacemaking.

I’d like to begin by sharing how I became an interfaith Quaker twenty five years ago (not coincidentally, my email address is “interfaithquaker@aol.com). What I mean by an interfaith Quaker is simply a Quaker who is open to the wisdom and religious practices of other religions, but is nonetheless deeply rooted in Quakerism.

I first became a Quaker in Princeton, NJ, my home town, in 1984. I was drawn to Quakerism because I love the Quaker practice of silent, open worship. I also love the Quaker commitment to peace and justice. And I love the Quaker belief that each of us can have direct inward access to God, or Truth, through the Inward Light. This is the Light described as the Logos in the Gospel of John: “the true Light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world.” Quakers believe that the Inward Light is present in everyone, and indeed, in every living creature, since the Gospel of John also says: “Through him (the Light of Christ, the Logos) all things were made, and without him was not made anything that was made.” In other words, the Logos created and is present in every person and in everything—including every religion—to some measure.

I found this Universalist approach very appealing since I have been deeply interested in other faiths ever since having a profound experience of Christ in 1971. I became a seeker and learned much from people of other faiths—Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais—as well as Christian denominations like the Congregationalists and Presbyterians. Soon after attending Princeton Friends Meeting in 1983, I met Quakers who were involved in a magazine called “Fellowship in Prayer,” now called “Sacred Journey.” This magazine was founded in 1949 (the date of my birth) by a missionary named Carl Evans who believed that war would end if people of different faiths prayed together for peace.

Evans was ahead of his time, a pioneer in interfaith peacemaking. Thanks to my Quaker friends Ed Miller and Herymon Mauer, I became editor of “Fellowship in Prayer” magazine and had the opportunity to meet and interview spiritual leaders and teachers from various traditions—Jewish, Sufi, Buddhist, Native American, etc. This was the beginning of my interfaith journey as a Quaker.

Herrymon Maurer, my first Quaker mentor, became interested in Taoism when he went to China to teach in the early 1940s, just before World War II broke out. Herrymon wrote an imaginative biography of Lao Lzu and translated the Tao Teh Ching with a commentary based on quotations from the Bible, the Quaker anti-slavery activist John Woolman, and Martin Buber’s Hassidic tales. Herrymon saw the Tao as a profoundly prophetic work—one that called for social as well as personal transformation. I owe Herrymon a huge debt of gratitude for helping me see the links between Quakerism and Taoism, as well as the universality of the Way.

My other Quaker teachers during this period were Joe and Teresina Havens. Joe was a psychologist and Teresina earned a doctorate in religion from Yale in the 1930s. Her specialty was Buddhism. The Havens were an amazing couple and modeled for me what it meant to be a genuine Quaker. They lived simply and devoted their lives to spirituality and social activism. When they retired, they started a retreat center near Amherst where I often went for spiritual renewal. Teresina believed that Nichiren, a thirteen-century Buddhist monk, had many affinities with Quakers since he strongly opposed war. She was right. Followers of Nichiren formed the Sokka Gakkai branch of Buddhism and became ardent advocates for peace.

In 1986, while I was editor of “Fellowship in Prayer,” I became intrigued by a Korean Zen Buddhist teacher named Soen Sa Nim. I went to live and study in his Zen center in Providence, RI, for nine months. The Quakers of Princeton Meeting were very supportive. When I had the opportunity to lead a group of Tibetan monks on a concert tour in New Jersey, Princeton Meeting warmly welcomed them. My first published article in a Quaker journal described the incredible multi-tonal chanting of these tantric monks and was called “Listening to the Light.” I have subsequently published an article about my experience studying tantric Buddhism with the Dalai Lama.

In 1988 I spent a year at Pendle Hill, a Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation, where I met and courted my wife Kathleen Ross, a Methodist minister. A year later, we were married at Claremont Friends Meeting and began a twenty-year ministry together which I sometimes called a Methodist-Quaker alliance. Kathleen deepened my understanding of liberal Christianity which is very open to dialogue and working with people of diverse faiths. During this time, I saw myself as a Methodist Quaker.

My commitment to interfaith peacemaking began in earnest on 9/11. At that time, like many people, I felt enormous fear and anxiety about where our country and world was headed—so I decided to undergo self-purification through fasting and prayer. To reach out to my Muslim neighbors, I decided to fast during the month of Ramadan and went to visit local mosques. When my Muslim neighbors heard I was fasting and reading the Quran during Ramadan, they were incredibly appreciative—some even invited me to their homes. My heart opened up to them and I became hooked on interfaith peacemaking. I started regularly attending interfaith events and soon found myself on the board of various interfaith organizations—the South Coast Interfaith Council, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, and the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

I also became a kind of Quaker ambassador to the interfaith community. I wrote a pamphlet called “Islam from a Quaker Perspective” which was published by Wider Quaker Fellowship and circulated around the world. There was even an edition published in German! I began giving talks and workshops about Islam and interfaith peacemaking at various Quaker gatherings. Finally, I was given a letter of support by my Yearly Meeting, affirming that I have a calling to do interfaith ministry.

In 2011, I published a book called “Quakers and the Interfaith Movement,” which was intended as a handbook for Quakers interested in becoming involved in this work. It contains chapters on the Interfaith Movement and Compassionate Listening as well as various theological perspectives by leading Quaker scholars. It describes what Quaker institutions, such as Friends Committee on Legislation and the American Friends Service Committee, are doing to promote interfaith dialogue peacemaking. It has a chapter on Quakers and Muslims, and Quakers and Jews and Israel/Palestine—the most challenging issue for the interfaith movement.

I’d like to share with you with you some of the highlights of my book. But first, a little background about Quaker theology.

One of my favorite quotes is by William Penn, who was a Universalist Christian. Unlike the Catholics, who at that time believed that only Catholics would go to heaven, and unlike the Calvinists, who believed that only Calvinists would go to heaven, William Penn thought that people of good will and good action—whether they were Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish—belonged to “one religion” and were kindred spirits:

“The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls everywhere are of one religion and when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wore here make them strangers.”

Pacific Yearly Meeting—the branch of Quakers to which I belong—agrees with Penn and affirms that the Inward Light is universal, though not easy to put into words:

“The Inward Light is a universal light given to all men [and women], religious consciousness being basically the same wherever it is found. Our difficulties come when we try to express it. We cannot express; we can only experience God. Therefore, we must always remember tolerance, humility, and tenderness with others whose ways and views may differ from ours.”

My friend and colleague Sallie King, a professor of philosophy and religion at James Madison Univeristy,  makes it clear that just because all people are illuminated by the Inward Light, not all people and religions are alike. We must honor differences as well as commonalities. As Sallie points out:

“This is not to say that all religions are one. The religions are indeed different. While Friends avoid creeds, our Testimonies—Truth, Nonviolence, Equality, Simplicity—are clear and not to be compromised, as is our practice of submitting to the guidance of the Spirit. These give us the guidance we need in our relating to other religions.”

This in a nutshell is the theological basis for Quaker peacemaking. What about its practical application?

As I note in my book, “one of the most Quakerly methods for encouraging interfaith dialogue and understanding is to listen deeply to those of other faiths, without judgmentalism” (p. 24). My teacher and friend Gene Hoffman pioneered in this approach and I had the privilege of editing a book of her writings. I also had the opportunity to go to Israel/Palestine with the Compassionate Listening Project, which was inspired by Gene’s approach and led by brilliant Palestinian and Jewish women. As we visited refugee camps, kibbutzim, and various organizations in Israel/Palestine, we learned how to listen to people who had strongly opposing perspectives. It was a life-transforming experience. I received training in compassionate listening and have shared it in many venues, including at the Parliament of the World’s Religion in Melbourne, Australia,

Closer to home, I have facilitated interfaith cafes that use a compassionate listening approach. Kay Lindahl, founder of the Sacred Listening Center, developed the interfaith café model which has been widely used in many places, including here in Pasadena. In September of this year, I helped organize an interfaith café at Orange Grove Meeting, sponsored by the Parliament of the World’s Religion. Around 30 people showed up. We met in small groups and shared our spiritual experiences by responding to open-ended questions like:  “What does your religion say about peace? How does your religion help you to deal with conflict nonviolently in your family, workplace, and community? How does your religion affect how you take a stand on issues relating to social justice and peace? What do you think is the biggest misperception people have about your reli­gion? How have your views about religion changed over the years, and if so, how and why?”

            These questions have no right or wrong answers and open up dialogue based on experience, not dogma. The beauty of the interfaith café approach is that it creates a safe space where people can talk about their faith and hear about our faiths in a f/Friendly way. This model has become very popular in the Long Beach area, thanks to the South Coast Interfaith Council. I hope that we can have more interfaith cafes here in Pasadena, perhaps right here in this synagogue! Please let me know if you’re interested.

            My book also describes what Quaker organizations are doing to promote interfaith peace and understanding nationally and globally. For example, the Friends Committee for National Legislation, a Quaker lobby started in 1943, called on Friends to become more engaged with the Muslim community and its efforts to promote peace and justice. When conservatives tried to prevent a creation of an Islamic Center in lower Manhattan, FCNL circulated a petition that garnered 8,000 signatures and presented it to Faisal Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan of the Cordoba Center.

            I recently went to Washington, DC, to take part in a Quaker lobby day. 325 Quakers from across the USA gathered in DC to call on our elected officials to reduce the military budget by a trillion dollars over the next decade. We were encouraged to set up meetings with our elected officials in their home offices. I have organized an interfaith delegation to meet with Adam Schiff’s aide here in Pasadena last week. If you’d like to be part of an interfaith delegation to meet with our new Pasadena representative Judy Chu and argue for cuts in the Pentagon budget, please let me know. I’d love your support!

            I serve on the Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee of Friends General Conference, a national Quaker organization. Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee of Friends General Conference, or CIRC, was started so that Friends could have a presence at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893. CIRC sends Quaker representatives to the World and National Council of Churches. I do a lot of interfaith work on behalf of CIRC. They sponsored my trip to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia.

            Among other things, CIRC wrote a response to an historic statement issues by Muslim scholars to Christian scholars called “A Common Word.” This unprecedented Muslim outreach to the Christian community began in October 13, 2007, when 138 Muslim scholars sent out a letter (entitled “A Common Word Between Us and You”) to leaders of the Christian faith, calling for peace and understanding. (Since then, there have been more Muslim signatories, bringing the total to over 300.) These noteworthy signatories represent a broad range of nationalities and theological perspectives. According to its author, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammud of Jordan, this letter represents a “normative Ijma [consensus] by the Ummah’s [Muslim community’s] scholars,” that must be taken seriously by Muslims everywhere.

Just to be clear, this exchange was meant to be the beginning of a theological conversation that will eventually include Jewish scholars. You can read about this exchange in a book entitled A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor (Eerdman: Grand Rapids, MI, 2010). It is fascinating to see how finely trained theological minds explore the intricacies and complexities of such a seemingly simple statement as: “Love God and love your neighbor.” What is meant by “love”? What is meant by “God”? Or “neighbor”? Do Muslims and Christians mean the same thing by these words?

             CIRC’s response to “A Common Word” called on Christians and Muslims to dialogue together to explore ways to promote peace. I’d love to broaden this discussion to include ALL the religious leaders in Pasadena. How might we cooperate to put into practice the commandment to “love thy neighbor?”

            I currently serve on the board of the local chapter of the Parliament of the World’s Religion and I encourage you to become involved. Last spring at the Sokka Gakkai Center in Santa Monica, the Parliament sponsored a gathering in which teachers from various religious traditions gave instruction on prayer and meditation. This program was called “Seeds of Peace” and we plan to have a similar event in the spring of 2013. I feel we are continuing the work of the Christian missionary Carl Evans, who believed that if people of different faiths prayed for peace, we could end war.

I recently went to Claremont Lincoln University to attend an event sponsored by the Parliament of the World’s Religion called “Educating Religious Leaders for a Multi-Religious World.” As you probably know, Claremont School of Theology has been transformed into the first interfaith seminary in the nation, thanks to a 50 million dollar grant from the Lincoln family. It is now called the Lincoln Claremont University and its mission is to train young people to become Christian pastors, Jewish rabbis and Muslim imams in one institution rather than in several. Claremont Lincoln isn’t interesting in promoting a one-size-fits-all religion. Rather it is committed to nurturing religious leaders who are clear about their own faith and comfortable working and studying together in a multi-religious, pluralistic community. I was pleased to learn that the Provost of the Claremont Lincoln University, a brilliant and prolific theologian by the name of Phil Clayton, currently attends the Claremont Meeting and considers himself a Quaker. I was also pleased that one of the leading professors of Claremont Lincoln University, a Muslim scholar named Najeeba Syed-Miller, studied at Guiford, a Quaker college in North Carolina, with my friend Max Carter, the director of the Quaker studies program. When I told Najeeba I detected Quaker elements in one of her talks, she smiled and told me about her Quaker educational background. I love the fact that people of different faiths are learning from each other how to become better peace makers.

Here in Pasadena, Professor Glen Stassen, an Evangelical Baptist, has been an integral part of a movement called “Just Peacemaking.” He argues that the debate between pacifism and “just war” cannot be resolved, and isn’t particularly helpful. He believes that all Christians, and indeed all people of faith, should do all they can to prevent war.  He was involved in the recent publication of a book entitled “Interfaith Just Peacemaking,” edited by Susan Thisthethwaite. As a Quaker, I am thrilled that people of diverse faiths agree that “war is not the answer.” Did I mention that Glen Stassen went to a Quaker school and has on the door of his office an FCNL sticker that reads “War is not the answer.” Isn’t it marvelous when peace makers work together and learn from each other?

I’d like to close by discussing the final two chapters of my book: one relating the Quakers and Islam, the other relating to Quakers and Israel/Palestine.

The chapter on Islam contains not only my pamphlet but also excepts from the translation of the Quran by Michael Sells, a Quaker professor of Arabic studies who used to teach at Haverford and now teaches at the University of Chicago. I highly recommend his book

The chapter on Israel/Palestine deals with the thorny issue of how we can create a just peace in this troubled region nonviolently. It contains an essay by a Quaker of Jewish background who went to Israel/Palestine with the Compassionate Listening project. It also has an essay by Guiford College professor Max Carter, Najeeba Syed-Miller’s teacher, who frequently takes students from Guilford to Ramallah, where a Quaker school was established over a hundred years ago. This school has trained many leaders in the Palestinian community who have acquired many Quaker values while still preserving their identity as Muslims. This chapter also describes the work that the AFSC is doing to encourage young Palestinian leaders to work for justice nonviolently.

Interfaith work in the Middle East can be very difficult, and it isn’t always easy here at home. My Jewish friend Ruth Broyde Sharone has written a lively memoir about her interfaith reconciliation work called “Minefields and Miracles: Why God and Allah Need to Talk.” She recounts many inspiring stories of interfaith cooperation, and also of painful misunderstandings.

We may not agree on theology, and we all have very different religious practices, but we can agree that we are called to “love our neighbors.” This is the heart and the essence of the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran—and most other faiths have a similar teachings.

 The three major Christian organizations—the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), the World Council of Churches (WCC) an ,the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA)—met during a period of five years to discuss how Christians could witness to their faith in a multi-religious world. I highly recommend downloading and reading this historic document, which was published in 2011, since it is the first time that Catholics, mainstream Protestants and Evangelicals have agreed on guidelines for interfaith dialogue and cooperation within the context of Christian witness. Among other things, this document encourages Christians to engage in respectful interreligious dialogue, to build relationships of trust with those of other faiths, to reject violence, to speak truthfully about other faiths, to refrain from all forms of material “allurements” to gain converts, to work for freedom of freedom, and to cooperate with people of other faiths for the common good.

I think we can all agree it’s important to cooperate with people of other faiths for the common good. That’s why I want to lift up a relatively new interfaith service organization that has come to the San Gabriel area. It’s called Family Promise and it’s part of a nation-wide network that has helped thousands of homeless families to become housed. My wife Jill does recruitment for this interfaith organization, and I’d like to invite her to say a few words about it. See  http://web.fpsgv.org/

            My wife and I met last spring at a Peace Parade here in Pasadena, and we were married last fall after a whirlwind courtship. I proposed to Jil after only three weeks. I guess it’s what my Jewish Friends call beshert, meeting your soul mate: we just knew God had brought us together.

Jill and I come from very different backgrounds. She is an Evangelical Chistian and I am a liberal Quaker, but we agree on deeply held values—like peace and justice, helping the poor, and loving our neighbors. And we have discovered you don’t need to agree with someone’s theology to love them and work with them and have a wonderful relationship.

When we got married, we invited people of diverse faiths to be part of our wedding party. Muslims, Jews, Evangelicals, liberals, conservatives people of color, the affluent, the homeless, and even a stranger from China who happened to be in town and wanted to see an American wedding—all came to our wedding and were welcome.

“Love God and love your neighbor as yourself” is a commandment we need to take seriously and embrace wholeheartedly. It’s part of our DNA as well as our religious heritage. What the interfaith movement calls us to do is to love ALL our neighbors, no matter what their race, religion or ethnic background. It isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it!

 

 

 

Quakers and the Tao

Taoism appeals to those who value peace and simplicity, like the Quakers, because it portrays a way of life free from violence and open to the Spirit—a life guided not by ego, but by compassion and Truth. The Quaker artist Fritz Eichenberg, whose wood print of Lao Tzu leaving China on a water buffalo appears on the cover of this book, turned to Taoism as a child and practiced Zen Buddhist meditation before becoming a Quaker in 1940. Quaker educators Howard and Anna Brinton, directors of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for study and contemplation near Philadelphia, valued the spiritual wisdom of ancient China and allude to the Tao Teh Ching in their writings. And Ham Sok Han, the Korean Quaker whom some have compared to Mohandas Gandhi, wrote about the importance of Taoism to his spiritual development as a Christian activist. All of these “weighty” Friends saw Tao- ism as a prophetic as well as mystical religion akin to Quakerism.

Herrymon Maurer’s translation and commentary on the Tao Teh Ching is the only book-length work by an American to explore Taoism from a Quaker/Hasidic (or as Herrymon would say, “prophetic”) viewpoint. Using a Taoist/Quaker perspective, Herrymon explores a wide range of contemporary social issues and problems, from sexuality to funda- mentalism, from social activism to monetary policy, from publicity-seeking to our obses- sion with violence and war. At the root of all our problems (and our sometimes knee-jerk responses to them) Herrymon sees self-will, or addiction to self. He writes about the cur- rent state of ego-centered “conventional” society with wit, irony, and insight. Herrymon sees the Tao Teh Ching as an antidote to one of the most pervasive problems of our time— violence. Those who are concerned about the endemic violence in today’s world will be challenged and inspired by Herrymon’s unique translation and commentary on the Tao Teh Ching. Herrymon wrote not for scholars but for “suffering and seeking human beings.” In his view, Tao Teh Ching is not an historical artifact, but a “living growing thing”— capable of opening our minds and hearts to the Way of Truth, Love, and Peace.

The Tao of Herrymon Maurer

“When I first read Herrymon’s version of the Tao Teh Ching, I was bowled over,” re- calls Steve Penningroth, a biochemist from Princeton University. “What struck me was the commentary. Without it I was lost. Herrymon’s commentary helped me because I had the sense that he was on to something and that he grasped the problems of the world from a non-dogmatic, spiritual and loving perspective.”

“The book changed my life in many ways,” says Glenn Picher, who was 24 years old and had just been graduated from Princeton University when he first encountered Herrymon and his Tao Teh Ching. “Herrymon had the voice of a prophet. Being a political radical at the time, I found the jeremiad aspect of this work very attractive…”

Even though many twentieth century Quakers have been drawn to Taoism, Herrymon Maurer’s Tao Teh Ching is the only book-length work to explore Taoism from a Quaker/ Hasidic (or as Herrymon would say, “prophetic”) perspective.

Herrymon’s interest in Taoism and China was lifelong and deep. From 1938-41, during the Sino-Japanese War, Herrymon taught English in West China, where he first became acquainted with Taoism and experienced first-hand the brute facts of modern combat.

Deeply impressed by Chinese culture and spiritual wisdom, he wrote a fictionalized life of Lao Tzu in 1943.

Herrymon also had broad-ranging experience in the business world and among Quak- ers. He was on the staff of Fortune magazine from 1942-45, and afterwards was a contrib- uting writer until 1968. He wrote articles that appeared in Fortune, Life, Reader’s Digest, the old Commentary, the New Leader, and other magazines. He wrote books on topics ranging from Gandhi to big business that were published in Britain, France, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. He also edited a book and wrote a pam- phlet for Pendle Hill, a Quaker study center, and was known and respected by  “weighty” Quakers, such as Anna and Howard Brinton.

After a lifetime of intense and sometimes compulsive seeking, Herrymon finally achieved, in the last few decades of his life, a measure of hard-earned wisdom, tempered with deep compassion, that was of enormous help to those seeking inner peace and clarity for their lives.

I came to know Herrymon when I first began attending Princeton Meeting in 1984. At that time, Herrymon had turned seventy and had recently become a recorded minister.

This distinction was lost upon me as a newcomer to Quakerism. I have since learned that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting—of which Princeton Meeting is a part—virtually gave up the practice of  recording ministers nearly fifty years ago. Herrymon’s ministry was considered so important, however, that Princeton Friends felt that it needed to be acknowledged.

I learned about “the Way” of Taoism and Quakerism through a small group that Herry- mon helped to establish. It was called “The Surrender Group.” Around one third of its members were  AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) “graduates”; the rest were recovering ego-holics, of whom I was (and still am) one.

The “Surrender Group” was started in the early 1970s a few years after Herrymon joined AA and turned his life around. Its format was simple: AA’s Twelve Steps were re- cast, in deference to Quaker practice, as “Ten Queries.” Each week participants would fo- cus on a single query: “Are you willing to make Truth the center of your life?” or “Are you willing to give up compulsions and devices?” The questions were simple, but the responses were often deep and challenging. Participants were encouraged to share from their personal experience, and to help others to understand how we could in fact change our lives. I had never experienced anything quite like it before, or since.

What made the “Surrender Group” dynamic was the presence of recovering alcoholics deeply committed to spiritual transformation, and the presence of Herrymon, whose wisdom and humor pervaded the gathering.

“I don’t think I’d be here today if not for Herrymon and the Surrender Group,” says Harriet, one of the group’s original members. “When I first went to the group, I was 29 years old and had just found out that my husband was manic-depressive. Herrymon helped me get through this crisis spiritually as well as psychologically.”

****

When Herrymon died in August of 1998, his passing was deeply felt by his family and Princeton F/friends, but went mostly unacknowledged elsewhere, even in the Quaker world. Herrymon seemed very much like the low-profile Taoist sage.

When I learned of Herrymon’s death, I felt led to write about him, but found very little material to work with. I was surprised to learn that no memorial minute had been written about him. There was apparently no obituary about him even in Friend Journal, the na- tional magazine of Quakers.

To find out more about this man whose life was as elusive as the Tao, I decided to in- terview his wife Helen, who still lives in Princeton. From Helen, I gleaned a picture of Herrymon’s life and realized how little about himself he had revealed during the period that I came to know him.

In 1914 Herrymon Maurer was born in Sewickly, Pennsylvnia, a small town outside of Pittsburgh. His father was a high school teacher who died in the great influenza epidemic of 1917. Herrymon was sent to Ohio to live with relatives for several years while his mother went back to school. At age seven Herrymon was sent to Pittsburgh to live with his mother and aunt, both school teachers. Herrymon met his future wife, Helen Singleton, when she was 13 years old; and they soon became friends. The Maurer household was dominated by two very strict and formidable women. In contrast, the Singletons were viva- cious and easygoing. Among them Herrymon learned to dance and to appreciate the joys of life. Herrymon became best friends with Helen’s brother, as well as with Helen.

Precocious and gifted, with a penchant for sculpture as well as writing, Herrymon was accepted by Dartmouth College. During his freshman year he contracted rheumatic fever and was sent home. He spent a year in bed recovering. He eventually completed his B.A. in English at the University of Pittsburgh.

Seeking fame and fortune, Herrymon moved to New York, where he stayed at the apartment of  Helen’s brother. He was soon joined by Helen, and they were married in 1937.

The newlyweds eked out a living doing various jobs, as was common during the latter days of the Great Depression. Helen had been a social worker since 1933, but she ended up working at the New York World’s Fair. Herrymon wrote advertising copy and did public relations work. Helen recalls that at one point their apartment was full of the latest girdles, complete with new-fangled zippers, about which Herrymon had to write something catchy. He hated that job.

When Herrymon was offered the chance to teach English at the University of Nan- King in Western China in 1938, he leaped at the opportunity. Helen was a bit more cautious, but went along with Herrymon’s enthusiasm and ended up teaching at Jin-Ling, a prestigious women’s university. Traveling to China was a long and arduous journey that took six weeks because of stormy weather, and the stay in war-torn China was no less challenging. It was in China that their first child, Mei-Mei (meaning “Little Sister”), was born in 1939.

China made a deep impression on Herrymon, who eventually wrote two books on the subject, The End is Not Yet: China at War (McBride, 1941) and A Collision of East and West (Regnery, 1951). He also wrote a fictionalized life of Lao-Tzu called The Old Fellow (Doubleday, 1943). The End is Not Yet describes the Sino-Japanese war with a keen journalistic eye and celebrates the dogged, down-to-earth determination of the Chinese in the face of Japanese aggression. The Collision of East and West is a philosophical as well as historical reflection on the “four-cornered war between China and Japan, between Japan and the United States, between Japan and Russia, and the cultural and political war be- tween China  and the United States.”

When the Maurers moved back to the United States in 1941, Herrymon began working on these books as well as writing articles for Fortune and Commentary. They lived for a while in Westchester county, NY, where Herrymon became a member of Chappaqua Meet- ing in 1943. Here his daughter Ann was born, to be followed by his son Tom in 1945. As Herrymon’s commitment to pacifism and Quakerism deepened, he wrote Great Soul: The Growth of Gandhi, which was published by Doubleday in 1948.

In 1949 he and his family went to Pendle Hill to head up the publications program. There Herrymon edited The Pendle Hill Reader, a collection of essays by Thomas Kelly, Douglas Steere, Rufus Jones, Arnold Toynbee, Howard Brinton, et al. He also edited a se-

lection from John Woolman’s writings called Worship (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #51, 1949) and wrote a pamphlet called The Power of Truth (Pendle Hill Pamphlet # 53). During this period Herrymon came to know personally Fritz Eichenberg, the Brintons, the Steeres, the Bacons, and numerous other Friends who passed through this unique Quaker “hotbed” for study and contemplation.

In 1950 Herrymon moved to Princeton and became one of the founding members of Princeton Meeting, when it was resuscitated after WWII. There he continued to write about spiritual matters. In 1953 his cogitations on philosophy and religion, What Can I Know? The Prophetic Answer, was published. This turned out to be the last book that Herrymon published about religious matters for nearly thirty years.

Most of Herrymon’s books were written and published before he turned forty. His religious writings are full of what Yeats called “passionate intensity.” In his Pendle Hill pamphlet, The Power of Truth, Herrymon grapples with the question of the “end of the world” from nuclear holocaust. Herrymon argues that if humanity annihilates itself, it is because we have failed to heed the voices of prophets who are been warning and exhorting us to give up our self-destructive egocentrism.

Herrymon derides those who put their faith in social engineering or the Social Gospel—no man-made scheme or panacea will save us if there is no inward transformation. According to Herrymon, we must seek “liberation from our own lies and fears and egotism, and thus liberation from the outward pestilences provoked by inward ills. This liberation has many names. It has been called love, non-violence, non-action, pure wisdom. Gandhi gave it a new name, Satyagraha, the Power of Truth” (12). As a solution to America’s ra- cial problems, Herrymon proposes using the same techniques that Gandhi used, thereby anticipating Martin Luther King’s non-violent Civil Rights movement by several years.

In Herrymon’s view, Truth is universal, and so are prophets. He sees Lao-Tsu, Isaiah, Jesus, Muhammad, George Fox, John Woolman, and Gandhi as all espousing the same universal Truth. He writes: “I am also struck to find that God as Lao-tzu, the great Chinese Taoist, encountered him is in no sharp contrast to God as the great prophets of Israel encountered him” (p. 56). Herrymon acknowledges that universal Truth may be perceived and interpreted differently because of different social and historical circumstances.

For Herrymon, the great prophets are eternally contemporary. He sees Quakerism and Hasidism as “most successful in preserving prophetic vitality” (p. 62).

Herrymon was convinced that prophets continue to live among us, often in the disguise of “ordinary people” and friends who have had direct encounters with Truth (this is a belief shared by Quakers and Hasidim). He describes such prophets as

 

persons of ready humor, but also of deep seriousness. Not one of them has that steady serenity of mind that makes the mystic or the saint. (The prophetic and the serene, I suspect, are not altogether compatible.) These friends may have times of joy, but they

have recurrent times of anguish, tension, distaste, and sorrow. There is always the eternal conflict between the inalterably true and the world as it is; the prophetic func- tion is always to bear conflict and anguish and turn them to use (What Can I Know?: 66)

 

Those who knew Herrymon will recognize this as a self-portrait, for he was a “man of sorrows” who had a wonderful sense of humor and irony, and an abiding passion for honesty and Truth.

After Herrymon’s powerfully prophetic statements, it may seem strange that he wrote no more about religion for nearly three decades. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, he worked sporadically for Fortune magazine as editor and writer. He summed up his detailed knowledge of business in Great Enterprise: Growth and Behavior of the Big Corporation (MacMillan, 1955)—a work that dispassionately treats the rise of corporatism as a fact of life, or as a force of nature, without passing judgment or offering any critique. His professional writings of this period display lucidity, but no trace of inspiration or prophesy.

What caused the prophetic fires to die out, or at least become dormant, in Herrymon?

One answer is that he suffered from chronic alcoholism as well as bouts of depression that sapped his strength and undermined his confidence, particularly in his mid-life. From the 1940s on, he tried every cure imaginable, from psychotherapy to shock therapy. Nothing seemed able to exorcise his inner demons for very long.

Because of his alcoholism and mood swings, Herrymon’s relations with his family were often strained. His wife Helen, a woman of extraordinary faith, love, and common sense, helped to keep Herrymon and the family together during these difficult times. It was Helen who saw the Dr. Jeckyll in Herrymon when alcohol turned him into Mr. Hyde.

A psychiatric social worker, Helen was an associate professor at Rutgers University for many years. Her specialty was depression and schizophrenia. She worked at Carrier Clinic in Princeton as a coordinator of social services until her retirement at age 74.

“We managed to get through it,” she says, recalling Herrymon’s drinking and the dark times in her marriage, and laughing. “It was never dull.”

When drinking heavily, Herrymon could at times become belligerent and very un- Quakerly. One Saturday night he got into a fist fight at a bar and showed up the next day at Quaker Meeting wearing sunglasses to cover up his black eye. He was in his forties and the clerk of Meeting when this incident occurred.

One of the worst episodes took place when Herrymon was in his early 50s. One night, when Helen and his family were away, he drank too much and set fire to his bed, probably as a result of smoking. Severely burned, he called a family doctor, who rushed to his house at 4:00 AM and drove him to the nearest emergency ward, thereby saving his life. Herrymon was in the hospital for over six weeks with major burns, and the DTs. Helen was his constant companion from the crack of dawn until midnight. When he came to his senses,

Herrymon asked Helen where she had been all those weeks.

A couple of years later, in 1965, Herrymon joined Alcoholics Anonymous. He was fifty- six years old. According to his daughter Mei-Mei, “AA was the greatest thing in his life.” Herrymon sometimes told his friends: “AA saved my life.”

In one of his last articles for Fortune,  “The Beginning of Wisdom about Alcohol-

ism” (May 1968), Herrymon writes of alcoholism as “an illness of the magnitude of heart trouble, cancer, and severe mental disorder” and lauds AA as one of the best programs for dealing with this insidious disease.

Thanks to AA, Herrymon finally stopped drinking and found a support group that helped him to regain some stability in his life. Gradually his old passion for Truth (as he liked to call it) revived. He still suffered from depression and mood swings and needed medication (and psychiatric counseling) to cope, but he no longer felt possessed by the craving for alcohol.

With a new lease on life, he started the Surrender Group, became more actively in- volved in his Friends Meeting,  and went back to his “old loves”—the Tao Teh Ching, John Woolman, and Gandhi. In the mid-1970s he began working on series of four interconnected books he called The Way of the Ways. These books reflect the important influences of Her- rymon’s spiritual life: Taoism, “prophetic” scriptures (including the writings of George Fox and Martin Buber), John Woolman, and Mohandas Gandhi.

In the 1970s, Herrymon also joined the Board of Fellowship in Prayer (FIP), an organization started by Carl Evans, a retired businessman and former Presbyterian missionary in China, in 1949. Deeply disturbed by the Cold War and the threat of nuclear holocaust, Evans placed an ad in the NY Times calling for an interfaith “fellowship in prayer” to pro- mote peace and received an enthusiastic response from Roman Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, and others. The organization eventually received a Lilly Foundation grant, which enabled it to distribute its publications for free. Herrymon learned of FIP through his friend Paul Griffith, a novelist who became editor of FIP in 1966 and continued till his death in 1983.

The following year a young Quaker named Ed Miller became managing editor of FIP, largely through Herrymon’s efforts. Ed Miller was a bright young seeker in his late 30s, looking for a direction in his life, when he encountered Herrymon’s Tao Teh Ching, which was published by FIP in 1982. Reading it, Ed was astounded.

“This was the Reagan era,” recalls Ed, “and I wondered, ‘How could this guy have pub- lished this and not be in jail?’”

Ed bought five copies to give to friends and then discovered that the author lived in Princeton. He called Herrymon, and they met at Princeton Meeting. There Ed found the spiritual community he was seeking, and a mentor.

“I became Herrymon’s surrogate son,” says Ed. “Herrymon and I had a lot of personality characteristics, and faults, in common. He helped me turn my life around.”

Herrymon’s son Tom had died tragically in 1972, at age 27.

Ed and Mary Beth became members of Princeton Meeting, participants in the Surren- der Group, and frequent attenders of the Maurers’ Friday evening gatherings, which sometimes drew as many as 20-30 people—many of them young seekers like the Millers. Working for Fellowship in Prayer, Ed had the opportunity to broaden his spiritual hori- zons.

When I came to Princeton in 1984 after a stint as a college professor, Ed introduced me to Quakerism and eventually hired me as his editorial assistant at Fellowship in Prayer

This is when I began to study in earnest Herrymon’s Tao Teh Ching—a work that I found astonishing in its scope and depth. For the past twenty years, I have treasured my dog-eared copy and frequently return to it during my meditations. It remains a buried treasure, however—one that deserves to be more widely known and appreciated.

 

The Tao of Quakerism

 

What distinguishes Herrymon Maurer’s version of the Tao Teh Ching is its recognition that Lao Tzu belongs to a prophetic tradition that connects all religions and times. Herry- mon uses the word “prophetic” to refer not to those who imagine that they can foretell the future, but rather to those who believe themselves to be called (often reluctantly) to speak on behalf of what Herrymon (and early Quakers) called the Truth.

“Truth” is not an idea or a philosophic concept, but a way of life, an attitude towards the great mystery of existence that cannot be defined or explained, but can only be experi- enced.

The prophet’s primary concern is 1) to warn the community that has turned away from Truth, 2) to expose the idols and false gods that prevent us from experiencing Truth, and

3) to show the dire consequences of denying Truth and the blessings that can occur when we return to Truth. The prophets of Israel decried social injustices, such as economic op- pression, environmental degradation, and war, seeing them as symptoms or consequences of being out of touch with Divine Truth.

As has been noted before, Herrymon saw Lao Tzu as part of the same prophetic com- munity as Isaiah, the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, George Fox, John Woolman, Martin Buber, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.

For these prophets, as well as for Herrymon, the Way of Truth was not something oth- erworldly or metaphysical, but something real and practical—a way of personal and social liberation and transformation.

Using a Taoist perspective, Herrymon explores a wide range of contemporary social issues and problems, from sexuality to fundamentalism, from social activism to monetary policy, from publicity-seeking to our obsession with violence and war. At the root of all our problems (and our sometimes knee-jerk responses to them) Herrymon sees self-will, or ad-

The one that grieves wins (169).

 

A good soldier is not violent, A good soldier has no wrath.

The best way to win over an enemy is not to compete with him. (168)

 

Where armies are

Briars and brambles grow. Bad harvests follow big wars. Be firm and that is all:

Dare not rely on force. Be firm but not haughty, Firm but not boastful, Firm but not proud, Firm when necessary,

Firm but non-violent (126).

 

Fine weapons are tools of ill fortune; All things seem to hate them.

Whoever has Tao does not depend on them… Treat victory like a funeral. (127)

 

What others have taught, I also teach:

Men of violence perish by it. (139)

 

Herrymon’s commentaries link these passages with sayings by Western anti-war prophets, such as Jesus,  “All they that take up the sword shall perish by the

sword” (Mathew 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).

Some readers may find it objectionable that Herrymon uses the word “man” in the ge- neric sense rather than inclusive language, but Herrymon makes it clear that Lao Tsu was opposed to patriarchy and to any form of sexism. “While Lao Tsu makes frequent use of  the word man, in Chinese a generic term for human being regardless of sex,” writes Herry- mon, “Lao Tzu is not patriarchal (in this he is unlike Confucius) and tends to favor the ma- ternal. Among writers of the Bronze Age, when patriarchy completely overcame the matrilocalism of the New Stone Age, he was the one known feminist” (110). Throughout his work Lao Tzu refers to the Tao as a female (often as “the Mother”) and extols the femi-

diction to self. He writes about the current state of ego-centered “conventional” society with wit, irony, and insight.

His style is more formal than that of many popular writers and is at times reminiscent of Dr. Johnson, the eighteenth century literary and social critic. Underlying Herrymon’s formality is a deep concern for Truth born out of personal struggles. When Herrymon talks about addictive behavior, or obsession with success, or futile efforts to oppose war, he knows whereof he speaks. His satire of the self-serving peace activist is bound to make some Quakers wince:

 

Suppose, for example, that I have convictions on the subject of peace. I am stricken by the possibility of atomic conflagration and convinced that it is increased by armaments and the threat of war….I argue strenuously for my understanding of history, current events, and future projections. I undertake to gather large crowds of marching and shouting demonstrators, and try to win publicity for them, hopefully television public- ity….I orate with emotion. I call names. I demonstrate. I instill fear. I tell other people what to do. But other people, precisely the other people whose minds I seek to alter, see clearly that what I am really seeking is the power to become a celebrity, an author- ity figure…. (48).

 

The obsessive use of the word “I” is a good indication of where the speaker is really coming from. 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.

Herrymon sees the Tao Teh Ching as an antidote to one of the most pervasive prob- lems of our time—violence. According to Herrymon, all forms of violence—from gang vio- lence to wars and acts of terrorism—spring from attachment to self. I am apt to resort to violence—whether physical, verbal, or psychological—when I regard my self, my gang, my family, my ethnic group, my political faction, my religion, or my country as the most im- portant thing in the universe. Non-violence springs from a recognition that my neighbor is just as important, just as sacred in the eyes of God, as I am.

The Tao Teh Ching has long appealed to those of pacifist tendencies. It was composed during a period of Chinese history when China was torn apart by war lords. It contains numerous passages condemning war, many of which speak to our time:

 

When people don’t mind death

Why threaten them with death? (174)

 

When armies clash,

nine principle over the male. As the ironic Taoist sage says:

 

All men have their uses;

I alone am stubborn and uncouth. But I differ most from the others

In prizing food drawn from my Mother (114).

 

Herrymon may be the only commentator to appreciate the important connection be- tween Taoism and Martin Buber. Scholars are now coming to appreciate that Martin Buber was deeply interested in and influenced by Taoism, particularly the stories of Chuang-Tzu, which he translated and wrote about early in his career.

Being an English professor rather than a Chinese scholar by training, I can appreciate the literary value but cannot assess the scholarly worth of Herrymon’s translation. It is clear that Herrymon took pains to be as accurate and careful as possible in his translation. Chinese scholars agree that translating the Tao Teh Ching is extremely difficult and all translations are colored to some extent by the translator’s perspectives and biases.

The language of the original is so spare that it is often hard to translate, much less in- terpret. For example, the Chinese characters for Chapter 4:1 literally mean:

 

Tao empty and use it seem not full.

Most translators embellish the original with metaphorical and abstract language: “Existence, by nothing bred, /Breeds everything”: Brynner

“The Tao is like a well:/used but never used up”: Mitchell

“The Way is like an empty vessel,/That yet may be drawn forever”: Waley.

 

Herrymon’s only addition to the text is an exclamation point, suggesting a sense of wonder at an emptiness that is somehow the source of everything:

 

Tao is empty! Use it And it isn’t used up.

 

Whenever possible, Herrymon keeps to the concreteness of the Chinese (for examples, he uses the Chinese idiom “ten thousand things” instead of saying “all things”). Herrymon chooses this kind of exactitude even when the results may be somewhat confusing since “existing translations attempt to make [Lao Tsu] understandable,” i.e. confirm to the translator’s interpretation of reality. Herrymon feels that such efforts thwart Lao Tsu’s

Whenever possible, Herrymon keeps to the concreteness of the Chinese (for examples,

he uses the Chinese idiom “ten thousand things” instead of saying “all things”). Herrymon chooses this kind of exactitude even when the results may be somewhat confusing since “existing translations attempt to make [Lao Tsu] understandable,” i.e. confirm to the translator’s interpretation of reality. Herrymon feels that such efforts thwart Lao Tsu’s purpose, which was to avoid “naming things and cogitating theories.” In other words, am- biguity is a necessary part of the Tao Teh Ching, as it is in life itself. In Herrymon’s view, a translator should not try to make comprehensible what may be intentionally or uninten- tionally obscure.

Now and then, however, Herrymon uses a Western term to translate an ambiguous Chinese phrase. For example, the conclusion of Chapter 25 reads:

 

Thus persons are to be looked at./ As a person,

Families as a family, Villages as a village, Countries as a country,

Beneath-heaven as beneath-heaven. How do I know beneath-heaven?

By this. (151)

 

Herrymon translates “by this” with the Quaker term “Inward Light” and then explains in the commentary why he thinks this term is appropriate.

One of the appealing features of Herrymon’s translation is its aphoristic quality—an effort to capture the spirit of the Chinese original. Herrymon eliminates unnecessary pro- nouns and sometimes uses rhyme to make phrases incisive and memorable,

 

When Tao is cast aside, Duty and humanity abide.

When prudence and wit appear,

Great hypocrites are here (Chapter 18: 194).

 

If the Tao can be Taoed, its not Tao.

If its name can be named, it’s not its name. Has no name: precedes heaven and earth.

Has a name: mother of the ten thousand things.

 

For it is always dispassioante; See its inwardness

Always passionate:

See its outwardness.

 

The names are different But the source the same. Call the sameness mystery:

Mystery of mystery, the door to inwardness. (Chapter 1: 93)

 

A major purpose of Herrymon’s terse, unembellished translation is to encourage the reader not to cogitate, but to meditate on the text—and on the Tao which inspired it.

Those who are concerned about the pervasive violence in today’s world will be chal- lenged and inspired by Herrymon’s unique translation and commentary on the Tao Teh Ching. Herrymon wrote not for scholars but for “suffering and seeking human beings” (92). In his view, Tao Teh Ching is not an historical artifact, but a “living growing thing”— capable of opening our minds and hearts to the Way of Truth, Love, and Peace.

 

 

Notes

 

1.  Among them was the Quaker educator and scholar Howard Brinton, who alludes to a Taoist anecdote in Friends For Three Hundred Years. Teresina Havens, a long-time prac- titioner of both Buddhism and Quakerism, summed up Quaker/Taoist mysticism with this telling passage from her Pendle Hill pamphlet, Mind What Stirs in the Heart:

 

There is in each of us a deep-flowing River. Some call it Tao or Life source, others the Indwelling Spirit, still others simply Energy. Our life rests upon It; we are carried and cradled by It, as the child by its Mother.

 

2.  Of this experience Herrymon writes: “One day in Chengtu, after a particularly se- vere bombing, more than twenty wounded Chinese were carried to the lawn of the home of a Western physician. There were no facilities for blood transfusions; the shrapnel wounds were deep; and first-aid measures ensued the life of only a few of those whose families had carried them to a place were they hoped for help. Few words were spoken. Families and friends knelt on the ground besides the forms from which life and blood were flowing. Eyes attempted to convey the feelings which tongues and lips could not phrase. A scene of suf- fering; a scene of death…[The Westerners view the scene with frustration, saying to them- selves,  “If we could only do something,” while the Chinese accept the realities of death, and life, with Taoist resignation.] “One Chinese—a coolie dressed in a faded blue coat with a ragged towel for headgear—looked up at the physician and recognized the strain in the

lines of his face. His own eyes were sorrowful beyond tears. ‘Mei-yu fat-tze, l-sen, ta sze-lo,’ he said gently and comfortingly, ‘There is no help for it, doctor; she is dead’” (The Old Fel- low, p. 89-90).

3.  Because Friends believe that every member of Meeting is a minister, it seemed un- necessary to single out or record an individual Friend for his or her ministry.

4.  In an introduction to this book, the Chinese scholar and former Chinese ambassador Hu Shih writes: “Mr. Maurer is a thoughtful writer who interprets world events with the sympathetic understanding of the true philosopher. For he is philosopher who lives his philosophy. He is a Quaker….He is deeply attracted by Lao-Tze, who taught non- resistance five centuries before Jesus of Nazareth, and by Gandhi, who achieved the great miracle of modern times in winning the independence of India by nonviolence.”

5.  The town of Princeton was founded by Quakers, but after the American Revolution, their influence declined and the Princeton Friends Meeting was laid down in the late 19th century.

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, he man of prayer as responsible for ignorance of Truth as the blas- phemer. 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).

7  Herrymon writes that "outward arguments" and changes in laws will not alter racial discrimination: "In the South, Jim Crow is not likely to be broken down until groups of concerned Southerners systematically violate local law and custom and suffer willingly whatever injuries and wrath and mob wrath ensue" (21).

8  Herrymon writes: "I am not trying to overlook the widespread differences in outward appearances, often in basic motivations, that have kept various religions distinct. God is not changeable, but men at different times and places know him differently" (What Can I Know? p. 57).

9  "Both movements retain some strength today, Quakerism through the occasional flashing of is old prophetic light, Hassidism through the writing of the contemporary scholar, Martin Buber, a man strongly marked by the prophetic" (What Can I Know? p. 63).

10  See I and Tao: Martin Buber's Encounter with Chuang Tsu (1996) by Jonathan Her-

man. Also, Chinese Tales: Zhuangzi (1991) trans. by Alex Page, with an introduction by Irene Eber.

11.  See "On Translating the Tao-Te-Ching" by Michael La Forgue and Julian Pas, 277- 293

12.    Herrymon writes: "The inwardness which Lao Tzu designates by the pronoun this is the Way by which we are taught as well as the Way upon which we journey. That is, men and women follow Light, and it is Light that informs them both about Truth and the road on which it is to be followed" (151).