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.

Coming to Unity through Harmony: Dealing with Conflict in the Interfaith Movement and One's Personal Life

Eid mubarak! Yom Tov! Have a blessed Muslim holiday and a happy Jewish New Year!

In honor of this special day, I am including a preview of a talk I am scheduled to give at the Unity Church of Pomona on Sunday, Sept 12. This talk explores the challenges of interfaith work: how we can deal with conflict and make decisions in a way that brings us closer to each other and to the Spirit.

I am also taking part in an Interfaith Walk for Peace and Friendship this Sunday at 5:00 PM, starting at a synagogue and ending up at a mosque. See http://www.unityofpomona.org/

I hope each of you find a way to celebrate this holy weekend, the end of holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days. In honoring the sacred in faiths other than our faith, we honor those who died during the 9/11 attack, and those who have dedicated their lives to making sure that no one ever dies, or kills, again because of a religious rationale.


It is an honor and a joy to be invited to speak here today, and I want to thank my friend and colleague Jan Chase for inviting me. Before coming here, I went to your website and read the principles of the Unity Church, and what you all are doing to further unity and harmony in your community, and I am in awe. You people are doing incredible work, and you have an incredible leader in Jan. Let’s take a moment of silence to reflect in gratitude for Jan, for this wonderful spiritual community, and for this opportunity to learn more about how we can come to unity with Spirit.

I was asked to speak today about the interfaith movement and the role that Quakers are playing in this effort. As you probably know, Quakers are a peace church, and have been involved in peace work for nearly 350 years. In keeping with our Quaker commitment to peace, I want to speak about the role of conflict in our lives, and how we can deal with conflict in ways that promote unity and harmony.



When I became a Quaker twenty five years ago, I had a deep yearning for peace--inner peace and peace in the world. And I became involved in various peace ventures, including a book project that was jointly edited and published in the Soviet Union and the United States. The purpose of this book was to dispel stereotypes through stories and poems about the peoples of both countries. This book along with countless other efforts at citizen diplomacy laid a foundation of trust and understanding between Americans and Russians which enabled our political leaders to end the Cold War.

While I yearned for and worked for peace, I wasn’t a particularly peaceful person. I had strong opinions, very thin skin, and a rather large ego. I had good intentions of course, but you all know where good intentions can lead. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I also had an aversion to conflict. Let me put it more bluntly. I hated conflict. How many of you hate conflict? Let me see some hands. How many of you dislike conflict? How many of you enjoy conflict? Wow! I like your honesty.

I think many of us enjoy conflict more than we care to admit. If not, why would Hollywood movies about conflict be so popular? Why would books and newspapers and news casts about conflict attract us?

I would go so far as to say that we Americans, like many other peoples in the world, are addicted to conflict, and to war.

We need to recognize this unpleasant fact, and admit it, if we are going to change. As long as we claim to be peace-loving people, and yet spend more than all the rest of the world combined on military weapons, we aren’t going to change.

Furthermore, unless each of us recognizes and takes ownership of the conflict in our own lives, we aren’t going to change and we aren’t going to make a difference as peace makers.

Over the years, I have practiced techniques that have helped me to deal with conflict in productive ways, and I invite you to try these techniques.

· A daily practice of prayer and meditation.
· Fasting during the month of Ramadan—fasting slows us down and helps us to feel more empathy for the poor and needy.
· Giving up meat and alcohol. This is good for one’s health, good for the environment and good for one’s soul.
· Practice Compassionate Listening and Nonviolent Communication. I’ve studied these techniques and I can testify they help enormously.

The best practice I know for peace making is to not cling to one’s personal opinions, to listen non-judgmentally to others, and to center down as much as possible in deep stillness where there is true peace.

All these techniques have helped to free me from my addiction to conflict, but I still have much to learn. Becoming a peace maker is a life-long task, like learning to play a musical instrument.

George Lakey, a Quaker who has traveled all over the world teaching conflict resolution skills, recently came to our Quaker gathering to talk about facing up to conflict. Thanks to wise Quaker teachers like George, I have also come to see conflict not as something to be avoided, but as an opportunity for spiritual growth.

When conflict arises, I think: what practical steps can I take to help resolve this conflict? What can I learn from this conflict? How can I be an instrument of Divine peace?

You may be wondering: How does all this relate to Quakers and the interfaith movement?

I believe that 9/11 was a wake-up call from the Divine to religious people throughout the world: what are we going to do to make religion the solution, not the problem, in the 21st century?

Nine years ago, religious fanatics tried to launch a holy war by attacking the centers of economic and military power in the world’s largest superpower. They wanted to make Americans so fearful we would be drawn us into an endless conflict that would drain our resources and cause our empire to crumble. And our government responded in just the way the terrorists wanted: it launched a perpetual war to achieve perpetual peace

This ill-conceived war has gone on for 9 years, and it is scheduled to go on another 40-50 years, if military strategists have their way. Our military leaders are calling this the “Long War” and its goal is to subdue and pacify the entire Middle East, from the Mediterranean Sea to the borders of India.

This war will cost trillions of dollars and countless lives. And it will undoubtedly bankrupt our nation, and probably the world, both financially and morally.

But there is an alternative.

The alternative for Quakers has been to recognize “that of God,” the Divine Spark, in everyone. Three hundred and fifty years ago William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania. wrote: "The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the liveries they wear here make them strangers."-

He put these words into practice. The colony of Pennsylvania was called “the Holy Experiment” and was one of the most tolerant places in the Western world. Everyone could practice their religion freely there, even witches. Even Voltaire, no friend of religion, praised Pennsylvania.

William Penn advocated establishing a league of nations for Europe by which kings could settle their differences without war. This was the precursor to the United Nations.

Quakers also became a peace church, along with the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren. In 1660, when England and the rest of Europe were still reeling from nearly a hundred years of religious wars, one of the longest wars in European history, the Quakers issued a statement renouncing war:

“We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever; and this is our testimony to the whole world."

For the last 350 years, Quakers have stood by these words. We have resisted all calls to war. And we have worked for peace—both inward and outward. We have formed organizations like the American Friends Service Committee, Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Quaker UN office to promote peace and justice.

I don't want to leave the impression that Quakers are perfect or always live up to their ideals. In 1893, when the first Parliament of the World's Religions took place in Chicago, two Quaker delegations took part because the Quakers had split into two competing groups--the Orthodox and Hicksites. These two groups were not on speaking terms! In fact, these groups did not reconcile until 70 years later, in 1953!

Becoming a part of the interfaith movement or any religious community doesn’t mean our conflicts end. It doesn’t mean that every meeting we hold ends with us singing kumbaya. What it means is that we are committed to dealing with conflict in a way that leads to harmony.

Harmony doesn’t mean unity. When an orchestra plays together, everyone doesn’t play the same notes or the same instrument. Members of our orchestra play different instruments and different notes, but they play in harmony. Or at least they try. Harmony is the goal. To achieve this goal, we should keep in mind the old joke about a man who asked a New Yorker. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The New Yorker responded: “Practice, practice, practice.”

Conflicts are an opportunity to put into practice our religious teachings and convictions. Look at how the interfaith community has rallied together to respond to the conflict over opposition to the mosque in lower Manhattan. Or plans to build a mosque in Temecula. Or the threat to burn the Quran. Each of these challenges has brought us closer together and strengthened our bonds of friendship and trust.

Even more challenging are conflicts within our organizations. Every peace group I know that does serious work faces internal conflicts and challenges. And if we can deal with conflicts in an honest and compassionate way, we become stronger, not weaker.

One of the most difficult challenges we face in life are so-called difficult people. How many people here have had to deal with a difficult person? Please raise your hand. How many of you here has been a difficult person at some time in your life? Please raise your hand.

In dealing with difficult people, let me quote the wise words of a Buddhist teacher named Pema Chodron.

“When we generate compassion for difficult people..., we get to see our prejudices & aversions even more clearly. It can feel completely unreasonable to make compassion a wish for these irritating, belligerent people. To wish that those we dislike & fear would not suffer can feel like too big a leap. This is a good time to remember that when we harden our hearts against anyone, we hurt our selves.”

Can we generate compassion for people we find difficult? Can we feel compassion for bigots? For self-serving politicians? For people we strongly disagree with, whether in the news or in our families?

Let’s pause and think of one difficult person in our lives. Let’s take a moment to wish that person happiness and peace. Let’s surround that person with thoughts of love.

How do we stay grounded in love while dealing with conflict? George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, was a strong, charismatic leader and he was jailed many times for his religious beliefs. At one point, he was approached by some military officers and asked if he’d like to join Cromwell’s army—which would have been a ticket out of jail. Fox turned them down with this memorable phrase: “I live in that power and life which takes away the occasion of war.”Note that Fox didn’t say, “I’m a pacifist.” Pacifism is an idea, a belief system, a mental construct. George Fox was talking about a way of life, and an inward power that comes from experiencing the Presence of the Spirit.

To be peace makers, we need two things: First, we need to practice a way of life that leads to peace. A life of simplicity, integrity, and lovingkindness.

Second, we have to be in touch with an inward spiritual power so deep and strong we don’t let ourselves get caught up in the anger and violence of others.

The Quaker-inspired Alternative to Violence Project calls this “Transforming Power” and is helping violent offenders in prison to get in touch with that power so they can resolve conflict nonviolently.

My teacher Gene Hoffman developed a technique called Compassionate Listening which is currently being used and taught in Israel/Palestine to help Palestinians and Israelis hear each other’s stories in a compassionate, nonjudgmental way. Compassionate listening starts with the premise that there is “that of God,” a Divine Spark, in each person. Each person therefore has a piece of the Truth, something we need to hear in order to be whole.

Such compassionate listening doesn’t mean that we agree with the other person, but rather that we honor the other person’s narrative and feel empathy for what he or she has gone through.

Such deep listening is what we Quaker have contributed to interfaith understanding. The Quaker ecumenist Douglas Steere called such deep listening “mutual irradiation.” This means listening to each other beyond words, listening out of the Silence, discovering our divine unity as well as our divine uniqueness.

Along with deep listening, it is also helpful to keep a sense of humor. George Lakey, the Quaker who travels all over the world giving conflict resolution workshops, gave a talk about combating terrorism at Pendle Hill, a Quaker study center near Philadelphia. George was so funny he made us laugh almost continually for the first half hour of his talk. Then he pointed out to us how important humor was in overcoming fear and defusing conflict. Laughter is what helps us to see past our pain and fear and hurt, to see the daily trials of our life through the eyes of eternity.

I’d like to say a final word about the title of my talk. Conflict often arises because we don’t know how to make decisions in a way that honors the Divine in each other. Look at the acrimonious debates in Congress and elsewhere in the political world. Even when we come together to make decisions by voting, we often end up polarized. The majority tyrannizes the minority, or sometimes vice versa.

Friends use a decision-making process called “Coming to Unity.” This means we don’t vote; we wait until everyone is in unity with a decision. This isn’t the same as consensus, a secular term which means unanimous consent. “Coming to Unity” means “Coming to Unity with the Spirit.” It means feeling an almost mystical sense of oneness with each other and with our Transforming Power when we finally agree on a decision.

A Quaker theologian named Eden Grace beautifully describes how Quakers do business and come to unity through seeking to be in harmony with God’s will. This statement was prepared for a special session of the World Council of Churches in 2000:

Since our [Quaker] method of transacting business presumes that in a given matter there is a way that is in harmony with God’s plan, our search is for that right way, and not simply for a way which is either victory for some faction, or an expedient compromise. What we call "the Sense of the Meeting" is not the collected wisdom of those present, but the collective discernment of God’s will. There is no place for activities such as motions, seconds, amendments and votes in our process of collective discernment. Our bold affirmation is that God does indeed have a will for us, that God is actively trying to communicate that will, and that we are capable, through corporate prayer, to discover that will. A sign that we have achieved our goal of discerning God’s will is the experience of Unity which is recognized and affirmed by those gathered. (see http://www.edengrace.org/quakerbusiness.html)


Coming to Unity is what brings real peace to a community. When we are in unity with each and with the Divine, we feel it in our hearts and are at peace. And this, I believe, is the real work of the interfaith movement: helping us all come to Unity through harmony. It isn’t easy. Coming to Unity is a discipline that takes years and years of practice, but I can testify that it is well worth the effort.

I am glad to be here today in a community that is seeking to live in harmony with the Divine. Thank you so much for inviting me. And I look forward to seeing you at this evening’s Interfaith Walk for Peace and Friendship. May all of you find peace in your souls and bring peace to the world!

How to Overcome Islamophobia

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you this morning about Islamophobia and what we can do to overcome it. I am grateful to Kate Carpenter for enabling me to speak today rather than in a few weeks from now because there is the possibility that we could see a particular ugly outbreak of Islamophobia on September 11.

As some of you may have heard, a pastor named Terry Jones in Gainesville, FL, has been calling for the burning of the Qurans on September 11. His church has a sign on its front lawn saying “Islam is of the devil,” which happens to be the title of a book he has written. His church also has a sign condemning the mayor of Gainesville for being gay. Jones is an equal opportunity hater: gays and Muslims are equally abominable in Jones’ eyes.

Almost every sane person agrees that burning Qurans is a “terrible idea” and “could cause trouble or even death when broadcast on Muslim television,” as Chris Mathews put it when he interviewed Jones on Hardball. The National Association of Evangelicals has condemned the idea of Quran burning. Even the fire department of Gainesville has challenged Jones. But Jones is insistent on doing what he feels is the Lord’s work. And other bigots may follow his example. Thanks to the internet and Facebook, this idea has gone viral and thousands have spewed out their hatred of Islam in response of Jones’ call. We might even see some Qurans burned here in Southern California.

Another cause of concern is the unfortunate coincidence that September 11th falls on one of Islam’s most important holidays, Eid Al-Fitr—the final day of Ramadan. The reason that Eid Al Fitr is falling on 9/11 is because Muslims use a lunar calendar and the month of Ramadan cycles forward 11 days each year. Nonetheless, one can easily imagine Islamophobes and the right-wing media using pictures of Muslims celebrating to bolster their case that Muslims supported the 9/11 attacks, or at least are insensitive to the feelings of Americans who lost their loved ones. Some Muslims I know are choosing not to celebrate Eid on 9/11, but it’s a little like asking Jews to change the date of Yom Kippur or Christians to change the date of Easter for political reasons.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this summer we have seen an outbreak not only of Islamophobia, but also of xenophobia. When I began my trip across country in June, the big issue was the draconian laws against undocumented workers that were passed in Arizona. Anti-immigrant feelings were being stirred up all over the country by politicians bent on re-election. It is clear that the outbreak of Islamophobia in August was fomented by politicians concerned more about the upcoming election than the best interests of the USA. The controversy over the Islamic Center in lower Manhattan has been a useful recruiting tool for radical Muslim extremists. The hatred that has been unleashed on the internet has angered and inflamed anti-America feelings throughout the world and made it difficult to “win Muslim hearts and minds” (our official US policy) and to bring about a peaceful resolution of conflict in the Middle East and Afghanistan Those who fuel this hatred have done a grave disservice to the USA, as well as to their own souls.

Will Sept 11 be a scary or hopeful occasion?

I’ve talked about the scary scenarios for 9/11. What about the hopeful signs?

I find it a hopeful sign that Sherrel Charley of Whittier California has called for non-Muslim women to wear an head scarf (hijab) on Sept 11 as a way to express solidarity and support for Muslims. Her facebook page has garnered thousands of positive responses from Muslims around the world. I hope that non-Muslim women will wear a head scarf on 9/11. There is much misunderstanding about the headscarf, which is seen by some as a symbol of sexist oppression, and by others as a sign of religious identity. When women have a free choice about whether to wear a head scarf, as they do here in the US, it can be a powerful expression of one’s religious identity and one’s conscience. This is certainly the case with the young Muslim woman who has sued Disney for the right to wear a headscarf while serving customers in a Disney-owned restaurant. This woman was honored by the Islamic Shura Council of S. California not for wearing a head scarf, but for standing up for what she believed is right.

Therefore, I see it as a hopeful sign that non-Muslim women are saying: “We stand with our Muslim sisters (and brothers).”

Another hopeful sign is that there will be some special worship services during this period. On Sunday, Sept 12, I am giving a talk at the Unity Church in Pomona as part of something called the 11 Days of Global Unity. At 5:00 PM there will also be an Interfaith Peace Walk in Pomona beginning at a local synagogue and ending at a church, with participation from Muslims, Jews, and Christians.

Santa Monica Friends Meeting has scheduled a special worship service on Sept. 11 at 7:00 PM-9:00. Please invite Friends and neighbors to attend. See
http://laquaker.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

A third hopeful sign is that some of us are offering to be available to go to mosques as “rapid response teams” in case there is an incident such as a Quran burning or an anti-Muslim demonstration. I hope that Friends will contact their local mosque to let them know that they have supporters willing to stand in solidarity with them in case there is any incident.

Finally, it is hopeful that people of all faiths have been signing petitions and expressing their support for the proposed Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan, and for proposed mosques in other parts of the USA, that are being targeted by Islamophobes. A small group of Temecula residents have opposed the building of a mosque in their city, but the Temecula Interfaith Council has stood in solidarity with the Muslim community and they have received many expressions of support. I personally circulated a letter on their behalf among Santa Monica Friends and Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. The imam of Temecula sent back an appreciative letter for our support.

I believe that the vast majority of Americans are tolerant, and only become worked up when their fears are preyed upon by unscrupulous politicans and the media. But in order for sanity to prevail over bigotry, we must do our bit.


Overcoming Islamophobia, like overcoming any form of bigotry or racism, will take a long, long time, and lots of patience. Fear of lslam dates back to its rise as a perceived threat to Christianity in the 7th century. But the rise of Islmophobia in the US is a relatively recent phenomenon and goes back only to the 1980s and 1990s. I would argue that the rise of Islamophobia is related to the fall of communism. With the elimination of the Soviet Union as an existential threat, America experienced an enemy-deficit and needed "evil doers" to justify its massive military and its paranoid world view. Many in the holiness movement needed an evil force to replace “godless communism” as its anti-Christ. Given what Douglas Hofstadter called “the paranoid style of American politics,” it is not surprising that Muslims became the target of fear in the 1990s. Islamophobia has become an extremely useful tool for politicians and preachers who want to prey on people’s fears in order to enhance their own power and careers.

What can we do to help Americans to become less fearful and to stop demonizing Muslims? How can we help Americans to have a realistic understanding of what Islam is all about?
Here are some suggestions:


1) Listen to the voices of moderate Muslims, and urge others to do likewise. If anyone says, “Muslims don’t condemn terrorism,” advise them to go the website or subscribe to the listserv for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) or the Muslim Public Affairs Councils (MPAC). These and every other Islamic organization in the USA condemn terrorism in general, and usually issue specific terrorist acts within hours of their occurrence.

2) Get to know your Muslim colleagues and neighbors. Invite them to dinner or coffee. Make friends. People who are Islamophobic get most of their info about Muslims from the internet or TV, usually from biased sources. When you can share positive stories about your relations with Muslims, it helps dispel fear and stereotypes.

3) Educate yourself about Islam by reading Muslim authors like Reza Aslan (There is no god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War) or Akbar Ahmed (Islam Today and Journey into America: the Challenge of Islam).

4) Be aware of the “talking points” of Islamophobes and have a response for them. (See below for some of these)

5) Show respect for Muslims by reading the Qur’an, fasting during Ramadan, or wearing a head scarf (hijab) or showing other sign of solidarity with Muslims.

6) Write a letter to the editor, or to en elected officials, expressing your support for religious pluralism.

7) Visit a mosque during “Open Mosque Day.”

8) Organize an “interfaith café” and invite people of different faith traditions to attend.

Some talking points:

Do Muslims worship a different God from Jews and Muslims, a “moon god” named Allah? Anyone who has read the Qur’an or talked with Muslims knows this is nonsense and that the word “Allah” simply means “God” or “The God” and is used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews to refer to the same God who was worshipped by Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad. Do Jews, Muslims, and Christians all have the same understanding of God? Of course not! There is even vast differences of opinion about God among Christians and Jews: Martin Luther King’s understanding of God is very different from Jerry Falwell’s, and Abraham Heschel’s understanding of God is different from Dennis Preger’s. By the way, just because Muslims use a crescent moon symbol doesn’t mean that Allah is a moon god. Are Christians pagan because we have a Christmas tree (an ancient druid ritual) and celebrate Easter (the name of a fertility goddess)?

Does the Quran calls for the killing of all infidels? There is a passage in the Quran calling for killing infidels, but only in self-defense and only when they attack Muslims first. Furthermore, Muslims are obligated to honor treaties. The prophet Mohammad is reported to have said in Hadith 145: “He who kills a Jew or a Christian with whom a treaty or agreement has been made will not sense even the smell of Paradise.” The Quran allows for self-defensive war, but not for holy war to spread religion. The Quran says: “There shall be no compulsion in religion.” It also calls for religious toleration towards Jews and Christians who are peaceable. Granted, today there is much intolerance of other faiths in Muslim countries, but our government supports these countries with aid and arms. Much of Islam’s intolerance is the legacy of colonialism and occupation by Western powers. Most Muslims believe Islam is a religion of peace, and the word Islam is related to the word “Salaam,” meaning peace.

Does the Quran justify suicide bombing and terrorism? The Quran makes very strict rules about war (do not kill civilians, destroy houses of worship, uproot treest) and suicide is condemned by Mohammad, who is reported to have said in Hadith 149: “He who kills himself….will be an eternal denizen of Hell….” In March 2010 a conference of Muslim scholars from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, Senegal, Kuwait, Iran, Morocco, Indonesia and other countries met in Mardin, Turkey, and issued a fatwa (consensus of scholars) repudiating a reading of the Quran that has been used by violent extremists like Osama bin Laden to justify their personal calls for jihad. That same month in London a leading Pakistani scholar issued a 600-page fatwa against terrorism. Here in the USA, virtually every reputable scholar and leader condemns suicide bombing and terrorism.

Just as we shouldn’t judge all Christians by the behavior of the Ku Klux Klan, or right-wing Christians calling for a holy crusade against Islam, we shouldn’t judge all Muslims by the extremist elements.


See also http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/youth/Source/Training/Study_sessions/2006_EYCE_FEMYSO_en.pdf

Special worship service on 9/11 at Santa Monica Friends Meetinghouse

You are invited to a time of reflection and worship on Saturday, Sept 11, from 7:00-9:00 PM at the Santa Monica Friends Meetinghouse, 1440 Harvard St, Santa Monica (between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd, just east of 26th St.). Please be sure to park in the lot, not the street.

Please feel free to invite your neighbors and friends to attend. People of all faiths, or no faith, are welcome.

During this time of worship, we will reflect on the following questions. How do we find inner peace after what happened on 9/11, and after the wars and violence that followed in its wake? What are we doing to help others and the world to find peace--both inner peace and peace with justice? How can we help end bigotry and prejudice? How can we foster understanding and love in our community and in the world?

Our worship will be unprogrammed. There will be no minister or pre-arranged program, as Friends believe the Light is directly available to all, and all may minister. We will gather, still our minds, open our hearts, and settle into a reverent and expectant silence to wait upon the Light. Friends believe that in this opening of our hearts to the Spirit, we are contributing to the common worship of all present, as well as to our own renewal. This time may pass in silence, or individuals may be moved to speak briefly out of the silence. Leaving a space of time between each person speaking allows the ministry of each to be respectfully heard.

May the Spirit help us to live (as George Fox once said) "in that power and life that takes away the occasion of all war."

Poetry, Politics, and the Spirit: from the "Black Art" to the Healing Word

I was asked by Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace to give a reflection about the relationship between art and my peace activism. I decided to explore my experiences with poetry and politics and how my attitude towards both has evolved over the years. To my surprise, I discovered that Quakerism--and the practice of meditation--helped me to grow and deepen as a lover and writer of poetry. From the rich Ground of Silence flowers of goodness emerge, synthesize the Light, and bear fruit!

The Black Art
by Anne Sexton

A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands weren't enough;
as if mourners and gossips and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.

A man who writes knows too much, such spells and fetishes!
As if erections and congresses and products weren't enough;
as if machines and galleons and wars were never enough.
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.Dear love, you are that man.

Never loving ourselves,
hating even our shoes and our hats,
we love each other, precious, precious.
Our hands are light blue and gentle.
Our eyes are full of terrible confessions.
But when we marry, the children leave in disgust.
There is too much food and no one left over to eat up all the weird abundance.


Politics and poetry have been two of the great passions of my life. Today I’d like to reflect on my passion for poetry relates to my passion for politics, and how both were transformed by Spirit.

My passion for politics was in my DNA since I am the son of a Greek immigrant who, like many Greek men, loved to argue politics. My father had little formal education—he jumped ship from Greece and settled in New York City when he was only fourteen and learned English from reading the newspapers. Nonetheless, he was a voracious reader and had strong opinions on every political subject. As he grew older, he grew increasingly conservative. He ended up being a supporter of the Vietnam War and of Spiro Agnew, that Greek lover of language who is probably best known for describing liberals as “nattering nabobs of negativism.” My father admired and praised Agnew, which of course drove me nuts. My father and I argued incessantly and passionately until the day he died. We made peace only after his death, in the land of dreams and poetry.

I don’t know where I got my passion for poetry, except that it was somehow related to my love of language. English was spoken in my home since my mother was Scottish—a woman my father met during the war, when he served as a soldier in England. But my relatives spoke Greek and I grew up with the language of Homer and Aeschylus and Plato reverberating in my head. Thanks to the excellent school system in Princeton, NJ, where I grew up, I learned French and Latin while still in junior high school. It was at this time that I fell in love with poetry.

I still remember my first poem as vividly as I remember my first kiss. I was reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and the rhythms and rhymes affected me like a drug. I was utterly mesmerized as I wandered about the school yard repeating the lines: “And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before, so that now to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating, ‘Tis some late night visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door. That is its, and nothing more.” I was so entranced with the sound of this poem I learned it by heart. I later learned by heart poems by T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings and Dylan Thomas—all masters of the magic and mystery of words.

In high school and college, I was editor of the literary magazine and aspired to be a poet. But my poetry came from a dark place and a troubled life---a life of drugs and alienation that led me to the brink of madness The poets I most admired all had similarly troubled lives—Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Coleridge, and Anne Sexton. In college Anne Sexton became my teacher and mentor. As you may know, she was one of the most famous of the confessional poets—along with Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell. When Sexton attempted suicide and had a nervous breakdown, her doctor recommended that she write poetry as a form of therapy. A brilliant coiner of images, Sexton turned her neuroses into a successful career as a poet. This is something that I and many of her students hoped to do when she came to teach at Boston University. I sometimes describe her class as a gathering of the most creative and gifted neurotics in New England.

Looking back at BU, I realize that my two most important teachers were Anne Sexton and Howard Zinn. It’s hard to imagine two teachers more different than these two, yet such was my divided self that I was drawn to both.

I loved to go to demonstration and protest the war but there was a war within myself that I could not find any way to end. I went to rallies to be in solidarity with the peace movement, but always felt like an outsider, a spy, a figure from a Dostoevsky novel. And out of that loneliness and alienation, I wrote poems that were quirky and intensely personal, just like the ones that Anne Sexton describes in her poem, “The Black Art,”

I suffered a minor nervous breakdown in college just before graduation, and just as my father died of a protracted illness, in 1971. To help overcome my grief and depression, I went on the road to Canada and discovered a new life, a life centered not in my neuroses, but in the Spirit. Inspired and enthusiastic, I wrote a lot of poems, some of which were published, but my urge to write poems petered out about the same time that Anne Sexton committed suicide in 1974. Her death took the wind out of my poetic sails.

Instead of writing poems, I went back to college in order to become an English teacher and teach poetry. I eventually earned a Ph.D. in British literature at Rutgers, where I studied with Paul Fussell, who had written a brilliant, prize-winning book about the poets of World War I: The Great War and Modern Memory (1975) By this time, I had stopped writing poetry altogether, except for some poems I wrote in Latin. Yes, I wrote poems in a dead language, which were even published in a learned journal. I suppose that earns me a place in the Dead Poet’s Society’s Hall of Fame.

After earning my Ph. D. I had another major crisis/turning point in my life. I got my first teaching job at Carleton College, and my first marriage ended in a painful divorce. I also got the news that my mother was dying and needed my help, so I returned to Princeton, my home town.
This is where I discovered Quakers and renewed my spiritual life. I became so intrigued by the practice of meditation and prayer I went to live at the Providence, RI, Zen Buddhist center and stayed there for nine months. One of my goals was to wean myself from my addiction to words. To my surprise and delight, I began writing poetry again.

Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that I got back in touch with my creativity at the Zen Center since the poems I wrote were like the messages that are given in a Quaker meeting for worship. We Friends say that genuine messages come out of the Silence, the deep silence in which we feel connected with Spirit and each other. In this state, words are totally unnecessary because we experience the deep, inner peace that passes understanding. Yet sometimes in this silent place, an inner voice whispers to us words that can heal and bring comfort as well as reveal hard truths that need to be uttered.

During my life as a Quaker, I have written and published numerous poems that come from this place of Silence. If my early poems were about the “Black Arts”—the mystery of death and darkness—these poems are about the magic and mystery of being intensely alive, and of experiencing the Light Within. As Martin Laird says in his beautiful book, Into the Silent Land, "We cannot pass through the doorways of silence without becoming part of God's embrace of all humanity in its suffering and joy."

I no longer feel there is a huge chasm between poetry and politics. We need enlightened poetry just as we need enlightened politics in order to have a full and abundant life. Both come out of an enlightened community where there is a place for contemplation and action, silence and the prophetic word. As a Quaker, I was able to use my passion for poetry in order to edit a book of poems and fiction by Soviet and American writers that helped create understanding and promote peace.

But the world of poetry is still primarily the inner world, the world of feelings and insights that cannot be reduced to political slogans or ideas. Poetry is about the mystery and magic not only of words, but of life itself—the life we live day by day, and the life that we imagine in our dreams, and in our fears and hopes, and in the peace that passes understanding.

The following poems were published in Quaker publications: “Quaker Hymn to Spring," "All the Time In The World," and "Exiles" appeared in Friends Journal; "Desert of the Heart" in Rebirth of Artemis and in Journal of Humanistic Psychology’; “All the Time in the World” in EarthLight: Spiritual Wisdom for an Ecological Age (Friends Bulletin, ed. Cindy Spring and Anthony Manousos); “Surrender Garden” in Enlivened by The Mystery: Quakers and God (Western Friend, ed. by Kathy Hyzy); "Song to Benjamin Linder" was set to music and recorded by Sharon Sigal in an album entitled January Sunbeam.


All the Time in the World

It takes all the time in the world
to enter the water and the wind wholly,
to let fall the imaginary boundaries
and return to the source and the destination.

It takes infinite patience to be the forest,
to cry with the chickadees and crawl with the ants,
to stalk with the cat, and forage with the bear,
to let the slow, timeless sap flow through your branches,
and feel roots and tubers pierce you like a lover...

Nothing begins or ends here: there is only the circle,
widening, calling back its own.
When you walk the path, you must be the path.
Do not be proud. Even the centipede knows this.

Everything that you touch changes
and changing, changes you.
Everything you think fill the air with its smell.

As you build you tipi or your city,
remember that knowledge and skills cannot save you.

When night falls, you must be the night.
When day breaks, you too must be broken.


Exiles

(For Ramon, an El Salvadoran)

Walking upland through snowy woods
we used only the simplest words:
Cold, frio. Trees, arboles. Snow, nieve. Sky, cielo.

Using only such speech as exiles speak,
feeling the same cold, the same wind,
we climbed higher, slipped on the wet snow, laughed,
and clambered on.
Our sanctuary lay ahead, some lichen-spotted boulders.
We sat down without a word.

But echoing in my mind like wind trapped in a cave
were words Ramon repeated often:
"I have lost my God, I have lost my God."
Marriage, children, country, God--all lost,
like last fall's leaves.
What could I say?

Here, as we sat among the ancient stones,
nothing needed to be said.

With a smile Ramon got up,
wrote his girlfriend's name in the snow,
then leaned back against a rock and
disappeared into his poncho.

I continued to watch the trees:
buds, like tiny nipples, slept on tips of branches.


Quaker Hymn to Spring

(for Yuki Brinton)

The sunlight seemed to sing out in a weeping cherry tree
that spring day I arrived at Pendle Hill.
Someone had hacked it halfway down, and yet it sang to me:
"There's that in me no one can ever kill." (Repeat)

I stood amazed and listened until someone told me how
a widow old and small but hardly frail
had hurried to this spot when she had heard the horrid sound
of a chainsaw and its silence-shattering wail. (Repeat)

This tree her husband planted, and it now was in her care.
Some say she climbed it like a mother cat.
Some say she brought the woodsman down with just a piercing stare.
This much I know: this broken tree still stands. (Repeat)

In the stillness of the morning, in the stillness of my heart,
it sings its light-filled song to joy and spring. (Repeat)


The Desert of the Heart

To what desert can one go
to escape the desert of the heart?
There's no extinction, no forgiveness, here:
everything that's born suffers and dies,
returns and, returning, turns in our minds again,
until we learn to look with love,
and without desire or fear,
at each lizard and rock,
each dry well and prickly pear.

What we know, or think we know,
brings death, sudden or slow.
Old newspapers blow across the proving grounds
scorched with our well reasoned fears.
Each mind contains a holocaust;
with each heartbeat a world's end nears.

What we don't know
gives life and peace and hope
beyond mere words.
A man tickles a beetle
with a stick, and lightning leaps across the skies.
A woman sits so quietly she can hear
dust settle on her face,
and in the earth below
invisible seeds await the unthinkable rain.

--- Providence Zen Center, 1986


Ben Linder

(set to music by Sharon Sigal in her album, "January Sunbeam")

Ben Linder was an all-American,
a hero, builder, and clown.
He loved the folks of Nicaragua,
and the contras gunned him down.

He loved to build, not destroy.
He was a true engineer.
He knew that life is a narrow bridge,
wouldn't give way to fear.

He loved to ride a unibike
and balance on a rope.
He liked to try the impossible
and never gave up hope.

He wouldn't work for Boeing,
wouldn't hustle for Star Wars.
Kid, you'll never get rich that way,
said his friends who knew the score.

He was only twenty-two
and five-foot four
when he went to Nicaragua
and saw poverty and war.

He stayed in a war-torn village,
made power from a creek,
lived in a shack and dug Dire Straits
like an old-time '60's freak.

For the kids of El Cua
he juggled beans, tortillas and rice
"Eat balanced foods," he told them.
They thought he was crazy but nice.

He liked to pick wild orchids,
and walk alone by a stream,
joke with friends,
lie in the sun, and dream.

Some say he was a dreamer,
but to me he was wide awake.
He knew that life is the kind of game
that we play for mortal stakes.

He didn't win any medals,
He didn't have any secret funds,
He didn't kill or lie for a living,
Sell drugs or bonds or guns.

Ben Linder was an all-American,
A builder, a hero, a clown.
He loved the folks of Nicaragua
and the contras gunned him down.

The Surrender Garden

(for Wendell Berry)

I farm a room-sized plot of earth
where once a factory stood.
In spring, I'm met by eager volunteers--
onions and leeks, swiss chard and kale
green and sweet as those in paradise.

But as I turn the soil for the first time,
bricks the size and shape of potatoes
stick in my digger's stubborn teeth.
My brow sweats. My winter-weary muscles ache.
I feel the effects of the fall.

My seeds are scattered to the sound
of kids and cars, trolleys and boom boxes.
I use my hands instead of a digger
because I love to mold and stroke the earth,
to feel it touch my skin.
I sit in my garden like a kid in a sandbox
and think of my Greek grandfather
for whom gardening was no game.

With the sun and rains
weeds rise up like angry peasants
insisting on their squatter's rights.
I can't blame them.
I've been an absentee.
Down on my knees, I make a space
for my seedlings as I pull the weeds
carefully by the roots,
roots that go on and on
like my compulsions and obsessions.
This is the work that never seems to end,
the work my father and his father handed down.

Some evenings I come here simply to sit alone,
and watch things grow.

It's quiet and still as a church.
At the far end of the garden
a woman waters her flowers,
and the smell of wet earth rises
like a prayer, an offering,
into the darkening sky.

Philadelphia, 1985


Haiku written at the Providence Zen Center

harvest moon
entering the dark temple
i bow to shadows

in silence
awaiting the teacher's bell
windchimes

meditating-
our shadows on the floor
pass so quickly..

chips scatter!
he whacks away at his still
unfinished Buddha

Remembering Kathleen Ross and her dedication to interfaith peacemaking

Today marks the 14th month since my beloved wife Kathleen Ross passed on, and it's also the midpoint of Ramadan. During this time of fasting and prayer I can't help remembering how Kathleen supported my interfaith work and fasted during Ramadan (which caused some Methodists to worry about her health!). I am including an article about her fast that appeared in Circuit West, the Methodist newspaper.

During her final year, Kathleen showed her respect for Muslims by wearing an hijab during Ramadan (this was partly to cover her head, which became bald due to chemo). Our Muslim friend Sherrel Johnson supplied her with beautiful silk head scarves, for which we are eternally grateful. I might add that Sherrel is a member of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and one of the most deeply spiritual and kind people I know. When she learned of our cancer journey, she wrote us an email expressing a profound, though challenging truth: "God must love you a lot to send you such trials." She also added lovingly: "If there is anything I can do for you, if you need a place a stay, please let me know." Such is Sherrel's heart, and the heart of the Muslim faith.

We received many outpourings of love during our cancer journey, but none moved me more deeply than when our dear friend Shakeel, the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, came with his wife to visit and pray for Kathleen on Mother's Day at the City of Hope. Kathleen was in ICU and heavily sedated, but I am quite sure that she heard with her spiritual ears Shakeel's deeply felt prayers. I will never forget that act of unexpected kindness, coming at a time when I needed the prayers of a true friend.

Since Kathleen's death, Shakeel has graciously invited me to his home for a family iftar (fast-breaking meal) during Ramadan--an act of kindness for which I cannot thank him enough. He makes me feel a part of his wonderful family (he has three teenage girls and a boy, as well as a lovely and devoted wife).

Before our meal, Shakeel and his family always face Mecca and bow down in worship to God, the "most caring and merciful." And I feel blessed when I bow down in worship with them, After the formal prayers there is a time of spontaneous prayer or supplication (dua) during which Shakeel always lifts up "Uncle Anthony" and "Aunt Kathleen who is in the highest place in paradise." Just thinking about his words, and the feeling behind them, brings tears to my eyes.

Perhaps this is why my heart breaks when I hear the malicious lies that are being spread about Muslims, and the hate-mongering and scape-goating being spread by Fox news and right-wing politicians. And that's why I have devoted a lot of my time during this Ramadan to combating the Islamophobia that is poisoning the soul of America.

In my blog (http://laquaker.blogspot.com/2010/08/quran-burning-and-other-issues-of.html_) I talk about the rise of Islamophobia and what we can do to counteract it. I am quite concerned about a Florida preacher who is threatening to burn Qurans on 9/11--such a stupid and hateful act could spark a violent reaction among Muslims around the world. Which is exactly what Islamophobes would like to see happen, so they can say: "See how violent and terrible Muslims are!"

My Quaker Meeting in Santa Monica plans to host a time of worship sharing and reflection on Saturday, 9/11, at 7:00 PM so we can have some healing. Sadly, as a nation, we did not make time to heal after 9/11; instead, we rushed into futile wars and ended up causing millions of Muslims to lose their homes, and hundred of thousands to lose their lives. America has also suffered grievous loss since it embarked upon this disastrous course action--the loss not only of American lives, but also of many American souls.

Kathleen believed deeply, as I do, that war is not the answer. War can only destroy lives--it cannot resolve conflict or bring justice and healing. The answer is to take seriously the teachings of Jesus, and of the prophets (including Prophet Mohammad), and to treat others as we would wish to be treated, with respect and love. If this were the basis of our foreign policy, as well as of our daily lives, the world would be a much more secure and friendly place.



Methodist Pastor Observes Ramadan Fast, Prays with Muslim Community for Peace on Earth

(an article that appeared in Circuit West, the Methodist newspaper)

Dec. 8, 2002: Rev. Kathleen Ross, pastor of the Walteria United Methodist Church in Torrance, California, decided that she would observe the Ramadan fast. From Nov. 6-Dec. 6, she neither ate food nor drank any liquid during the daylight hours.

“The best part of Ramadan were the times we broke fast with our Muslim friends,” she said. “It was a great opportunity to get better acquainted with a culture and a religious tradition that I had not had much first-hand experience with. After September 11th, it seemed very important to show Muslims that Christians respect their faith.”

This September Rev. Ross and her husband Anthony Manousos led an interfaith curriculum developed by the California Council of Churches. They invited local Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Orthodox Christians to share their faith journey with members of their Methodist congregation.

“During these times of religious strife and misunderstanding, we feel that it is important to build bridges between people of different religious traditions,” explained Pastor Ross. “Methodists have been on the forefront of interfaith work. We are a very diverse group (Methodist preachers in the Long Beach area preach in over forty languages on a given Sunday) and we believe in celebrating diversity!”

Rev. Ross decided to observe the Ramadan fast in part because her husband Anthony (a Quaker) was also doing so. When he had observed the Ramadan fast after September 11th, many Muslims were surprised that a non-Mulsim had enough self-control to fast.

“Fasting used to be an important part of our Christian faith,” explained Pastor Ross, “but many of us Christians have become too self-indulgent to give up our addiction to food. That’s why I wanted to try fasting during Ramadan. It wasn’t easy, especially the getting up before dawn part and not drinking any liquids. Fasting not only teaches self-control, it also helps us to experience what it is like to be poor and hungry and thirty—the condition of the majority of the world’s people.”

During the last week of Ramadan, members of Rev. Ross’s church accompanied her to the South Bay Islamic Center in Lomita, where they were graciously welcomed. Each evening of Ramadan, mosques provide food for those who come to break fast and worship together. It is a powerful bonding experience.

Since Muslim men and women eat and pray separately, Pastor Ross and the Methodist women dined with the Muslim women while her husband Anthony and Wally O’Brien, one of the lay leaders of the church, dined with the Muslim men.

On Eid, the final day of Ramadan, Rev. Ross and her husband joined several thousand other Mulsims at the LA Convention for closing prayers. Afterwards, they broke fast with a Muslim family from Kashmir.

“Eid is a lot like our Christmas,” said Rev. Ross. “Gifts are exchanged, and everyone acknowledges their gratitude to God. Because Ramadan has not been commercialized like Christmas, it is easier to remember that this is a religious celebration, a time to affirm God’s presence in our midst. It is often hard for Christians to reclaim Christmas from our consumer culture.”

Rev. Ross concluded: “Observing Ramadan has been a very important learning experience, and I am still trying to figure out how to apply some of its lessons to my own faith as a Christian. At the mosque I learned that many Muslims memorize the entire Qur’an word for word in Arabic. At the Islamic Center of South Bay, even a teenager had memorized the entire Qur’an! It’s hard to get Christians to memorized verses from the Bible, never mind the entire Gospels! We Christians need to take our Bible as least as seriously as the Muslims take the Qur’an. And we need to re-claim some of our traditions of fasting and prayer. I think that learning more about other faiths can help us to become better Christians as well as become more tolerant and respectful.”

Peace and Justice Concerns of California Quakers

As the incoming clerk of the Peace and Social Order Committee (PSO) of Pacific Yearly Meeting, I am posting the minutes of our summer gathering so that Friends and others will have a sense of what Quakers in California are doing to promote justice and peace.

The Peace and Social Order Committee (PSO) encourages and assists Monthly and Quarterly Meeting in undertaking peace and service activities. With the approval of Yearly Meeting, it coordinates activities that express Friends’ testimonies on unity, equality, simplicity, peace, and community. The committee seeks to balance its efforts between peace and social order concerns. It may provide programs during a plenary session or sponsor interest groups to heighten awareness of issues and concerns, share activities, and encourage corporate action on proposed minutes.

The current clerk of PSO is Anthony Manousos, Santa Monica Monthly Meeting. He can be reached at interfaithquaker@aol.com. PSO plans to have monthly conference calls and a blog with weekly postings on Quaker peace activities. All are invited to take part.
In recent years, PSO has presented several minutes (statements) that were approved by the Yearly Meeting. These minutes included:

· A call for affordable, universal health care,
· An end to torture, and of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In 2010 the Yearly Meeting approved the following minute regarding interfaith peacemaking:
“Pacific Yearly Meeting encourages Friends to take part in interfaith efforts to foster peace and understanding both locally and internationally. Friends are encouraged to send representatives to local interreligious councils, to reach out to those in other faith traditions in the spirit of friendship, and to engage in interfaith peace and justice efforts.

“Pacific Yearly Meeting also authorizes the clerk of PYM to write a minute of support for the interfaith work of Anthony Manousos, who has traveled in the ministry with this concern both in the United States and internationally.”

Other concerns raised during the 2010 annual session included:

1) Friends Peace Teams (FPT) - The purpose of FPT is to invite, challenge, and empower individual Friends and Friends churches and meetings to participate in Spirit-led peace team work locally and internationally. African Great Lakes Initiative of FPT - Strengthens, supports, and promotes peace activities at the grassroots level in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). Rachel Fretz (Santa Monica MM) and Cassilde Ntamamiro spoke about these concerns and recommended that Meetings include Friends Peace Teams as budget line item donations. Invite FPT to present about their work at monthly meetings.

2) Friends Committee on Legislation of California (http://www.fclca.org ). Laurel Gord (Santa Monica MM) spoke about FGC, noting that this Quaker lobbying group is the leader in Sacramento on criminal justice issues. Their legislative advocate, Jim Lindberg, is the single key advocate in Sacramento on these issues. She recommended letter writing to California state legislators.

3) Single payer health care. Sally Seven and Betsey Coffman for the League of Women Voters outlined the current single- payer health care bill in the California Legislature – SB 810 (Leno, S.F.). They noted that the United States is ranked 37th in the world in health care delivery, and that adoption of a single payer plan would provide health care for all, and save billions of dollars. They recommended that Friends write and lobby members of the Appropriations Committee, and all California legislators for this bill.4) Nonviolent Peace Force. Michael and Linda Dunn (Inland Valley MM) spoke of this innovative, nonviolent approach to conflict resolution. Their organization has 2- year paid positions. Outlined their activities in Civilian Peacekeepingand Civilians Protecting Civilians. Further information at: http://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/, or contact David Grant, Strategic Relations Director of Nonviolent Peaceforce at: +1 202 577 3145 or DGrant@NVPF.org

5. War Tax Resistance Bob Runyan (Chico MM) said that Quake war tax resisters are asking monthly meetings to approve their supporting minute. They would like to see 200 Pacific Yearly Meeting Friends “pay under protest” their federal tax.

6) American Friends Service Committee (afsc.org/) and Friends Committee on National Legislation (fcnl.org). Stephen McNeil, AFSC staff person from San Francisco MM, spoke on behalf of AFSC and FCNL, mentioning that FCNL features the Indian Report, and it is one of the few Friends groups active in Native American issues. He recommended that Friends contact U.S. legislators in Congress to oppose the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. (2) read their report, “Never Again” on genocide, authored by Madeleine Allbright and William Cohen. (3) personally visit a Senator or Congressperson to discuss with them one of AFSC’s and FCNL’s issues.

7) Interfaith Peacemaking. Anthony Manousos (Santa Monica MM) is willing to travel give presentations at quarterly and monthly meetings (as he did in May 2010 at the San Jose Monthly Meeting in May 2010). Contact: interfaithquaker@aol.com.

8. Homelessness. Lucia van Diepen (Live Oak MM, Monterey County) urged Friends to undertake activities supporting the homeless. She quoted Gandhi: “poverty is the worst form of violence.” She recommended cooking meals for the homeless in your area on a regular basis.