Quakers and the New Storynewuniversestory.com/images/QuakersNewStory.pdf · 1 Philip Clayton, Mary...

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Philip Clayton, Mary Coelhoand the New Story Study Group

Quakers and the New StoryEssays on Science and Spirituality

Profound changes in our understanding of matter and of the earthoffer an opportunity to heal the largely unconscious, dangerousWestern estrangement from the earth. Within the “New Story”our deepest spiritual aspirations and many central Christianinsights can find a vast, full expression enabling us to embrace adeep belonging within the Earth community, and a caring,loving relationship with our home.

—Mary Coelho

Quakers and the New StoryEssays on Science and Spirituality

Philip ClaytonMary Coelho

and

The New Story Study Group

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Quakers and the New Story

Art Credits:Cover—The Earthly Paradise: Icon of the Third Millennium, © 2000, Angela MannoP. 6—Magnificent Cosmos, © 2004, Mary CoelhoP. 8—A Sacred Tree, © 2007, Mary CoelhoP. 10—All My Relations: the Plants & the Elements, © 1992, Angela MannoP. 15—All My Relations: The Animal Kingdom, © 1992, Angela MannoP. 19—All My Relations: Children of Gaia Descended from Stars, © 1992, Angela Manno

ANGELA MANNO is an internationally exhibited artist with works in the permanent collec-tions of NASA and the Smithsonian Institution. She studied Earth Literacy at Genesis Farm,bio-benign design at Solviva Bioshelter with Anna Edey and is an attender at 15th St. Meeting.She teaches Ecospirituality & Action, a course on the principles and practices of an ecologicalworldview, based on her book in progress Planetary Perspectives, for which she has inter-viewed some of the world's greatest ecological thinkers including Thomas Berry, KirkpatrickSale and the late Leon Shenandoah, Firekeeper of the Iroquois Nation. She is a member of theEarthcare Working Group of New York Yearly Meeting and is a student of the program “OnBeing a Spiritual Nurturer” of the School of the Spirit Ministry. More of Angela's art can beseen at <www.angelamanno.com>.

Published on-line byQuaker Earthcare Witness173-b N. Prospect St.Burlington VT 05401-1607802/[email protected]

Originally published as hard copy in 2007 by the New Story Study Group,members of Friends Meeting at Cambridge, Cambridge, Mass.

New Story Study Group:Mary Coelho, coordinatorDavid Damm-LuhrArthur KlipfelNan LeeGwen NoyesSeveryn Bruyn, consultant

With gratitude to the Special Sources Fund

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Contents1. The New Story and Quaker Belief & Practice, Philip Clayton 6

2. A Personal Journey into the New Story, Mary Coelho 8

3. The New Story as a Spiritual Journey 10

4. Concluding Reflections 23

5. Bibliography and Some Recommendations 24

6. Biographical Statements 25

7. End Notes 26


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QUAKERS are a practical folk, committed to making a difference in the world. We are also a

mystical folk, believing that experiences of what wecall “the Light within” are available to those whoseek them with sincerity and openness.

In this booklet we describe some of the revolu-tionary changes that have taken place within the sci-ences in recent years. In-deed, a variety of inter-preters of science aresuggesting that the “newstory” that science is tell-ing actually supportssomething very muchlike traditional Quakerways of conceiving real-ity. Our goal is to intro-duce readers to thesechanges in the worldview of science, whichseem to bring it closer tothe spirit of Quaker be-lief and practice.

Even Friends with no training or background inscience are encouraged to browse their way throughthese pages. After all, there is tremendous liberationin the thought that scientific descriptions might turnout to be an ally in communicating Quaker concerns.Surely this would be good news of the greatest im-portance—news that could potentially strengthenour voices and support our testimonies within theworld today.

The best way to understand these changes is toread the “new story” that follows—absorbing thedetails where one can and allowing the general im-pression simply to flow over one when the goinggets too rough. Still, it might be helpful, especiallyfor those who are encountering these ideas for thefirst time, to have in hand a sort of “road map,” anoutline of the main ideas, so that one will know inadvance where the journey is headed. Here, then, isa brief description of five of the major themes thatappear in the following pages:

1) Beyond the reduction of all things to lifeless matter.Over the last centuries, men and women have oftenworried that scientific theories will eventually elimi-nate all that matters to us: values, human intentions,

1. The New Story and Quaker Belief & PracticePhilip Clayton

conscious experience, even the uniqueness of life.Some final theory in physics, it was feared, may some-day steal from us the things that we hold most dear,leaving only inert particles, “matter in motion,” andnothing more.

But the key results of the last one hundred yearshave actually pointed in the opposite direction. The

natural world seems notto work like a Swisswatch, where all thepieces turn together likeclockwork to produce theillusions of thoughts,wishes, and values. In-stead, interpreters of sci-ence now describe cosmicevolution as much morelike a symphony, inwhich the individualplayers contribute to theresults—or perhaps evenlike a jazz improvisationsession! Within the new

view, evolution is not predetermined but involvesthe continual emergence of novelty, of new and un-expected phenomena. This view emphasizes theplace of humans and other living things as uniqueactors within cosmic evolution, whose thoughts, ac-tions, and moral convictions help the universe to be-come what it will become.

2) Reality as not only objective but also subjective.For most of the modern era science was said to her-ald the victory of objectivity over subjectivity. Hu-man aspirations and values, it was claimed, wouldultimately give way to cold, unfeeling statements of“the facts and nothing but the facts.” The real expla-nation of things would finally be given in terms ofobjective laws and physical particles, leaving no realplace for the human subject.

In fact, however, the new story of science seemsto have turned in the opposite direction. Physicistsnow talk about bits of information as the ultimatereality, rather than bits of matter. Fields of energycome first, and physical particles emerge only later.Some physicists believe that human observations andmeasurements help to make the physical world theway it is. And leading cosmologists speculate that,

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before the Big Bang occurred, perhaps there was onlyMind.

Surely this is a paradigm shift if ever there wasone! One can’t help but sense that this newacknowledgement of the role of subjectivity has greatpotential to strengthen Quaker life and practice. Inthese pages we invite Friends to reflect on the vari-ous ways in which the New Story and Quaker testi-monies may overlap.

3) Retrieval of the concept of purpose. Modern sciencewas said to be the enemy of all purposive language.When the evidence was finally in, it was thought, alltalk of purpose would be replaced by purposeless lawsand forces. Talk of values would suffer a similar fate.But the New Story suggests the opposite conclusion.Many of the new accounts of cosmic history allowfor, and some even demand, the language of pattern,of directionality, of value. Human intentions and as-pirations, far from being irrelevant, seem to play anirreplaceable role in this cosmic narrative. These re-sults suggest a new significance for the type of pro-phetic testimony with which Quakers have tradition-ally been associated. It is crucial, and exciting, to re-flect on how prophetic witness may actually bestrengthened in this new context.

4) The immanence of the divine. Out of the New Storyhave arisen new modes of conceiving the divine.Theologians and philosophers, recognizing the im-plications of this paradigm shift, have begun to em-phasize ways of speaking about divine immanencein a more radical way. Many of these new approachesfall under the heading of panentheism—the belief thatthe world is located within the divine, although Godis also more than the world.

Of course, science cannot prove the existence ofGod or justify one theology over all others (the claimsof “intelligent design” notwithstanding). But recentscience has encouraged theologians to shift their at-tention away from traditional models of God as adistant being, somehow excluded from the world asa whole, and to replace them with powerful newmodels and metaphors. Some people of faith nowspeak of the world as being located within the “wombof God,” of the world as “God’s body,” and of themind-body relationship within ourselves as a modelfor re-conceiving the relationship between God anduniverse. These are great mysteries, and we offer noabsolute answers here. But we do draw attention tosome of these exciting new ways of conceiving thedivine, since they are related to recent developmentswithin the sciences. It should not escape our atten-

tion that these ways of talking are much closer totraditional Quaker language than were the older waysof speaking of God.

5) At home in the universe. It was generally held thatmodern science would leave very little place withinthe universe for anything like persons. Masses andparticles and physical forces and laws care nothingfor persons—for their hopes and aspirations, theirvalues and sufferings, their sense of justice or injus-tice. “The more the universe seems comprehensible,”wrote the Nobel laureate and physicist StevenWeinberg, “the more it also seems pointless.” We arethe products of blind chance, wrote the biologistMonod, and all talk of the significance of human lifeis sheer fiction and wishful thinking.

THE New Story, by contrast, suggests that we are“at home” in the universe. On the one hand, we

are ourselves stardust; the matter that composes uswas composed in the fiery furnaces of stars in thedistant past, and the same fundamental energies thatmove the galaxies are at work in our own bodies. Onthe other hand, we are not merely the passive recipi-ents of purely physical forces. What we do as per-sons—our moral aspirations, our creative endeavors,our efforts to leave the world a better place for ourchildren and grandchildren—are themselves part ofthe cosmic evolutionary process.

Perhaps most shocking of all, some science writersare claiming that what we experience in our deep-est spiritual moments need not be cast off as illusory.Instead, they write, subjectivity is part of the pulse ofthe universe. It may even be—science no longer hasreason to exclude it—that in the end a deeper Mindor cosmic Power or transcendent Source underliesall that is. As persons, as moral and spiritual beings,we are not alone in a hostile physical world, strug-gling to stave off the cold of inter-stellar space for afew moments before life breathes its last and disap-pears. Instead, we are bone and sinew, breath andsoul, of an ever-evolving Whole that is like us be-cause it includes us as an intrinsic part of itself.

These, in short, are a few of the key themes of theNew Story that follows. We hope that Friends willimmerse themselves in it, and that they will recog-nize the various lines that connect it to Quaker beliefand practice through the centuries. But what exactlywhat does this new story entail for Quaker practicetoday? In the end this is the most important ques-tion; and it is one that we must together struggle toanswer. v

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I GREW up believing that one day I would cometo know the Light if I waited in expectant silence.

The community of Friends and family in a smallQuaker meeting nurtured this important hope bytheir faithful attendance at Meeting for Worship, theirmessages in meeting and teachings in First DaySchool. Sometimes the spokenmessages in meeting were aboutthe Inner Light, the seed of God,which might call someone to alle-viate suffering or injustice, andthen give them the hope andsteadfastness to accomplish thattask. It might lead a young manto refuse to go to war. People tes-tified that through the power ofthis Light, evil weakens in themand the good is raised up.

In high school and college, asa student of biology, chemistry,and introductory physics, Ilearned about the world from aradically different perspective. Istudied some of the known lawsof chemistry and the laws of mo-tion describing the behavior of matter. In that pre-dictable world of particulate matter, illustrated by in-ert colored wooden balls and sticks, ideas of an ind-welling Light that could influence the movement ofmatter and human behavior seemed to come froman earlier, unenlightened period.

Furthermore, I learned from my biology teachersthat replication errors and random breaks in the DNAchain account for mutations. With the survival ofthose organisms made fittest by those random, chanceevents, a multitude of species, including the humanbeing, had evolved over the millennia. How couldthe Light give any guidance and meaning to that ran-domly formed material foundation (it was assumedto be the foundation) of things? I eagerly attendedall the “religious emphasis” weekends sponsored bymy Presbyterian college, but I could not embrace theteachings about a God who had occasionally inter-vened on Earth and influenced the course of events.There was too great a conflict with the experimen-tally proven, predictable world described by science.

For a number of years in college and following, I

2. A Personal Journey into the New Story Mary Coelho

lived with the seeming contradictions between myearly assumptions about the meaning of the wordGod and the science I was learning and then teach-ing. I was reluctant to give up the hope that I wouldcome to know the Light and be guided by it. It was inmy late twenties, in a moment of honest anger at not

having actual experience of theLight, that I abandoned my spiri-tual hopes. Remarkably, it wasonly a few months later that amystical experience launchedme—rather, hurled and com-pelled me—into a transformedworld and a search for a new un-derstanding of the nature ofthings. For many years I told noone about the experience. Onehesitates to write of sacred expe-riences, as they are very personal.It is only possible to hint at thenature of such experiences, butthey are of such importance, theyshould not be entirely hidden, es-pecially in our secular climate. Iwas alone in the apartment

where I lived with my family. As I entered the bed-room I felt compelled to kneel. As incomprehensibleas it seems rationally, I knew that which is an answerto humanity’s problems. It was an experience ofknowing; not a rational knowing, one more piece ofinformation, but a knowing (noesis) that is distinctfrom the subject-object type of knowledge.

I was to learn later when studying mysticism thatexperiences of Light, of Love, and of knowing, arethe three most common forms of such experiences,not sharply separable from one another. The experi-ence was also one of falling in love, in the sense ofwanting to be intimately related to that which I hadknown. What I now knew was an answer in the sensethat if people could truly live within that knowing,or in the Light, or within Love, that would indeed bethe answer. I had come to know experientially of apowerfully healing and life-giving dimension of lifenot addressed in my science classes.

Since the experience resulted in significant psy-chological/spiritual changes, it seemed to me it musthave also involved an awakening and healing of the

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Self or Soul. During the experience I came to knowwhat it is to be—an understanding related to the “IAm” statements in the Bible. I was a changed, healedperson in the weeks that followed. For about a month,I was a more confident person psychologically andspiritually. Even though it was a temporary change,I was left with an important memory of the person Ihad actually been for a while and therefore could beagain.

The experience was so profoundly attractive andhealing, such a source of hope and meaning, that Iwanted it to happen again. For many years I simplyput to one side the conflicts with my inadequateknowledge of science because the life-giving qualityof the experience and the urgency of the quest toknow that realm again simply superseded those oldquestions. I set out to learn, I hoped, how to come toknow and be part of that all important Reality againand again.

To my dismay I lost interest in biology, but Istruggled against that change because I felt it waswrong to leave a field I had studied for so many years.Eventually I accepted the change in interest and wasable to study for a Masters of Divinity at Union Theo-logical Seminary. It was more than ten years afterthe experience, while studying the Western contem-plative tradition as a graduate student at FordhamUniversity, that my unexamined images of God cameinto question.

One of the people I studied was Meister Eckhart,who described a spiritual journey involving first apreparation, followed by a letting go, and then a let-ting be, such that the divine presence is known con-tinually. Teresa of Avila described a pathway us-ing the image of an interior castle. We change andmove interiorly, she taught, with a mixture of struggle,resistance, and joy, through a succession of sevendwellings, each with many rooms, until we may comeinto the innermost seventh dwelling, a way of beingwhere the unitive (being “oned” with God) life isknown. John of the Cross, Richard of St. Victor, andBonaven-ture also described a unitive life in whichthe Light ,or Love, or knowledge of God is experi-enced continually in a manner that can be sustainedby the personality. This was a revelation to me. Godcould be an ongoing presence rather than a Beingfrom another realm who occasionally visited, as myold images suggested. I came to realize that theQuaker tradition of “living in the Light” refers to thisunitive life. Thomas Kelly wrote that the “brightshoots of everlastingness can become a steady lightwithin.”

Having put questions from science to one side, Istill had largely the same assumptions about thephysical world that had confused me back in college.Therefore I could not contain my surprise and excite-ment when, in the early 1990s, I watched BrianSwimme’s video series Canticle to the Cosmos andheard him say: “The same dynamics that formed themountains and formed the continents are the dynam-ics that eventuated into humans. We don’t live onthe planet, but in and as this bio-spiritual planet.”Somehow through those words and others preced-ing them concerning the evolutionary universe andnew discoveries about matter, I realized that the uni-tive life is no longer contradicted by science!Swimme’s words brought a knowing that connecteddeeply to my being, bringing a surge of energy andjoy and understanding.

I almost could not believe it. Known and un-known forces and creative powers within my bodywere sustaining and forming my person—all far be-neath conscious awareness. It was a kind of illumi-nation. Amazingly it was through recent discoveriesof science that I came to understand that a completebelonging to the universe and to the earth need notmean a denial of my spiritual hopes and longings asthe science I originally learned had implied but in-stead this belonging carried the promise of a poten-tial fulfillment of them. I knew it was a full and deepbelonging that no longer involved waiting to be vis-ited by an exclusively transcendent God that onlyvisits occasionally, experienced or not. The period ofliving with two incompatible worldviews was over.There remained many questions about the nature ofGod, still a great mystery; and the challenge of try-ing to grasp to some degree the radical discoveriesabout matter and the evolutionary universe made inthe last two centuries,

SOME of my spiritual struggles over the yearswere, and continue to be, personal issues, but they

were also issues derived from a culture that largelylacks an integrated way of understanding and livingin the world. This is why the pages that follow de-scribe some of the breakthroughs in scientific under-standing and some implications that are congruentwith the western contemplative, spiritual tradition,which includes Quakerism; together they can lead toa profoundly transformed “way of seeing.” It turnsout that we can indeed “live in the Light,” as all theearth is permeated with the indwelling, creative re-ality, a reality experienced in a variety of ways as sa-cred. v

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3. The New Story as a Spiritual Journey

IN these perilous times, many people recognizehollow failure in several dimensions of our

mechanized, orphaned culture yet find they arewithout a guiding vision or story powerful enoughand truthful enough to sustain hope, prayer, andaction in the face of seemingly overwhelmingthreats to a viablehuman/Earth fu-ture. Most remark-ably, at this time anastounding newstory is emerging inhuman under-standing. The NewStory is based onscientific discover-ies made largely inthe last two centu-ries: the stunning13- to14-billion-yearstory of the evolu-tionary universe, ac o m p r e h e n s i v enew origin story;discoveries aboutthe nature of mat-ter; and systemsand chaos theory.Some members ofFriends Meeting at Cambridge have been meetingregularly during 2006-07, gathered out of a recog-nition that the New Story offers remarkable insightsinto the nature of things and that it lends itself tointegration with much of spiritual tradition, indi-vidual religious experience, and poetic/archetypalimagery. It is this integration that offers a new “wayof seeing” that can be healing for the individual andthe culture. Within the worldview now available inthe West, a profound understanding of the humanperson emerges, one in which our most personalspiritual hopes and longings can find support andfulfillment.

In a 1964 Pendle Hill pamphlet, respectedthinker and Quaker economist Kenneth Bouldingdescribed his confidence in the “evolutionary po-tential of Quakerism,” particularly in those meet-

ings in academic communities. In accord withBoulding’s hopes and Quakerism’s confidence incontinuing revelation, the members of the FriendsMeeting at Cambridge study group invite Cam-bridge Friends and others to join us in carefullyconsidering and understanding the insights and

discoveries in sci-ence that opendoors to a more in-tegrated worldview.It is not necessary tolearn a lot of science,but we are chal-lenged to undertakewhat is for manysome changes in ourperception of real-ity. It is one in whichwe can begin to or-ganize ourselves forthe first time at thespecies level. Thesepages are offered togive some indica-tion of the profoundchanges in view andthe hope and possi-bilities they offer.Though the work is

inevitably partial and incomplete, the New Storyseems to have the mythic power to re-animate deepemotions and to touch the archetypal depths of thehuman mind. There is perhaps no deeper source ofmeaning for human beings than to experience ourown lives as reflecting the nature and origin of theuniverse.

Some readers of this pamphlet may be con-cerned that the reflections in it are largely in onedirection, from reflection on how some quite recentdiscoveries in science are congruent with, support,and may strengthen and empower Quaker tradi-tion. It does not address, but takes for granted, thatother stories from around the world, the values anddiscoveries of Quakerism itself, and other religioustraditions can and will all make contributions to thevast unfolding of the Earth story. For example, we

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need some of the images of the Asian perspective,such as their haikus, to fully appreciate the natureof things. It is assumed this flow in the other direc-tion is an important subject, but it has not been thedominant focus of the study group. That group hasinstead been concerned that science has a great dealof authority in the West and has often inappropri-ately denied many religious insights and hopes. Itis the changes in science itself—such that this de-nial can no longer be sustained—that we have beenpondering and celebrating. The New Story nowgives much of Quaker tradition a vast, largely re-ceptive home and offers a context for further ex-plorations of its tradition.

A. Some Historical Perspectiveand a Working Assumption

As early as the 17th century, as the discoveries ofmodern science began to affect the Western world,many deeply spiritual thinkers felt it was correctand necessary to separate theology and the worldof the Spirit from the material realms of physics,medicine, government, economics, and socialtheory. Descartes’ entire philosophy is based on thisseparation. He and his European followers deeplyaffected modern Western assumptions. Religioncame to concern itself primarily with Spirit, value,and human meaning, while science concerned it-self, primarily, with facts of the physical world. Thisseparated the world of value and meaning from thephysical world for the first time in history. Sincethen, this dichotomy has generally prevailed in theWest. Although a period of separation was appar-ently necessary for science to gain independence,now, creative and powerful thinkers from manyfields have begun to suspect it is false, unnecessary,and even harmful to separate the discoveries of sci-ence and their implications from ethics, questionsof meaning, and human self-understanding.

For instance, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, thegreat French paleontologist and theologian whosewritings offer an integrated vision drawing on evo-lution and Christian thought, noted that he hadbeen warned throughout his adult life by the Catho-lic Church not to mix philosophy and theology withscience. Fifty years of experience, however, taughthim that this attitude is “psychologically unfeasible”and “opposed to the greater glory of God.” Morerecently Carol MacCormack, paleontologist and

author of Beyond Dualism, realized that “we can’tleave scientific theory to the mathematicians or re-ligious experience to the theologians.” (p.80) Thegreat physicist Wolgang Pauli wrote: “…contraryto the strict division of activity of the human spiritinto separate departments—a division prevailingsince the nineteenth century (the century when ithad gained dominance)—I consider the ambitionof overcoming opposites, including also a synthe-sis embracing both rational understanding and themystical experience of unity, to be the mythos, spo-ken and unspoken, of our present day and age.”The working assumption of this paper and the reflectionsof our study group were that a radical (from radix, root)shift in human self-understanding offered by an integratedworldview is indeed needed as it will help us address theecological crisis and innumerable personal and global is-sues.

B. The Mystery of MatterFirst we need to reconsider our assumptions aboutmatter as they may preclude our embrace of theremarkable self-understanding now offered to hu-man beings within the context of the story of theevolutionary universe. In the 1920s, when matterwas examined from the perspective of the verysmall, physicists were shocked and profoundly dis-turbed by their discoveries. They tell us that matteris actually immaterial, in the sense that there is noparticulate piece of matter understood as being asolid—something that can no longer be divided.Matter is highly structured into atoms and into com-plex forms that are often long-lasting, but theseforms, including the atoms, are comprised of 99.99%“empty space,” a space that is “empty” in the sensethat it is not comprised of any measurable thing.The bottom had dropped out of a long-heldworldview.

To make this insight more clear, try to realizethat if an atom were enlarged to the size of YankeeStadium, it would consist almost entirely of emptyspace. The mathematical cosmologist, BrianSwimme explains that the center of the atom, thenucleus, would be smaller than a baseball sittingout in centerfield. The outer parts of the atom, theelectrons, would be tiny gnats buzzing above at analtitude higher than any pop fly Babe Ruth everhit. And between the baseball and the gnats? Noth-ingness. All empty. Indeed, if all the space were

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taken out of a person, he or she would be a milliontimes smaller than the smallest grain of sand. Thisimage of an atom the size of a baseball stadium ismost important since it allows us to see that thephysical world, contrary to appearances, has a“within” or an “inside.”

Although the “empty” space lacks any particu-late matter, and it was initially called a vacuum, it isactually an immense “sea” of background “energy.”Because this “empty space” is full rather than empty,it is sometimes called a “plenum,” Latin for fullness.It was measured in the 1940s.1 Some call it “virtualenergy” (virtual in this sense is not opposed to “real”but to “observable”) because the fundamental levelof reality is more informational than material.“Empty” space is utter potentiality that both sur-rounds and permeates atoms and everything madeof them.

Another name for the plenum that BrianSwimme offers is “seamlessness,” a name chosenbecause the plenum is a widely dispersed unitaryevent connected beyond space and time.2 Quantumphysicist David Bohm, associate of Einstein andKrishnamurti , sought to describe the “implicateorder,” still another name for the plenum; Bohmattempted to discern the overall order or patternsinherent throughout the cosmos (see Section 5 inthis paper). His ideas of the implicate order includethe assumptions that “the ground of all being issomehow permeated with a supreme intelligencethat is creative.” He finds evidence for this in “thetremendous order in the universe and in ourselvesand the brain.” The extent of the implicate order isnot known because our knowledge simply fades outat a certain point. (Bohm, 1983) Great mystery re-mains.

The entire dance of energy and matter of ourworld arises continuously from the fertile emptinessor plenum that surrounds and permeates every-thing.3 Thus the plenum is the ongoing, creativesource of the manifest physical world, the relativelystable forms we all know.4 David Bohm describedthe relationship of the wave/particles5 to the im-mense background energy as a comparatively smallpattern of excitation “on top” of a background “emp-tiness,” rather like a ripple on a vast sea. Particlescan’t be separated from the empty space aroundthem. It is these energy events or particles, whichare little knots of energy that, over the great peri-ods of time of the evolution of the universe, become

the relatively stable, distinct forms of the world thatwe know. We are amazed to realize that these dis-coveries mean that matter that is often so hard andsolid is at the same time a patterning of energyemerging from the fertile emptiness, the plenum.Brian Swimme explains: “The root foundation ofanything or any being is not the matter out of whichit is composed so much as the matter together withthe power that gives rise to matter.”

In the perspective of quantum physics the origi-nating power that gave birth to the universe 13 to14 billion years ago is not simply located there atthat point in time, but is rather a condition of everymoment of the universe, past, present, and to come.6(Swimme and Berry) In other words, there has beenan interior dimension since the beginning.

i) Theological ReflectionUNTIL THE LAST CENTURY contemporary Westernscience largely objectified the natural world andthus reinforced a dualist tendency in Western the-ology that separates matter and spirit, body andsoul, placing God outside the natural world andoutside the person. It has meant an abandonmentof biblical holistic thinking and a desacralization ofthe natural world, resulting in an almost completedisappearance of restraints on its exploitation. It canbe proposed that with the recognition of an ind-welling “sea of background energy “ physicists arenow reaching into the same powerful, mysteriouscreative source of the manifest world that has beennamed God. Quite remarkably, although manyquestions are raised about conceptions of God,physics now adds support to independently exist-ing theological inquiry and profoundly challengesthe dualism that placed God outside the person andthe natural world.The separation of God (an often misused word)from matter can no longer be sustained. The domi-nant dualism is no longer tenable, and a concep-tion of God (plenum) that is immanent (indwell-ing, inherent) in the entire manifest world findssupport. Although definitively immanent, there arealso qualities of that immanent reality that are tran-scendent, not in a spatial sense but in the sense thatit is transcendent to daily consciousness; transcen-dent in the sense of being the source of the mani-fest world; and in the sense that its expression inthe manifest world does not exhaust its great fe-cundity. There is no longer a need to appeal to a

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spatially transcendent Other that intermittently in-tervenes in Earthly affairs. The immanent yet tran-scendent plenum is always present in the personand throughout the natural world and is known inhuman experience. This is an empowering realiza-tion that invites us to explore with confidence thefullness of our personhood, since as an immanentreality it is the depth of our being. People throughthe ages in many cultures and religious traditionshave discovered diverse ways to bring this realminto consciousness and to act in accord with theresulting transformed understanding.

Throughout history, countless people explor-ing the nature of things by means of meditativeexplorations of the depth of human consciousnessand mystical experiences involving the person and/or the natural world, have come to know (non-ra-tional knowing) and love—a realm they have calledby many names, including the Ground of Being,the Ground of Becoming, and God. Names in othertraditions, each carrying some distinctive insights,include the Hindu Akashic Field, the Buddhist Void,and the Great Mother of Taoism. It is not assumedin this inquiry that the investigations of Westernscience match or supersede the experience andknowledge of these ancient traditions. It is simplythat Western science, based on its own discoveries,can no longer discount these ancient insights andtraditions.

Some members of our meeting have told ofmoments of being aware of “light” pervading ev-erything. We propose that these experiences andthe “ocean of Light” that George Fox and many ofhis followers experienced is the sea of backgroundenergy, or perhaps a dimension of it. Friends havegreatly valued St. John the Evangelist and his prom-ise of “the light that enlightens” everyone cominginto the world. In meeting for worship we knowthe “precious stillness that has no form” that allowsus to know who we are and who God is. (Tolle)Also, it can be proposed with confidence that therealm of a generative “nothingness” a no-thing-ness(nothing in the sense of the absence of measurablethings) identified by the 13th century Dominicantheologian Meister Eckhart and other religiousmystics, is the same plenum. Dante wrote inParadiso, “His glory, in whose being all things move,pervades Creation and … shines in every partthereof.” Indigenous traditions have also known a

spiritual intimacy with local bioregions; their spiri-tuality can now be honored by western Europeanswho once dismissed these traditions as primitive.Christianity has spoken of the life of Jesus ofNazareth as the incarnation (caro, flesh), God be-coming flesh. Now we are led to recognize that God(the Plenum) is always incarnate, incarnate prima-rily (that is has always been present throughout evo-lutionary history), not secondarily “becoming flesh”at a certain moment in history with the revelationsof one particular life. The life of Jesus of Nazarethis therefore understood as a revelation of what is,that is, God is always incarnate and always has beenthroughout the world. The mode of divine pres-ence in Christ does not differ metaphysically fromthe divine presence in others. (Griffin, quoted inClayton, ed.) It is the intrinsic possibilities of hu-man life that are revealed.

These indications of an emerging integration oftraditional spiritual insights and contemporary un-derstanding from physics are openings in these criti-cal times to important changes in the fragmentedWestern worldview. We leave behind false dualis-tic separations. In the past those who knew this in-tuitively or by spiritual experience, Quakers, themystics, the poets, some philosophers and theolo-gians, were relegated to a minor stream of culture.Now they are repositioned at the center of our fullerunderstanding. It is encouraging to know that pre-viously there have been integrated worldviews, asthe Franciscan synthesis in the 13th century. It wasone of great importance in medieval Europe andone that continues to speak to many people. Suchan integrated vision of things is becoming availableagain in a stunning new understanding.

Main insight: God (the plenum) is always presentand intimately interrelated with the entire mani-fest world.Quaker question: Why was early Quaker experi-ence of the “Light within” so powerful and trans-formative?

C. Revelation from the Evolutionary StoryAnother remarkable invitation to question and re-think some largely taken-for-granted Western as-sumptions comes from the story of the evolution-ary universe. These assumptions are ideas and im-ages that can block our full embrace of the sacreddepths of the person and the earth. In the nine-

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teenth century, evidence appeared in the realms ofgeology and paleontology indicating that there wasa time sequence in the very formation of the earth.It was recognized that the earth was not the eter-nal, fixed, abiding reality that it had been thoughtto be. Discovery that life forms had developed fromearlier forms, with an explanation of how it cameabout, found expression in Darwin’s Origin of Spe-cies in 1859. However controversial this has been, itwas only the beginning. Now the evolutionary storyhas been vastly extended to include the evolutionof the universe from the Great Flaring Forth, some-times called the Big Bang, estimated to have oc-curred 13.7 billion years ago, up to the present di-versified and complex world of today. Teilhard deChardin wrote that knowledge of the evolutionarystory involves the greatest change in human con-sciousness in two million years. The amazing dis-covery is that the universe is a developing realitygoing through irreversible cosmic transformations.

i) The Evolutionary Story: A Brief SummaryTHE EVOLUTIONARY STORY, also called the Epic ofEvolution, is the sprawling, interdisciplinary nar-rative of evolutionary events from the primordialflaring forth to the present astounding diversity,beauty, and organization. In a matter of secondsafter the primordial flaring forth of light and el-ementary particles, nuclei of hydrogen and heliumtook form, nuclei that would become atoms whenthe universe had cooled sufficiently for electrons tobe held by the nuclei in a stable state. Althoughprecise dates cannot be ascertained, it is estimatedthat when the universe was a billion years old, gal-axies came into being, and it is within the galaxiesthat stars of many sizes began to shine as the pri-mordial hydrogen underwent nuclear fusion withinthe stars. It was within stars and within explodingsupernova that all the other elements (besides hy-drogen and helium) that comprise the earth andour bodies were created. Our sun and the earthformed 4.6 billion years ago in the Milky Way Gal-axy, at which time the earth began its long creativejourney. Over hundreds of millennia the moltenmatter of the early Earth differentiated andcomplexified. Life emerged very early in the earth’shistory as ancient bacteria and then single celledprotists evolved; there followed a long successionof forms including trilobites, dinosaurs, mammoths,whales and people.

The person is a living form of something incom-parably old and thus is, in a sense, also most an-cient. We are both ancient and new. Every particlein our bodies has a multibillion year past and everycell is indebted to a multi-million-year history. Weare indebted to this long evolutionary story for ourvery being, a story in which the immanent plenumhas always been present.

Although there are cycles of destructiveness inthe story, such as the major extinctions that closedseveral geologic periods on Earth, the overall thrustof the story is clearly one of great creativity. Thevery destructiveness prepares the way for bursts ofcreativity. Norman Pittenger, an Anglican processtheologian, writes: “The evolution of the universe isnot a mere unfolding of what has already been the case.There is continuity of process with the emergence of genu-ine novelty.”

ii) A Copernican-like Revolution in Our ThinkingTHE REALIZATION THAT people and all the beingsof the earth are differentiated forms of the substanceof the Big Bang offers a Copernican-like revolutionin our thinking. Parker Palmer, distinguishedQuaker author, educator, and activist, has written:“Western culture has a million ways of reinforcingthe illusion that the world consists of inert stuff outthere and that we are the active agents of changewhose role is to get that stuff in shape.” Many of uswere taught that matter, as the proverbial billiardball, is inert and must be moved and vitalized bythat which is external to it. However, the story ofthe evolution of the earth shows constant ongoingchange over 4.6 billion years, so we need no longerbe bound by an assumption that matter is inert stuffmoved by that which is external to it. Rather it issomething which transforms out of its inner, cre-ative nature, a nature which includes the plenum.There are domains of the physical world which arefixed and predictable, since we can fly rockets tothe moon. But our knowledge of a constantly trans-forming Earth is a remarkable challenge to ournearly unconscious assumptions about the natureof the stuff of which we are made.

This new conception of the earth and of thewhole universe as dynamically evolving by its in-ner creative nature, is further supported when weremember that instead of basic building block ob-jects, particles that make up matter are instead in-terwoven networks of particle/waves sustained

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within the fertile plenum, in patterns that are notcompletely predictable or measurable. The creativesource is within and around the “wave/particles.”

We are the first humans to look into the nightsky and recognize the birth of stars, the birth ofgalaxies, and evidence of the birth of the cosmos asa whole. Our future as a species will be forgedwithin this new story of the world. Yet, since thestory emerged out of science, many people are sus-picious; it is feared that the New Story will denyreligious experi-ence, as some formsof scientism have inthe past.7 Can it sig-nificantly informour identity and bea source of spiritualinsight? In section 2,above, it was de-scribed how the hu-man person and allof the natural worldis permeated with,indeed consists of,the generative full-ness, thus challeng-ing the dualism thatdesacralized theearth and left the in-dividual withoutconfidence in his/her grounding inthe creative Source.Also, in the light of modern insights into the gen-erative plenum and the story of the evolution ofthe universe, we can leave the world of “inert stuff”behind and embrace our particular part in a dy-namic, creative reality. It is most heartening thatBrian Swimme teaches that “expressed within thecontext of the dynamics of the developing universe,the essential truths of religion would find a far vasterand more profound form. The recasting would notbe a compromise nor a diminution nor a belittle-ment; it would be a surprising and creative fulfill-ment, one whose significance goes beyond today’smost optimistic evaluations of the value of religion.”(1996, p. 12) What good news, to learn that to knowone’s place in the cosmos is to know something ofimmense spiritual value!

iv) PanentheismWE HAVE SEEN there is an inextricable intertwiningbetween the ongoing creative plenum and the mani-fest world. This and other insights from the evolu-tionary story and from discoveries about the na-ture of matter that have spoken so powerfully toour study group have, of course, been carefully re-flected upon by many people, along with manyother issues, and have supported one of the majorshifts that is occurring in the theological world.

Through religious,moral, scientific,and philosophicalexperience, roughlyover the past twocenturies, a theo-logical traditionidentified aspanentheism has de-v e l o p e d .P a n e n t h e i s m ,coined as word in1828 by a Germanphilosopher, is thebelief that the Beingof God includes andpenetrates thewhole universe, sothat every part of itexists in that Real-ity, but (as againstpantheism) the be-ing of God is more

than, and not exhausted by, the universe. (OxfordDictionary of the Christian Church).8 Although thistradition was particularly developed quite recentlyby people like Paul Tillich, Alfred North Whitehead,Thomas Merton, Nicolay Berdyayev, Pierre Teilhardde Chardin, Sallie McFague, Albert Schweitzer,Rudolf Bultmann, and Martin Buber, to name a veryfew, its characteristic insights can be found in themedieval theologians Nicholas de Cusa, Johannesof Eriugena, and Meister Eckhart and mysticsMechtild of Magdeburgh and Julian of Norwich.Although the medieval people and some of themore recent writers could not work within the con-text of the evolutionary universe, they came topanentheistic insight that now finds added supportin the new context. The New Testament speaks of

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God in whom “we live and move and have our be-ing.” (Acts 17:28) Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, draw-ing on the Hebrew Bible and the rabbinical tradi-tion, writes in The River of Light: “There is a ‘place’from which all places can be seen. And ‘time’ fromwhich all time might be beheld. This place is in usand was once shown to us even as it is still withinus to this day…This place precedes life in this worldand yet exists simultaneously with it. Its knowledgeremains sealed in us.” This is a panentheistic state-ment congruent with the conception of an indwell-ing creative plenum (God).

Given the Quaker experience of the Light withinall people, now being extended to recognition ofthe Light within all of the created world,panentheism is a development in Western theologi-cal thought to be celebrated. Thomas Kelly, Eliza-beth Watson, Douglas Steere, Howard Thurman,Rufus Jones, and John Woolman are Quakers whocould be placed in the panentheistic tradition.

Early Christian tradition recognized that thereare three “books” that can give us knowledge ofGod: the Bible, creation, and the soul. But the reli-gious world, focusing on inter-human and divine/human relations, has largely failed to read with carethe book of creation. Given our new understand-ing of the earth and matter and the severe environ-mental degradation that the peoples of the earthhave wrought, we clearly need to learn to read thethird book. The New Story and panentheism offera foundation for Western culture in which this ca-pacity can be encouraged to redevelop, in part be-cause they break the suspicion of classical theismof all things physical. And given its universal rel-evance, it offers a basis upon which the peoples ofthe earth may dream together, envision humantransformation and work for the creation of a vi-able Earth future. Hope, observes George Ellis, theSouth African Quaker, was part of the force thathelped transform the South African apartheid situ-ation.

Main insight: The creativity of the universe, dem-onstrated by the evolutionary story, is built into itas its own essence.Quaker question: Can Quakers think of the wholecosmos as sacramental? Have Quakers been impris-oned by the same mechanistic, objectifiedworldview as much of the western world.

D. Evidence of Direction andIntrinsic Meaning in Evolution

Over decades, in the context of a traditional scien-tific interpretation of the processes of evolution,many students have been taught that evolution oc-curs only as a result of random changes and naturalselection. Matter, many of us were taught, consistsonly of atoms interacting through the forces theyexert locally on each other. And we humans havebeen called “glorious accidents.” Many of us havewondered how a person can be confident of thepossibility of a significant life if the universe is char-acterized by such randomness with change havingonly material, predictable, mechanistic causes. In thiscontext, historian Richard Tarnas, author of The Pas-sion of the Western Mind, is correct when he pointsout that if the cosmos itself is intrinsically meaning-less, it is left up to Homo faber to fill it with the mean-ing it natively lacks. And Rufus Jones observed:“Evolution is not evolution unless the life series issignificantly unfolding and really going some-where.”

But now there is evidence from science that thecurrent complexity of the earth cannot have comeabout simply by the traditional laws of physics andchemistry, random events, and chance mutations.For instance, to date, more than 30 examples of “finetuning” have been identified, such that if there wereeven the smallest changes, human beings and thecurrent complex ecosystems would not haveevolved. Among these fine-tuned features are thevelocity of expansion of the universe and the de-gree of gravitational attraction opposing that expan-sion. Too slow an expansion—and too slow is onlyone trillionth percent more slowly—and the uni-verse would have collapsed before much differen-tiation could emerge; too rapid, and all matter wouldhave remained in a diffuse state, without coalesc-ing under the influence of gravity into stars andplanets. Another ‘“fine tuning” is the strength ofthe strong nuclear force within the nucleus of theatom that must be very precise for the world as weknow it to have developed. Today we are seeingthat apparent random events may not be so ran-dom as mechanistic science has taught, since theyoccur within or are part of a very fine tuned con-text. Norman Pittenger, a process theologian, pointsout that although there is chance in the world, it isnot just chance, as if “any old thing could happen.”Thomas Berry further teaches that evolution can

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now be understood as neither determined nor ran-dom, but creative.

i) Powers of the UniverseIN THIS DANGEROUS PERIOD of history when thereis such need for wisdom, we can be helped by hav-ing the vantage point of knowledge of the historyof the very ancient Earth and universe, from whichwe can try to discern what the universe is “up to.”What has it been “doing” in the many billion yearsof its history as evidenced by all the changes it hasundergone up to arriving at its complex, highly dif-ferentiated present condition? Working from thisperspective, Brian Swimme has identified ten pow-ers of the cosmos. The powers are the processes thatgave birth over evolutionary time to the universeas we know it now. All the powers emerge inces-santly out of seamlessness or plenum. His attempt toidentify the powers of the universe and the waysto recognize them in the universe, the earth andthe person, is a most important effort since identi-fying the powers may help us, as conscious, self-aware beings, to cooperate with them (and hencewith the earth), find guidance from them and rec-ognize their emergence in conscious self-awarenessso that we may live with more wisdom. People havea particular mode of being but also a universe modeof being; identifying the powers of the cosmos canclarify the nature of our universe mode of being.Thomas Berry reminded us we cannot discoverourselves without first discovering the universe, theearth, and the imperative of our own being.

One of the powers identified by Swimme iscentration.9 Centration is the power of the cosmosby which the universe centers upon itself, to givebirth to new beings as stars within a galaxy or cellswithin the early seas. In Swimme’s understanding,everything happens through centers. The personalspiritual/psychological journey into the true self in-volves participating in this centration power.10

Centration can be recognized in personal courage,in the joy of being a cause, and as freedom fromsocial forces of conformity.

It is heartening and refreshing that Swimme alsoidentifies interrelatedness as a power of the universe.He traces this power, expressed as caring as itemerges in attention to the young in some fish, inbirds, and in mammals. He asks how human be-ings can develop a more comprehensive care andcompassion beyond that given to the local, human

group. Emergence, another power, refers to the dis-covery that the universe is an ongoing creativeevent. For example of emergence is that cells pos-sess properties not ascribable to the molecules thatcompose them and, in addition, cells exercise causalpowers that one cannot ascribe to their parts.(Clayton) Another epochal moment of emergencewould be the appearance of life itself out of themolten material of the young Earth as it orbited thesun. “A number of animals, especially the higherprimates, manifest qualities of inner experience thatemerge from, but are not reducible to, the complex-ity of their central nervous systems.”(Clayton)Swimme identifies emergence in people in the formof restlessness, as restless people are perhaps beingdrawn into emergence.

A member of our study group was grasped byhis recognition of a creative dimension in the world,which he identifies as negative entropy. ArthurKlipfel writes:

I first saw reference to the concept of negativeentropy 45 years ago in an essay written by JohnCage, the modernist musician and artist. Heproposed the theory that the most fundamen-tal of physical laws, the second law of thermo-dynamics describing entropy, a process lead-ing to disintegration and disorder, was balancedin the universe by what can be called negativeentropy, a process leading to order and higherlevels of complexity and consciousness. Hethought the Arts were a good example.Since then, I’ve read many books on complex-ity theory and general systems theory that ex-plore how various systems operate in this bal-ancing process to create order out of chaos. Inthis sense, a system might be as highly evolvedas the interaction of a group of humans orga-nized for community to something as simpleas the interaction of chemical substances heldin suspension reacting to a change in tempera-ture. In both cases the process of creating higherlevels of organization through a self organiz-ing process can be observed and measured;thus, a rational process.We have names for some of the systems thatbind us together as human beings, such asthe Economic System and the Political Sys-tem, and areas of study that describe humansystems such as Sociology, Psychology, An-thropology, History, etc. These names de-

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scribe rationalized processes that attempt tobe scientific in their approach. Personally, Ilike to think that in understanding these sys-tems we began to understand the negativeentropy process, which may be fundamentalto the underlying consciousness of the uni-verse, a footprint of God in our lives and onthis planet. It may be that out of this emerg-ing understanding of process, theinterconnectedness of all things will becomefirmly estab-lished and willlead to the devel-opment of valuesthat reflect oursignificant role asself-aware be-ings, able to playa positive role inthe unfolding ofhuman and plan-etary evolution.

As Primack andAbrams write in TheView from the Centerof the Universe, theuniverse is more co-herent and poten-tially meaningful forour lives than any-one imagined. (p. 7)A place to belongneed no longer beentirely self-created by the individual and the cul-ture.

Main insight: We cannot live wisely without knowl-edge of the powers and ways of the universe.Quaker question: Have Quakers, as a group, beenparticipating in emergence in the past? Are we nowpart of emergence?

E. Participant Individuality:the Individual and the Whole

Although a person may accept and appreciate thediscoveries just described about matter, the plenum,and the ongoing creative evolution of the earth anduniverse, it is not easy for Western people to inter-nalize this information so that the changes are per-sonally significant. We have assumptions about how

the person relates to the earth that make it difficultfor us to conceive that we are actually a part withina whole,11 which is the unfolding Earth and uni-verse. Western culture is so permeated with frag-mentation and loneliness it is difficult to compre-hend how the person, with his or her unique indi-viduality and consciousness is at the same time fullypart of, or within, the unfolding story. There is agreat deal to explore and discover concerning theindividual within the unfolding story.

How might weconceive of the rela-tionship betweenthe individual witha unique sense ofself, walking overthe earth and theearth and universe?We easily fall backinto the assumptionthat the person isdisconnected fromthe earth except asrelated through thesenses, our attemptsto control the natu-ral world, andthrough food andair and water. It wasonce hard to con-ceive that the ple-num and the pow-ers of the cosmos

are actually active in us. This alienation arises inpart from the conception of atoms as buildingblocks, which suggests the blocks a child uses tobuild a tower. This gives a picture of the person,made of such building blocks, as not intrinsicallyrelated to the earth. Now in the context of the evo-lutionary universe, which forms dynamic centersof being, we recognize that this is a totally inad-equate, isolating image. To grasp the radical changesin human self-understanding offered us, it is im-portant to understand the manner in which distinctforms, as the atom, the cell, and the human person,are formed in the process referred to as self-orga-nizing. An example of form generation is the whirl-pool in the ocean; the whirlpool is a distinct formyet it is also a form of the ocean itself and remainsintimately related to the ocean. Particular forms that

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have evolved over evolutionary history emerge insuch a manner that the form, although it may havegained great complexity and semi-independence,still remains integral to the whole; each is a form ofthe whole, always grounded in the plenum and theordering, creative powers arising in it.

The work of physicist David Bohm helps us con-ceive how complex beings can be internally integratedinto the internal dynamics of the evolutionary cos-mos, an understanding central to the placingleadings within the New Story and significant spiri-tual integration of the person into the story. Bohmsought to describe the overall law, the order or pat-tern, inherent throughout the cosmic web. It is anotion of order that is not to be understood solelyin terms of the mechanical laws that describe theinteraction of objects in time and space—the lawsby which our cars usually run smoothly. Those area subset of the larger order. The full law governingthe unfolding universe is only vaguely discernibleat present and, Bohm suggests, is probably unknow-able in its totality. Bohm takes the view that nei-ther matter nor mind is fundamental: rather thereis something unknown, the deeper ground that isfolded into the visible world; he calls it the impli-cate order12, another word for the plenum. To helpus gain some insights into what Bohm means bythe terms implicate (folded into) and explicate (un-folded) order, which is the world of space, time,matter, energy, life, and consciousness, Bohm him-self offers a comparison with radio waves, which“carry” the visual image that can appear on the tele-vision screen. The information enfolded (implicated)in electromagnetic radio waves is unfolded (expli-cated) by the circuitry of the television set that be-comes the visible pictures that we see. It can be pro-posed that in the language of theology, Bohm’s in-quiry into the implicate order would be an attemptto discern the mind of God.

It helps to remember all that has just been saidabout matter and that what we call matter has beendescribed as a ripple on the sea of energy no-thing-ness. So we can imagine forms sustained and givenform within the sea (the implicate order) like a fishin the sea—with the fish itself both permeated bythe sea and swimming within the sea. In this pic-ture of things, we can begin to imagine how we areintegral to the unfolding whole in a primary way,rather than simply separate beings connected toeach other and the earth through the senses and

bodily needs. We can realize that a person is a pro-foundly complex emergent system, a self-organiz-ing form of the evolving whole intimately immersedin the underlying enfolded order, which is the im-plicate order or plenum. Given the great creativityand interrelatedness of the earth, our individuality, sofully embedded in the unfolding whole, is not denied butempowered and grounded. The New Story maintainsthe achievement of individuality within a contextof wholeness. “The goal is a redemptive reunifica-tion of the individual self with the universal ma-trix.” (Tarnas)

Main insight: Full, alive, true individuality does notseparate us from the whole but immerses us moredeeply into it and contributes to its unfolding.Quaker question: Does the decision-making pro-cess of Friends reflect the need to hold together theindividual and the whole?

F. The Evolution of HumanConsciousness and Leadings:

The Actualization of Our IntegralBelonging to the Unfolding Story

One occasion in which there is manifestation of theongoing creativity of the universe here on Earth isin the evolution of human consciousness. With suchgreat need at this time for wisdom in many areas ofour corporate and personal lives, it is of crucial im-portance to recognize how leadings can be under-stood as integral to the ongoing evolutionary storyand can have a central and fundamental place inthis evolution of consciousness. Through the per-son the universe is becoming aware of itself, andone way this awareness can be carefully maintainedand can evolve is through leadings.

Quakers have long had confidence in “innerleadings.” This is the belief expressed clearly by theearly Quaker Isaac Pennington: “There is that nearyou which will guide you; Oh wait for it, and besure ye keep to it.” Leadings may be about the di-rection of one’s personal life or about the needs ofothers, larger social concerns, and the spiritual needsof our times. Leadings that affect significantly thedirection of an individual life or that involve a com-munity must be carefully tested and discerned byan appropriate group. The preparations of the spiri-tual journey are integral to our availability toleadings. Rufus Jones recognized the central place

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of preparation when he wrote: “Love comesthrough—not everywhere like beauty, but onlywhere rare organization had prepared an organ forit.” (quoted in Fosdick)

i) The Spiritual JourneyIN AN EVOLUTIONARY UNIVERSE our understand-ing of the spiritual journey becomes an entry intothe unfolding story of the earth, discovering therethe immanent sense of the divine, not a transcen-dent leap into the divine. Our personal spiritualjourney, more than we have realized, has evolu-tionary significance precisely because it is prepara-tion for being sensitive to and entering further intoany leadings offered to us as a part within the un-folding whole. While the New Story is a large, com-prehensive story, it is also deeply personal. The rev-elations concerning the indwelling plenum, the per-son as a form of the earth, the nature of matter andthe ongoing evolution of the earth are a source ofconfidence in the central place of the person in theunfolding story. It is the whole person, comprisingthe invisible and the plenum, form and no-thingness, who is an integral part of the evolution-ary story. The words of Jesus that are translated “Beye perfect” are a mistranslation, Eckhart Tolle tellsus, and should instead be “Be ye whole, even asyour Father in Heaven is whole.”(Matthew 5:48)Brian Swimme reminds us we have the power toforge the cosmic fire that is in us and from whichwe and all things originate. Each of us personallyneeds to find a way to contact the primordial en-ergy within us. Thomas Kelly’s words tell of search-ing for this ongoing contact: “Let us explore togetherthe secret of a deeper devotion, a more subterra-nean sanctuary of the soul, where the Light Withinnever fades, but burns, a perpetual Flame, wherethe wells of living water of divine revelation rise upcontinuously, day by day and hour by hour, steadyand transfiguring.”

There are many pathways from vast humanexperimentation, exploration, and experience tohelp us contact the primordial energy. We may enterinto union with, or become resonant with, the pow-erful dynamic, creative, unifying ground that is thefoundation of our being. Friends have spoken ofthe desired way of being as “Living in the Light.”The pathway may at times involve a symbolic deathand rebirth, including the death of some of ourunconscious, tightly held assumptions. The little selfis slowly dismantled so that we can transcend those

impulses that keep us isolated, failing to love eachother. Although largely lost in recent centuries tomuch of Western consciousness, the deepest forcesof the universe, both personal and impersonal, pro-vide a way of reunification, as well as a way of en-tering into the deeper natural and divine harmo-nies that constitute the full meaning of our exist-ence. (Berry) We know from many spiritual leadersand many “ordinary folks” that the inner wisdomcan be given remarkable expression in each indi-vidual person.. We must help each other leave ourscattered lives and stay awake to the radical possi-bilities of our lives.

ii) A Central Place for Leadings:IN A MECHANISTIC WORLD dominated by assump-tions of fragmentation and the outdated assump-tions about matter, inner leadings may be reducedto seemingly superficial associations of an active,rational mind or the expression of drives based onunresolved, unconscious needs. However, in theevolutionary universe, with the power of emergencewe have found a context in which leadings can re-gain a central place, given our integral belongingto the unfolding story. As described in the previ-ous section, David Bohm placed the origins of con-sciousness in the implicate order (plenum/God).Realizing that the plenum is the ground of con-sciousness, we can understand that the images thatform in our minds are manifestations of the impli-cate order (plenum). This, of course, occurs withina vast emergent biological and cultural context thatinfluences the content and the particular images ofleadings.

Our leadings are not given only from rationalassociations or isolated individual needs but fromour deepest identity as Earth beings grounded inthe implicate order. Brian Swimme writes: “Thedynamics that fashioned the fireball and the galax-ies also fashion your ideas and visions. I don’t meanthis in a crude sense; the whole system of life andbeing presents itself in each particular event as well.In your specific personal dreams and desires, thewhole process is present in your personal self. Themacrocosm is not disconnected from the micro-cosm.” (1984, p. 135) This is a critical insight inte-grating our leadings and our vocations into the NewStory, so that a person can be led to actions that doindeed reflect the ongoing direction of things.

Likewise, the Quaker idea that refusal of a con-

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cern has cosmic consequences (Steere) finds sup-port in the context of the web of interconnectionsthat is the unfolding whole. Beatrice Bruteau, au-thor of numerous books in the tradition of Teilhardde Chardin, reminds us that every little thingcounts: everything makes a difference, nothing es-capes, and nobody is outside the sacred story.

iii) A Basis for Trusting Leadings,Discovering Deep Ethics

IS THERE EVIDENCE that leadings do really tap intothe direction of things that transcend the popularideas of a particular time, thus suggesting a funda-mental importance to leadings? Can leadings be partof the emergent creativity of the person and theearth? Rufus Jones wrote that a prophet (who couldbe described as a person with a leading) does notcreate an ideal but discovers it. The prophet thatinforms the larger community, feels the onwardtendency of the age (Jones). Here is a sense that theindividual is tapping into something beyond per-sonal ideas and concerns. George Ellis, a South Af-rican cosmologist and Quaker, describes a processof such discovery, in ethics, that is larger than theindividual. Ellis takes the position of moral realism,which argues that we do not invent ethics but dis-cover them in the same way we discover mathemat-ics, which also has a universal character. One ex-ample of “deep ethics” is self-emptying (kenosis), agiving up or self-sacrifice to the call or leading. Ac-tually it is also a finding of the self in the deepestsense. The ethic of self-sacrifice is deeply embed-ded in all the religious traditions of the world. It isthe core of Christianity, the suffering on the crossis a kenotic self-sacrificial embrace of call or lead-ing, perhaps to a destiny on behalf of humanity.Ellis writes: “Changing the hardened heart is notachieved by military force or by buying people, it isnot achieved by intellectually persuading people;it is achieved by touching them as humans throughtreating them as valuable. It is achieved particularlyby sacrifice on behalf of others, as exemplified inthe life and work of Martin Luther King, MahatmaGandhi, Desmond Tutu.” (Ellis, p. 25)

Our study group affirms the understanding ofthe group member who wrote that the universestory cannot be told convincingly without the pas-sion story of Jesus of Nazareth. The passion for thisperson involves bringing things to a higher level,much in the manner described by George Ellis’s

recognition of self-sacrifice in the life of MartinLuther King and others. In Jesus’s death the powerof the deep ethic of self-offering is made manifestin a particular person. The study group memberwrote: “What is hard to understand is the Passion.Many of us see it in the life of Jesus. There, in thelife of this majestic and humble figure… we won-der how it all took place. Pain and suffering seemseparate from joy and exaltation. But the joining ofsuffering and joy must have been the experience ofJesus in those last days.”

Main insight: The New Story can enable a tremen-dous leap in human consciousness.Quaker question: Do Quakers believe that experienceof the “Light within” can change consciousness?

G. There Is Only the NowThe story of the evolutionary Earth teaches us, asEdwin Schrödinger recognized, “for eternally andalways there is only now, one and the same now;the present is the only thing that has no end.” Theparticular present state of affairs of the earth andthe universe as a whole is all there is. The past situ-ations of things no longer exist, although most formsand their relationships and the consequences ofevents in an earlier situation continue into thepresent now. We must learn not to let linear time,which focuses on the succession of events in hu-man centered culture, keep us locked into a life thatis always anticipating what we fear or hope willhappen, while failing to live in the present, the onlyoccasion in which the fullness of our being is avail-able to be known and lived and out of which aunique future situation may emerge.

A lovely example of living in the now is re-counted by Gary Zukav in The Dancing Wu Li Mas-ters, where the T’ai Chi teacher Al Chung-liangHuang describes his classes. As Zukav recounts theconversation, it is clear that Al Chung-liang actu-ally does seem to live, at least while teaching, know-ing something of the true nature of time:

“Every lesson is the first lesson,” Al Chung-liangHuang told me. “Every time we dance, we do it forthe first time.”

“But surely you cannot be starting new eachlesson,” I said. “Lesson number two must be builton what you taught in lesson number one, and les-son three likewise must be built on lessons one andtwo, and so on.”

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“When I say that every lesson is the first les-son,” he replied, “it does not mean that we forgetwhat we already know. It means that what we aredoing is always new, because we are always doingit for the first time.”

This is another characteristic of a Master. What-ever he does, he does with the enthusiasm of do-ing it for the first time. This is the source of his un-limited energy. Every lesson that he teaches (orlearns) is a first lesson. Every dance that he dances,he dances for the first time. It is always new, per-sonal, and alive.” (Zukav, p. 9) We are realizing inour study group that within the context of the NewStory how true this is; and fresh, creative energy isindeed potentially available, it doesn’t leave us

It is astonishing and memorable that near theend of his life, St. Francis, then a revered personwith many followers, said to his brothers, “Let usbegin brothers to serve the Lord our God, for up tonow we have hardly progressed.” (Bonaventure, TheLife of St. Francis, Chapter 14, volume 1) In thesewords, there seems to be recognition of the freshpossibilities of each new occasion rather than reli-ance on established patterns or earlier achievements.If we are attentive to the leadings of the Light, wemay indeed live with love and creativity in the now.

i) SimplicityTHE SEARCH FOR SIMPLICITY has long been centralto Quaker life. These reflections on leadings andon the “now” help clarify the roots of simplicitybeyond the appropriate admonitions to avoid toomany possessions and a schedule that is over-crowded. If a person has found the way, even oc-casionally, to living in the now with the fullnesspotential to it, that is indeed simplicity. And if aperson has learned to be attentive to leadings, thecentering on being faithful to the leading also in-volves a fulfilling simplicity. Furthermore, theknowledge of our intrinsic belonging to this mostremarkable planet and its unfolding story, meanswe do not have to grasp for an identity by ourachievements and busyness, as a remarkable iden-tity is our given birthright.

A member of the New Story group has writtenconcerning the now:

“Eckhart Tolle has focused in his recent writ-ing on the increasing pressure for humans tobecome awake to their purpose in life, to befully present to the eternal now. Tolle cites casesin the evolution of life when new formsemerged in response to crises, for example,when forms of fish transformed into land ani-mals or when forms of reptiles transformed intobirds. In the case of humans, Tolle observes thatour evolutionary challenge lies in the realm ofconsciousness, since most people—especially inthe West—strongly identify with our ownthoughts, ego, and forms generally, which leadsus to separate ourselves from other humans andfrom all other forms of life. Because of the everincreasing urgency of global crises and extinc-tion of species (including humans), Tolle seesthe need for humans to be fully present or con-scious of our inner lives, creating a “newheaven,” the original meaning in Jesus’s teach-ings. By being conscious of ourselves as intrin-sically connected to everything else and fullypresent, we could then create a “new Earth” orouter life that matches our evolutionary poten-tial. Because of his focus on individual ego-based barriers to being fully present, Tolle’swriting offers an excellent source for under-standing how to encourage transformation inboth the inner and outer realms of human lives.Unlike in the times of Buddha or Jesus, we hu-mans, seem ready beyond a few “enlightened”individuals to understand our purpose in thislife, to be awake and fully present.” 13

Thoughts from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolewere prepared by David Damm-Luhr [Revelation21:1 and Isaiah 65:17 (New Revised Standard Ver-sion)—as cited in Tolle]

Main insight: What we are doing is always newbecause we are doing if for the first time.Quaker question: Do you experience meeting forworship as an occasion to be present in the Now?

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THE New Story Group gathered out of a senseof urgency and calling; our hope has been to

explore, to understand and finally to share withother Quakers a story faithful to our present knowl-edge of the world and one potentially empoweringto Quakerism given the remarkable congruencewith its insights. The “way of seeing” based on theNew Story provides a lens in which global issues ofunending warfare, nuclear proliferation, fragmen-tation of communities with millions living in pov-erty and dangerous fundamentalisms can be ad-dressed with a renewed vision of possibility. Theintegration can help break through the forms ofconsciousness that don’t see we are destroying ev-erything in the natural world.

Humanity is deeply at home here on Earth andthere is a central place for the fundamental humanlonging for love, belonging, connectedness andmeaning. As persons who are Earth-beings, formsof the earth, we can gradually break down ourexploitive relationship with the earth and our wide-spread, deep alienation from the earth and otherhuman groups.

The Friends Meeting at Cambridge study groupfinds hope in having recognized that there is anamazing “fit” between Quakerism and the NewStory. To us, it seems that the usual five testimo-nies of Friends—simplicity, peace, equality, integ-rity and community—can now be even more deeplyunderstood in the context of an ecologicalworldview and an unfolding, new universe story.An Earth restored, peace-making, respect for per-sonal integrity, scientific inquiry, non-violence andhumanitarian work are also aspects of the NewStory long valued by Quakers. A process of ethicaldecision-making, using spirit and reason, can bedeveloped in the new, integrated context now avail-able to us.

The study group is hoping Friends will sing,dramatize, write poems and dance the New Story;we believe it can touch people’s hearts and pas-sions in many modes. We know that the life of the

4. Concluding Reflectionsmind cannot rise above the life of the heart if thestory is to give us hope and lead to action. EarlyFriends were certainly engaged at the level of theheart; we honor their passion and power and be-lieve the New Story can touch the heart and openthe door to a reawakening and re-enchantment ofQuakerism. Quakers, together with many others,are called to be a part of the urgently needed evo-lution of consciousness which is now offered to usin this most unique, critical time in the earth’s story.

According to Richard Tarnas, the characteristicsof our present situation—the pluralism, the com-plexity and ambiguity, the extreme fluidity—areprecisely the characteristics necessary for the po-tential emergence of a fundamentally new form ofintellectual vision, one that might both preserve andtranscend the current state of extraordinary differ-entiation. Joanna Macy believes we are in the midstof a Great Turning, the name she gives to the deepshift in spirituality, culture, politics and economicswhich has already begun against the grain of theunraveling which we also see on many levels. TheNew Story provides a place for maintaining andvaluing diversity and seemingly paradoxical oppo-sites while working within an integrated vision thatpreserves and fosters the viability of the unfoldingwhole. Just as an individual life can speak to thenature of the whole, so, too can a religious tradi-tion in its particularity as it wrestles with our cur-rent context contribute its specific insights, witnessand actions as part of the unfolding Earth story.Quaker testimony and witness can particularly aidin grasping the social significance and avenues forliving fully within the New Story. Here is the po-tential importance of Quakerism envisioned byKenneth Boulding.

Main insight: A Great Turning is still possible.Quaker questions: Do you believe that KennethBoulding is correct that Quakers can play an im-portant role in this? v

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Berry, Thomas, “Alienation in a World of Presence” American Teilhard Association pamphlet,(Spring, 2004)

Berry, Thomas, The Dream of the Earth (1988)Berry, Thomas, The Great Work (1999)Bohm, David, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1983)Boulding, Kenneth, “The Evolutionary Potential of Quakerism,“ Pendle Hill Pamphlet (1964)Bruteau, Beatrice, A Song that Goes on Singing <http://www.wie.org/j21/bruteau.asp>Clayton, Philip and Arthur Peacocke, eds. In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being (2004)Coelho, Mary, Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood (2001)Ellis, George, Science in Faith and Hope, an Interaction (Quaker Books, 2004)Fosdick, Harry Emerson, Rufus Jones Speaks to Our Time (1951)Jones, Rufus, The Faith and Practice of the Quakers (1st printing, 1927)Kelly, Thomas, A Testament of Devotion (1941)Korten, David, The Great Turning, From Empire to Earth Community (2006)Kushner, Lawrence, The River of Light: Spirituality, Judaism and the Evolution of Consciousness

(1981)Laszlo, Ervin, Science and the Akashic Field, An Integral Theory of Ev;erything (2004)MacCormack, Carol, Beyond Dualism, talk given in 1984McTaggart, Lynn, The Field (2001)Morgan, Jennifer, Born with a Bang (2002), Lava to Life (2003), and Mammals Who Morph (2006)Pittenger, W. Norman, God in Process (1967)Primack and Abrams, The View from the Center of the Universe (2006)Quaker Eco-Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 4, July-August 2006Schumacher, E.F., Guide to the Perplexed (1978)Swimme, Brian, Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (1996)Swimme, Brian, The Universe Is a Green Dragon (1984)Swimme, Brian and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story (1992)Tarnas, Richard, The Passion of the Western Mind (1993)Teilhard de Chardin, “How I Believe” (short essay) (1969)Tolle, Eckhart, A New Earth (2005)Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now (1999)Wilber, Ken, Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World’s Great Physicists (1984)Zukav, Gary, The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1980)See the annotated bibliography by Arthur Fabel: “The Emerging Discovery of a Self-Organizing

Universe” available on the Forum on Religion and Ecology website:<http://environment.harvard.edu/religion>.

5. Bibliography and Some Recommendations

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Severyn Bruyn is an emeritus professor at BostonCollege. He has published several books on vari-ous topics, including the social economy, commu-nity development, political science, the internationaleconomy, nonviolence, and university studies. Hehas been studying the subject of evolution for overthirty years and is now composing a musical aboutit.

Philip Clayton is Ingraham Professor at ClaremontSchool of Theology and professor of philosophy andreligion at Claremont Graduate University; he iscurrently visiting professor of science and religionat Harvard Divinity School. Prof. Clayton is authorof some 100 articles and author or editor of numer-ous books, including The Problem of God in ModernThought and In Whom We Live and Move and HaveOur Being. He is a member of the Redwood ForestFriends Meeting in northern California. Philip’s 30-year study of relations between science and spiri-tuality has gradually become central to his ownspiritual practice; it is probably true that he is aQuaker today because of considering the implica-tions of the New Story for rethinking the nature ofreligious belief.

Mary Conrow Coelho has taught biology andworked in a research laboratory, all the while try-ing to put the ideas from that world together withher spiritual search and theological questions. Shewrote the book Awakening Universe, EmergingPersonhood in 2001 to describe the resolution of manyof her questions through study of the evolutionaryuniverse and from her earlier theological studies.She has been painting in watercolor for many years.

David Damm Luhr, an organizational consultant,gardener, and lover of the outdoors, has a long-

6. Biographical Statementsstanding curiosity about systems and how theyevolve. His recent work with Quakers in FriendsMeeting at Cambridge on the implications of the“New Story” is a natural and energizing outgrowthof his belief that matter and spirit are expressionsof the same underlying and unfolding reality. Helooks forward to engaging with others to becomemore conscious of Quakers’ particular place in theNew Story.

Arthur Klipfel is an architect and businessman byvocation, and an attender at Friends Meeting atCambridge for over 25 years. He has maintainedan interest spanning more than 40 years in the pos-sibility that our human community’s expanding anddeepening understanding how the universe worksmight improve our insights into who we are andwhat we should be doing.

Nan Lee, recently retired and living in Maine, taughtPhilosophy at Milton Academy for more than 20years. She attended Friends Meeting at Cambridgeoccasionally for nearly that long; with her husband,Joe Stone, she was a weekly attender for the lastthree years and a participant in the cosmology dis-cussion group for two years. She has experienced apowerful spiritual connection to the natural worldher whole life.

Gwen Noyes was raised on an organic farm, whereeveryday experience included the “web of life” andan awesome skyscape. A deep appreciation for natu-ral processes found its way into her architecturalstudies and her work to build sustainable and com-munity-enhancing housing. She has found thatclerking Cambridge Quaker Earthcare Witness fora number of years has helped integrate her life’swork and spiritual journey.

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1 The Zero Point Field, another name for thevacuum or plenum, exceeds all energy in matterby a factor of 10 (superscript 40), or 1 followed by40 zeros. The Zero Point Field was called “zero”because fluctuations in the field are still detectableat temperatures of absolute zero, the lowestpossible energy state, where all matter has beenremoved and nothing is supposedly left to makeany motion. (McTaggart, pp. 19, 20, 23)

2 There is experimental proof that whenenergetically coupled particles are separated bygreat distance and the spin (up or down) of oneparticle is measured, the other particle “knows”instantaneously the spin of the other and takesthe opposite spin. The connection is faster thanthe speed of light. The fact that one particle“knows” instantaneously the spin of the other,although nothing has traveled between theparticles, indicates they are part of the samereality. It is stunning to learn that this“seamlessness / plenum” of which we are largelycomprised means we are part of a unitary reality.See also endnote no. 11.

3 Matter is a strange reality. The so-called “vacuum”(that is, a plenum) spins out energy fluctuationsor energy events and sustains fields of patternsand fields of matter. Quantum particles and thesystems constituted of them are force-like, light-like and (if endowed with rest mass) matter-like,but in their basic nature they are vibratory nodalpoints (distillations or crystallizations or relativelyautonomous forms) of the energies of the virtualdomain. (Laszlo)

4 Electrons lose and gain energy constantly fromthe Zero Point Field in a dynamic equilibrium.The Zero Point Field accounts for the stability ofthe hydrogen atom and by inference the stabilityof all matter. (McTaggart, p. 25) See endnote no.1 concerning Zero Point Field.

5 Depending on how we look at them, thesubatomic units of matter appear sometimes asparticles, sometimes as waves. The picture of awave that is always spread out in space is

fundamentally different from the picture of aparticle which implies a sharp location. Althoughan electron can sometimes behave as if it were acompact little particle, physicists have found thatit literally possesses no dimension. (Peat, 1990)

6 Recent measurements by the WilkinsonMicrowave Anisotropy Probe of the cosmicbackground radiation seem to be consistent withthe idea that the universe itself may have beencreated out of a vacuum.

7 Thomas Berry observes: “The secular school aspresently constituted cannot provide the mystiquethat should be associated with this story. Nor canthe religious-oriented school that has onlysuperficially adopted this new story of theuniverse evoke this experience, (the grandeur andmeaning of the universe) in the child. (p. 131)

8 Characteristics generally held by panentheists are(i) the cosmos as God’s body; (ii) language “in andthough”; (iii) the cosmos as sacrament; (iv)language of inextricable intertwining; (v) God’sdependence of the cosmos; (vi) the intrinsic,positive value of the cosmos; (vii) passibility (Godsuffers); (viii) degree Christology. (In Whom WeLive and Move and Have Our Being, Clayton andPeacocke, eds., p. x)

9 Brian Swimme names the powers: centration,allurement, emergence, transformation,cataclysm, synergy, transmutation, radiance,homeostasis, and interrelatedness. They are allbased in seamlessness, which is a realm of puregenerativity. The powers are described in thevideo series The Powers of the Universe,<www.brianswimme.org>.

10 In the person, centration involves psychicinteriorization and the intensification of reflexiveconsciousness.

11 There are several sources of evidence of theundivided wholeness of our world. Both relativitytheory (dealing with the very large) and quantumtheory (dealing with the very small), despite theirdifferences, imply a worldview of undivided

7. Endnotes

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wholeness. (Bohm xv and MacCormack, pp. 9–10) The story of the evolution of the universe alsoshows the wholeness of things, describing as itdoes the differentiation and complexification ofthe initial “material” of the “great radiance” (theBig Bang). Also scientists have with repeatableexperiments established that it is not viable tothink of particles or an event as being completelydetermined by its particular locale. Events taking

place elsewhere in the universe are directly andinstantaneously related to the physical parametersof the situation. (Swimme and Berry, p. 28)

12 Bohm uses the word implicate because thefundamental ordering is folded into the manifest,explicate world. The implicate order is the basalgenerative power (plenum) out of which formsemerge.

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