Cheshire Frager
July 31, 2000
|
But where that spirit works which loves riches,
and in its working gathers wealth and cleaves to customs which have their root
in self-pleasing; -- this spirit, thus separating from universal love, seeks
help from the power which stands in the separation, and whatever name it hath,
it still desires to defend the treasures thus gotten: -- This is like a chain,
where the end of one link encloseth the end of another. The rising up of a
desire to obtain wealth is the beginning; this desire, being cherished, moves
to action; and riches thus gotten please self; and while self has a life in
them it desires to have them defended.
Wealth is attended with power, by which bargains and proceedings, contrary to universal righteousness, are supported; and hence oppression, carried on with worldly policy and order, clothes itself with the name of justice and becomes like a seed of discord in the soul. --John Woolman, 1720-1772 |
And this last phrase kept echoing within me:
People are dying for lack of this message. People are dying.
But I was not led to bring this message at any worship time at Silver Bay.
Then, at December 1998 Representative Meeting I joined
the dinner on Friday evening with Thomas Jeavons, General Secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. We
discussed our testimony of simplicity and the culture of disbelief. “People are
dying,” he said.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck.
People are dying.
The message kept at me, so why wasn’t I led to share it?
I found myself noticing news stories and finding resources at every turn. Many
Friends, like Tom Jeavons, were grappling with these issues. Many non-Friends
had similar concerns, expressed in different terms. Many were addressing
specific manifestations of the problem. And I found myself discovering
connections and ever more aspects to this concern. First and foremost, as I
prayed and waited, my understanding of the testimony of simplicity grew.
Now I stand before you, in this Jubilee year, at these
Sabbath Yearly Meeting sessions, in the time and place G-d always intended for
this message.
When we Friends speak about our testimony of simplicity,
we tend to discuss it in terms of personal discipline. It is about the choices
each of us make. It is about individual spiritual life.
Some people seem to think we are supposed to simplify
our lives until they are very difficult and uncomfortable.
Some identify the testimony of simplicity with
environmental concern: we should walk lightly on the earth; we should treat
creation with respect and care.
Here is what has been shown to me: The testimony of
simplicity is not a preachment of austerity. It is not about a
denial of the goodness of physical creation, or mortification of the flesh.
Anyone who’s ever read old Quaker recipes knows they weren’t ascetics.
Neither did it arise from an ecological consciousness,
more’s the pity. Friends’ history does not demonstrate early sensitivity on
this.
The testimony of
simplicity is about ensuring that nothing interferes with our relationship with
the Divine; that nothing, nothing,
gets between us and G-d.
Our testimony of
simplicity is about the first commandment:
| I am the Lord thy G-d, which has brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. |
Just in the act of looking up this text yet another
opening was given to me:
The testimony of
simplicity is about liberation. G-d brings us liberation. Whether we
realize it or not, when we cumber ourselves with needless possessions, with
heedless getting and spending, with speed and over-scheduled lives, we put ourselves in the house of bondage. We
bind ourselves to that which, so far from fulfilling, rather drains us. We make
of the path to G-d an obstacle course.
We put anything and everything before G-d.
So, even as a message of individual choice, our
testimony of simplicity is one that the world clearly needs. Life after individual life is being wasted,
sucked dry, blasted by the obsession with materialism.
If we Friends truly believe in the Testimony of
Simplicity—and the first Commandment—we can’t keep our light under a bushel. We
have to find how to bring the testimony of simplicity to the world. People are
dying, and we have a saving message:
You are not what you have;
you are
precious and loved and holy.
and central in life is our relationship with G-d—
knowing
ourselves and being ourselves to the fullest extent of our true
worth and value, in
spirit-led lives, which
gives meaning to being.
Nothing else will fill the emptiness
within us.
And nothing
else can match the joy that such a life brings.
This message can be a great liberation to those in
our post-industrialized, post-human world.
But what I say to you now, is that for us now, here, in
the USA in the year 2000, the testimony of simplicity is more than a question
of personal choice. It is a matter of
social witness, because there is in our land a state religion, the worship of
false god. And as a people of faith who know the reality of the Holy Spirit
among us, we must be ready to enter again the Lamb’s War.
What is this state religion? Let me
explain. It is observed that in long-term conflict, the combatants often take
on one another’s’ qualities. So, after 40 years of cold war against
Totalitarian Communism the West, especially the USA, has produced what I call Totalitarian Capitalism.
Being totalitarian, it asserts
authority over every aspect of life. Whereas once upon a time the life of the
nation was seen as including arts and letters, commerce and industry,
agriculture and science, healing and service, etc., now everything is seen as a
sub-set of commerce. There is only one operative metaphor for life: economics.
When an endeavor is defined as economic
all other motives are subordinated. The point is to make money. You can make
money by making cars. You can make money by fixing cars. You can make money by fixing people. But the point is to make
money.
We
see this daily in for-profit managed care, when best medical judgment is
constantly subordinated to financial interests. On the other hand, back in the
1980s there was a magazine called The Entrepreneurial Doctor to help doctors
shift from simply “having a practice” to “running a profit-maximized business.”
Not healing, commerce.
Where
once the West opposed communism because it defined the human being as
essentially an economic being, now it is Totalitarian Capitalism that does so. That
one operative metaphor—economics—applies not only to the life of the nation, but
to each individual’s life as well.
Being totalitarian, it denies human
autonomy, the fullness and complexity of the human experience and the Holy
Spirit at work in our world.
As John F. Cavanaugh writes in Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural
Resistance, “If you
are relatively happy with your life, if you enjoy spending time with your
children, playing with them and talking with them; if you enjoy living simply,
if you sense no need to compete with your friends or neighbors—what good are you economically?”
And being good economically is the only good
Totalitarian Capitalism recognizes.
And because it is supported by government policies at all
levels, we can truly say that this is a state religion.
It is a religion whose chief values—to
guide every aspect of our lives—are efficiency, competition, productivity,
and advantage. And accumulation—of capital, of goods, of power.
In this religion, the traditional values of the great
world religions are inverted. Greed is good. Materialism is moral. Compulsive
consumption is constructive. Profit is not just as good as other motives, it is
the best, and sometimes the only legitimate motive.
In this religion, every relationship becomes
competitive, or at best, an exchange, to be measured in terms of gain and
loss.
Totalitarian Capitalism even has its own Adam … Smith.
And in this religion, there is a god. A false god. It is
the god of the Invisible Hand. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand of the Marketplace.
For some, the Invisible Hand is more like our fairy
godmother: Does society have a need? Is there a problem? Mother Market will
wave her magic wand and solve the problem!
But for most, in the most pernicious sense, the market
is, indeed, god. What the market produces is good. If something is a
consequence of market operations it can’t be bad, or wrong. If you say it is
wrong, you are mistaken. The market
has spoken.
In other words, the
market is the arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil.
To claim to be
the author of right and wrong is to claim to be G-d.
As a Society that
seeks G-d’s leading in all things, what can we say?
I have always thought of a false god as simply an
illusion, the seeming of a god, a mistake. For others, a false god is not G-d
but is nevertheless real—a real demon.
As I have been led in this concern and have looked at
the consequences of this false god’s reign, it does look demonic to me.
A false god,
because it is not a true source of the holy, cannot sanctify, cannot hallow.
Where a false god reigns, nothing is sacred.
What are the consequences?
Where nothing is sacred, nothing has intrinsic value.
Everything is thus a commodity, acquiring value only from economic use. Art has been a commodity for years. Now even
our genetic material is.
Before being commodified, it is a resource—a capital
resource, a natural resource, a human resource. The forest has value only as lumber. A foundation brags about being
concerned with “children as a resource.” I hear them on NPR all the time.
In such a system, society is not organized for human
well-being. People exist for the sake of things and abstractions--the
corporation, the state--rather than vice versa: Priority is given to the
abstraction’s need, not humans’. We serve, not the Creator, but our creations.
Thus, corporations claim our bodies, our minds, our time, our souls. Statistics show that American workers have
less leisure now than 20 years ago. We work longer hours, take less vacation
than in any other industrialized nation. Keeping a cot in the office is a
status symbol in some fields.
To be valued, then, in this false faith, we must have
utility; we must be an economically useful tool or commodity ourselves. And consultants tell prospective employees
they must be strongly branded—in the job market you must be as
identifiable as a can of Campbell's soup.
Tools are managed, used, tossed. It has been pointed out
that without our enormous graduate school and prison populations we would have
far higher unemployment levels. Then there are those who are completely outside
the job market—the untrained, under-educated, under-socialized; the disabled;
and of course society’s favorite bogie man, the young black male—all considered useless economically—largely
abandoned, warehoused or tossed aside like so much garbage.
So, we are told we have no right to expect human need and human meaning to be at the heart of
society. Thus, corporate and government policies (not always distinguishable)
can openly promote objectification of citizens. Since “the real business of
life [is] participation in the productive economy,”1
free public education is not to produce citizens of a democracy capable of
making informed public policy choices; it is to produce “group-oriented,
other-directed corporate employees.”2
And only consider globalism,
transnational corporations, and Third World debt in this light.
No wonder this is called a post-human society. One thing both Quakerism and
Totalitarian Capitalism have in common: Neither believes in a division between
the sacred and profane. In that belief, everything is profane. In ours,
everything is sacred. Friends, how shall we convey to people caught up in this
profanity a sense of the sacred? How shall we help them recognize it in
themselves, in others, in creation? In what ways can we honor that of G-d in each?
There is more. When everything is a commodity, a product, even reality is not real. Let
me read to you a precis of a paper about Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, in which an
artificial, safe, clean , controlled “wilderness” experience is for sale. The authors call these
“attempts to manufacture experience a …colonization
of the imagination…The…Lodge is literally changing what people understand
wilderness or nature to be…[creating a] changing character of reality.…what
the Lodge and similar projects are accomplishing is a non-hostile takeover
of…reality…turning wilderness into a conceptual product.…[It is] the
commodification of experience.”3
Totalitarian systems always try to control historical
memory and the interpretation of the present. However, Joseph Stalin would be
wildly jealous of what Michael Eisner is now able to perpetrate!
We NYYM Friends have argued over the nature of the
G-dhead and what G-d’s rightful names are. In this I know we can all unite:
none of those rightful names is Michael Eisner.
But where nothing is sacred, there is no awe, no
humility, no sense of limits…and no guilt or shame. It is in the nature of
totalitarian systems, whether religious or atheist, to play G-d.
Traditional theology tells us that a false god can only
deal in deceit and duplicity. To paraphrase John Punshon, the opposite of
simplicity isn’t complexity, it’s duplicity. A false god’s reality is
malleable, manipulable. Makes you feel a little insecure? Don’t worry. We have
just the product here to help you. The Invisible Hand, that false god, depends
greatly on another distortion of reality: advertising, marketing, selling: shave the truth, twist it, spin
it, exaggerate, manipulate, puff it up, mislead and outright lie.
Truth matters. We should be concerned about this.
Friends, what canst thou say? We are the First Publishers of Truth. Our
testimony of integrity is based on the belief that we can serve the author
of all truth only by speaking truth and living in truth. There is no room for
anything less than truth in our relationships.
The testimonies of simplicity and integrity are
intrinsically connected. When we live truly spiritually centered lives, the
lust for superfluities dies, and so does the need or desire
to lie or cheat. Our history also confirms the irony that you can be
scrupulously honest and speak plain truth and prosper from it. Didn’t merchant
Friends come to do good, and wind up doing well?
How does the false god of the Invisible Hand provide a
sense of satisfaction? Through consumption. We are what we buy. “I shop;
therefore I am.” On PRI’s Marketplace
program I heard a child psychologist report that among children as young as four
he is hearing a change. When asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
they no longer say, “A ballerina, a fireman.” Now they say they want to be
rich. Now they define themselves in terms of the brand name items they desire.
Their inchoate sense of self is not growing out of developing mastery of life,
or a sense of place in the cosmos. It is coming externally—from their
possessions, labels, the approval of others for these belongings. Their
ultimate sense of self is as a jumble of “I wants”; not of what they are but of what they have.
When they grow up, they will want wealth, power over,
control. What does this suggest about our collective future?
Totalitarian Capitalism’s major product has been a
culture of disjunction, with no roots—a lack of community, truncated links to
family, little sense of connection to others, etc.… a culture of floating human
atoms, growing up in alienation and anomie. How do you create a community based
on competition and isolation?
Where can you find the sense of connection, of
mutuality? I remember a quote from a
young professional who said it was crazy to think that after giving years of quality
service to the corporation he was somehow owed a job. So where are the
safety zones?--not with family, or neighbors, or school, and certainly not at
work, not in a world of Totalitarian Capitalism.
As imperfect as Friends are as a community of G-d’s
people, when we allow nothing to get between us corporately and G-d then we
know what it is to be gathered as a people in the Spirit; to feel joined, one
to another, in love, each to help and support the other. So Friends, what can
we say?
Under the false god, in the end, since being human has
no meaning, since being me has no meaning, no one else has any meaning either.
We can do anything to anyone and it doesn’t matter…and they can do it to us.
Without a sense of self, of sacred meaning, of connection, one lacks moral
imagination, and can do anything to
others. In New York we have a law now
designating safe places where a mother can abandon her new baby, no questions
asked. The choice this law addresses isn’t between abandoning the baby or
raising it. It’s between abandoning the baby or killing it. It’s a big enough
problem to require a law to address it.
Many of us have been influenced by Martin Buber’s
philosophy of dialogue, with his distinction between I-Thou, the depth
encounter of souls, and I-It, the instrumental relationship. One may say we
have gone beyond I-Thou and I-It. Here we have come to an It-It relationship.
We can find it among both the powerless and the powerful, as well as between
them. Executives making hundreds of
millions annually can sleep comfortably knowing their workers in Asia or Africa
are making literally pennies a day. Or that they have down-sized another
several hundred people to protect their stock options. My favorite is the first
CEO of Time-Warner, who took 72 million dollars in compensation the year the company—and the
stockholders—lost about 40 million dollars. So he fired 36 reporters to help make up the
difference.
If you have no sense of connection to other people, what
possible sense of connection could you have to nature, earth, other creatures?
I said before that our Testimony of Simplicity did not arise out of an
environmental sense. But revelation continues, and we know now, as many have
always known, that we can find that of G-d in all creation. I think of
St. Francis; he went off to meet G-d and found Brother Sun, Sister Moon, etc.
But he had first cleared that path to G-d of all obstacles, rejecting all
belongings and cumbrances, walking naked down the road: the ultimate simplicity.
Not advisable at Silver Bay. Just being here is a sacrament. If this doesn’t
inspire us to declare that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
what will?
I have described to you the consequences of the reign of
a false god. As a people of the one, true G-d we must be visible, be audible,
be active in opposing this evil. When this state religion promotes anti-life,
anti-human values and actions we must affirm the inherent, intrinsic meaning in
being human, the supremacy of goodness and right over utility and gain. We must
declare again and again that love is the
first motion.
Totalitarian Capitalism is often referred to as
“consumerism.” I protest. Consumerism is advocacy for consumers’ rights. What
we have is a consumptive economy.
Consumption for its own sake produces insatiability. One thing this economy can
never produce is enough.
In the old days tuberculosis was called consumption and
“the wasting disease.” Indeed, this consumptive economy wastes away our souls
as it wastes resources and human energy. It eats us up alive.
There is an allied disease: affluenza, an obsession with
money, characterized by “inability to delay gratification and tolerate
frustration, a false sense of entitlement, loss of future motivation, low
self-worth, preoccupation with externals…[As it] separates us from one another--and from ourselves--all society suffers.”4
Consumption can be viewed as a public health problem
(spiritual and physical health) just as the old consumption was. Corporate
America’s policies are designed to infect simpler societies with consumption
and affluenza. We need to oppose government policies and actions that
support, help, and reward spreading infection abroad.
Our
testimonies address “man” as a social animal. It is said that all our
testimonies are ultimately one. Simplicity violated eventually violates all our
testimonies—integrity, peace, equality. Did not John Woolman write in A Plea
for the Poor, Part X, “May we
look upon our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try
whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.”
Is that a statement about simplicity or peace?
The ultimate testimony is to love one another as G-d
loves us. What does it mean to love one another? How do we explain that to
non-Quakers and people of no faith? It means basic fairness and equity; that
one’s well-being is not “purchased” at the cost of others’ welfare; that power
is not used to hurt, exploit, or cheat others but rather to help, share, and
serve. This is the most traditional value: Treat others (neighbors, employees,
clients, everyone) as you would be treated. Then you will have a basis for the
sense of community that should inform society.
And we must be aware that it is profoundly threatening
to the current social order. It threatens entrenched interests. If we rise up
as a body, organize, and seek out allies, if we challenge, educate, mobilize, and
develop alternatives to Totalitarian Capitalism, we engage the powers and
principalities. If we devote ourselves to exposing and resisting corporate
policies or operations, and government collusion, to changing laws and cozy
arrangements, if we are effective, we will limit their access to natural
resources, impede market dominance, increase labor costs, reduce profit
margins. We will be a menace. Early Friends endured imprisonment and other
punishment. They experienced prejudice and derision. If we act corporately we
once again place ourselves clearly outside the mainstream as a community.
But not alone. More and more people are aware that it’s
just gone too far. We can join existing labors as well as help create new ones.
As with allies in our struggle against the war machine, we will share greater
and lesser areas of common belief. There are many kinds of efforts at
intentional community, to bring people together on human, humane bases. There
is a real Simplicity Movement out there creating noncommercial alternatives,
redefining the good life, bringing people together. There are books, magazines,
and newsletters full of advice and analysis. There are Friends who are deeply
involved in these labors. We already have Friends in Unity with Nature as a
resource.
Other faith communities are alive to this concern too.
They are natural allies. And can we recognize an implicit testimony of
simplicity in cultures still more connected with the sacred dimension of life?
Can we be their allies as they resist Nike, McDonald’s, and maquiladoras?
Campuses are alive with anti-sweatshop organizing. Ralph
Nader is actually getting mainstream media attention with a political campaign
focusing on excessive corporate power. Jubilee 2000, a faith-based campaign to
cancel the crushing debt of impoverished countries, has already helped shift
the terms of discussion on Third World debt. The Battle in Seattle showed that
globalism is being resisted. These all address aspects of Totalitarian
Capitalism—not all of which are brand-new phenomena. But they show that the
moment may be ripe in this acceptable year of the Lord.
In Luke 4:18-19
Jesus reads a key Jubilee text:
| The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. | ||||
| Thus
oppression in the extreme appears terrible, but oppression in more refined
appearances remains to be oppression, and where the smallest degree of it is
cherished it grows stronger and more extensive: that to labor for a perfect
redemption from this spirit of oppression is the great business of the whole
family of Christ Jesus in this world .
A Plea for the Poor |
|
As He
is the perfection of power, of wisdom, and of goodness, so I believe He hath
provided that so much labor shall be necessary for men's support in this world
as would, being rightly divided, be a suitable employment of their time; and
that we cannot go into superfluities, or grasp after wealth in a way contrary
to His wisdom, without having connection with some degree of oppression, and
with that spirit which leads to self-exaltation and strife, and which
frequently brings calamities on countries by parties contending about their
claims.
The manner of taking possession of the silver mines, south-westward, - the conduct of the conqueror toward the natives, - and the miserable toil of many of our fellow-creatures, in those mines; have often been the subjects of my thoughts. And though I sometimes handle silver and gold as a currency, my so doing is at times attended with pensiveness, and a care that my ears may not be stopped against further instructions. I often think on the fruitfulness of the soil where we live, - the care that hath been taken to agree with the former owners, the natives, - and the conveniences this land affords for our use, - and on the numerous oppressions there are in many places; - and I feel a care that my craving may be rightly bounded, and that no wandering desire may lead me to strengthen the hands of the wicked, as to partake of their sins. In conversing at times with some well-disposed Friends who have long pressed with poverty, I have thought that some outward help, more than I believe myself a steward to communicate, might be a blessing to them. And at such times, the expenses that might be saved amongst some of my brethren, without any real inconvenience to them, hath often been brought to my mind; nor have I believed myself clear, without speaking at times publicly concerning it. My mind is often settled on the immutability of the Divine Being, and the purity of his judgments; - and a prospect of outward distress in this part of the world, hath been open before me; - and I have had to behold the blessedness of a state, in which the mind is fully subjected to the Divine Teacher, and the confusion and perplexity of such who profess the Truth, and not faithful to the leadings of it. Nor have I ever felt pity move more evidently on my mind, than I have felt it toward children who, by their education, are led on in unnecessary expenses, and exampled in seeking gain in the wisdom of this world, to support themselves therein. Letter to a Friend, 9th day of 7th month, 1769. |
|
Stage-coaches frequently go upwards of one hundred miles in twenty-four hours; and I have heard Friends say in several places that it is common for horses to be killed with hard driving, and that many others are driven till they go blind. Post-boys pursue their business, each one to his stage, all night through the winter. Some boys who ride long stages suffer greatly in winter nights, and at several places I have heard of their being frozen to death. So great is the hurry in the spirit of this world, that in aiming to do business quickly and to gain wealth the creation at this day doth loudly groan. As my journey hath been without a horse, I have had several offers of being assisted on my way in these stagecoaches, but have not been in them; nor have I had freedom to send letters by these posts.… Journal, 1st ed., p. 231 |
| And, dearly beloved friends,
seeing that we have these promises, and believe that God is beginning to
fulfill them, let us constantly endeavor to have our minds sufficiently
disentangled from the surfeiting cares of this life, and redeemed from the love
of the world, that no earthly possessions nor enjoyments may bias our
judgments, or turn us from that resignation and entire trust in God to which
his blessing is most surely annexed; then may we say, "Our Redeemer is
mighty, he will plead our cause for us." (Jer. l. 34.) And if, for the
further promoting of his most gracious purposes in the earth, he should give us
to taste of that bitter cup of which his faithful ones have often partaken, O
that we might be rightly prepared to receive it!
Journal, 1st ed., p. 199 |
| Every
degree of luxury hath some connection with evil; and if those who profess to be
disciples of Christ, and are looked upon as leaders of the people, have that
mind in them which was also in Christ, and so stand separate from every wrong
way, it is a means of help to the weaker. As I have sometimes been much spent
in the heat and have taken spirits to revive me, I have found by experience,
that in such circumstances the mind is not so calm, nor so fitly disposed for
Divine meditation, as when all such extremes are avoided. I have felt an
increasing care to attend to that Holy Spirit which sets right bounds to our
desires, and leads those who faithfully follow it to apply all the gifts of
Divine Providence to the purposes for which they were intended. Did those who
have the care of great estates attend with singleness of heart to this heavenly
Instructor, which so opens and enlarges the mind as to cause men to love their
neighbors as themselves, they would have wisdom given them to manage their
concerns, without employing some people in providing luxuries of life, or
others in laboring too hard; but for want of steadily regarding this principle
of Divine love, a selfish spirit takes place in the minds of people, which is
attended with darkness and manifold confusions in the world.
Though trading in things useful is an honest employ, yet through the great number of superfluities which are bought and sold, and through the corruption of the times, they who apply to merchandise for a living have great need to be well experienced in that precept which the Prophet Jeremiah laid down for his scribe: "Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not." Journal, 1st ed. p. 389 |
| While we proceed in this
precious Way, and find ardent Longings for a full Deliverance from every thing
which defiles, all Prospects of Gain that are not consistent with the Wisdom
from above, are considered as Snares, and an inward Concern is felt, that we
may live under the Cross, and faithfully attend to that Holy Spirit which is
sufficient to preserve out of them.
Journal, 1st ed., p. 385 |
| Those
who are so redeemed from the love of the world as to possess nothing in a
fleshly spirit, their "life is hid with Christ in God;" and these
he preserves in resignedness, even in times of commotion.
As they possess nothing but what pertains to his family, anxious thoughts about wealth or dominion have little or nothing in them to work upon; and they learn contentment in being disposed of according to his will who, being omnipotent and always mindful of his children, causeth all things to work for their good. But where that spirit works which loves riches, and in its working gathers wealth and cleaves to customs which have their root in self-pleasing; -- this spirit, thus separating from universal love, seeks help from the power which stands in the separation, and whatever name it hath, it still desires to defend the treasures thus gotten: -- This is like a chain, where the end of one link encloseth the end of another. The rising up of a desire to obtain wealth is the beginning; this desire, being cherished, moves to action; and riches thus gotten please self; and while self has a life in them it desires to have them defended. Wealth is attended with power, by which bargains and proceedings, contrary to universal righteousness, are supported; and hence oppression, carried on with worldly policy and order, clothes itself with the name of justice and becomes like a seed of discord in the soul. And as this spirit which wanders from the pure habitation prevails, so the seeds of war swell and sprout, and grow, and become strong, until much fruit is ripened. Then cometh the harvest spoken of by the prophet, which "is a heap, in the day of grief and desperate sorrows." Oh! that we who declare against wars, and acknowledge our trust to be in God only, may walk in the light, and therein examine our foundation and motives in holding great estates! May we look upon our treasures, and the furniture of our houses, and the garments in which we array ourselves, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions, or not. Holding treasures in the self-pleasing spirit is a strong plant, the fruit whereof ripens fast. A day of outward distress is coming, and Divine love calls to prepare against it. Hearken then, O ye children who have known the light, and come forth. Leave every thing which Jesus Christ does not own. Think not his pattern too plain, too coarse for you. Think not a small portion in this life too little. But let us live in his spirit, and walk as he walked: so shall we be preserved in the greatest troubles. To labor too hard or cause others to do so, that we may live conformable to customs which Christ our Redeemer contradicted by his example in the days of his flesh [that is, Jesus lived a simple life], and which are contrary to divine order, is to manure a soil for propagating an evil seed in the earth… By candidly considering these things, we may have some sense of the condition of innocent people overloaded by the wealthy. But he who toils one year after another to furnish others with wealth and superfluities, who labors and thinks, and thinks and labors, till by overmuch labor he is wearied and oppressed, such an one understands the meaning of that language: "Ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." As a camel considered under that character cannot pass through a needle's eye, so a man who trusteth in riches and holds them for the sake of the power and distinction attending them cannot in that spirit enter the kingdom [of God]. So man must cease from that spirit which craves riches, and be reduced into another disposition, before he inherits the kingdom, as effectually as a camel must cease from the form of a camel in passing through the eye of a needle." A Plea for the Poor |
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"The Creator of the earth is the owner
of it". This creator, John Woolman says, "gave us being thereon, and
our nature requires nourishment which is the produce of it." And so, he
goes on, because God "is kind and merciful, we as [God's] creatures, while
we live answerable to the design of our creation, are so far entitled to
a convenient subsistence that no [one] may justly deprive us of it." …
A favorite phrase, used in a variety of forms in this essay, is the right use of things. There is a kind of divine ecology at work. Creation is designed for particular purposes. John Woolman says that if all unnecessary luxuries and what he calls "the desire of outward greatness" (wealth, power, prestige) were laid aside, and if the right use of things were attended to by all, there would be employment for all in things useful, and only moderate labor would be required. This is what John Woolman has in mind when he uses such expressions as "employed in things useful," or "the true use of things," or "that use of things prescribed by our Redeemer, and confirmed by his example," or "the necessity of attending singly to divine wisdom ... thereby to be directed in the right use of things, in opposition to the customs of the times." As we've just seen, one feature of the right use of things is moderate labor. John Woolman's notion of moderate labor is quite unusual for his day. Suppose twenty families discover an uninhabited island and divide it equitably. Suppose nineteen of these first possessors provide for the future equitable distribution of their property "as best suited the convenience of the whole and tend[ing] to preserve love and harmony," and their descendants do likewise. But suppose also that twentieth of these first settlers gives most of his lands to his favorite son making all the other sons his tenants and dependents, and that this favored son's heirs do the same. Other family members are reduced to tenants. Suppose this son . . . demands such a portion of the fruits of the earth as may supply him and his family and some others [that is, his servants and other employees]; and [suppose] that these others ... are employed in adorning his buildings with curious engravings and paintings, preparing carriages to ride in, vessels for his house, delicious meats, fine-wrought apparel, and furniture, all suiting that distinction lately arisen between him and the other inhabitants--a good description of Philadelphia! Eventually there will be one great landlord over a twentieth of this island and the rest poor, oppressed people. John Woolman invites his readers to imagine this family-in-ruins to persuade them of this conclusion: if we were to trace the claim of the tenth of these great landlords down to the first and find the claim supported through these ten generations by legal documents, still "we could not admit a belief into our hearts that he had a right to so great a portion of land." When God gave life to these other people, now reduced to poverty, God gave them a right to the fruits of the earth, which cannot be denied or overridden by the legal claims of their landlord. They, "as creatures of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, had a right to part of what this great claimer held, though they had no instruments [that is, legal documentation] to confirm their right." |