MDDM ch.67: "Yet, does it live" (657.13)

[Terrance]

Doug Millison wrote:
> Dixon, at times (he wavers and wobbles; Mason does, too; Pynchon tangles
> the lines), may represent another tradition, equally old, of humans finding
> a way to find "God" or "Spirit" at or through the heart of human existence
> and the "material" world-universe-all-that-is -- the "creation
> spirituality" of Meister Eckhart (and Matthew Fox, in this 21st century) in
> the Christian tradtion (and, in every other major faith tradition), which
> sees, simply and clearly, that you can't escape "God" or "Spirit", can't
> fall out of it, because everything is contained within it.

When does Dixon waver or wobble? 

Like fishing! Fishing may viewed as a mundane, even profane, leisure
activity, but Dixon's comparison subverts the entire sacred/profane
binary. Quakers make no distinction between the sacred and the secular.
They stress the importance of serving God in everyday life, and
believing that God's grace can be found there (taking the phrase from an
unlikely source, Aristotle, grace is the **activity** of the soul and
not a state of being).  This is one form of grace--activity. 

A person's life is an example of grace in action. 

Also, to a Quaker, no time, place, action or person is any more sacred
than another. 

George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of Quakerism, stressed that direct
experience of God
without a mediator, or priest, was possible because "Christ was come to
teach people himself".

Also,  sacred space, as Eliade defines it, is not a church or a burial
ground or a tree or a mountain, but everywhere. This is not pantheism. 

On rites, rituals, coming of age, passages...etc...

  
While the Quaker acknowledges that the grace of God is experienced by
many through the outward rite of baptism,  no rite or ritual, and I
think we can add the native bear ritual, however carefully prepared for,
can be guaranteed to lead to growth in the spirit. A true spiritual
experience must be accompanied by the visible transformation of the
outward life. So Quakers would look at baptism or the bear rite, not as
the act of initiation or becoming a christian or member of the church,
or tribe or nation or adult community...so on,  but as a continuing
growth in the Holy Spirit and a commitment which must be continually
renewed. 

Not unlike catholics and other christians who renew their baptismal vows
or marriage vows, but stress that it is the christian life, loving
others and god, that is grace. 


Quakers say that it is in everyday life that we see evidence of God's
grace at work. 

Like fishing. Or conselling drunks. 

Another from of grace: 


At M&D.101 we get Dixon's explaination of one of the Quaker mystik
secrets, that is the working of the spirit within or grace. I don't
think Dixon ever wobbles or wavers on this. It's not a matter of finding
god or a way or path to god, but of acting and labor and silence, that
is the taking time out from our mortal requirements, a turning and
desire, the embodiment in the world,  or what Quakers understand as 
Grace.