Emergent

Saturday I attended the memorial for Paul Hood, a much revered peace activist and former member of Friends Meeting at Cambridge. Paul, who’d moved to Burlington, Vermont in the early eighties, had been an FMC superstar back in the late seventies—just when I first started to attend Quaker meetings. One Sunday, perhaps after he’d spoken during worship, someone whispered to me that he’d poured blood on Draper Labs, an apocryphal  story, probably; nevertheless, as a newbie, I was impressed. (And, certainly, like many other Quakers I have come to know and admire, Paul was arrested many, many times while doing civil disobedience in support of some deeply-felt cause.)

The pamphlet distributed at his memorial provided the genesis for his life-long peace activism: During WWII in the winter of 1944, he consulted with his minister who counseled him that he must serve his country and that it was in accordance with Christian faith; so, at the age of 17, having also obtained his mother’s permission, he enlisted in the US Marine Corps. Shortly after his deployment to Japan, in the battle for Okinawa, a fellow soldier died in his arms and Paul’s shock precipitated an enraged killing spree that, albeit sanctioned by his status as a soldier on the front line, left him horrified and ashamed.

I have heard versions of this story many times over the years; indeed, I have experienced—and written about—a far less dramatic yet still life-changing version myself. So on Sunday, in the quiet of silent worship, I spent time thinking about, you know, Redemption. Transformation. Do-Overs. And that perennial challenge, Self-Forgiveness.

And maybe because on Friday I’d released the four Painted Lady butterflies I’d watched grow from wriggly caterpillars, hourly poking my nose against their netted habitat to observe their latest miraculous development, I realized on Sunday that I was thinking different.

Non-binary, for sure. It’s not “Ocean of Darkness vs. Ocean of Light,” is it. The darkness becomes the light. Transformation—which, surely, is another God word—is always in movement, always in flux, sometimes forward, sometimes back, sometimes imperceptible. (The four chrysalises emanated such quiet strength I could sense their life-force yet nothing visibly moved.)

When I imagine self-forgiveness (Yikes), I’m stuck.

God isn’t.