I don’t know about the rest of you, but this summer was a bit of a blur for me. It’s all good, of course – Saltshaker trip to Burundi, Pastor’s Short Course in Indiana, Ministry Conference in Wichita, Multiplication Conference in Haviland, a road trip to Yellowstone for a 33rd anniversary getaway with my beautiful wife – but suddenly we find ourselves at the beginning of a new school year, doing our best to catch our breath.
If you’re like me, I find that I can relate all to well and all too often to the following summary from Thomas Kelly’s A Testament of Devotion:
“The problem we face today needs very little time for its statement. Our lives … grow too complex and overcrowded … in frantic fidelity we try to meet at least the necessary minimum of calls upon us. But we’re weary and breathless. And we know and regret that our life is slipping away … in guilty regret we must postpone till next week that deeper life of unshaken composure in the holy Presence, where we sincerely know our true home is, for this week is much too full” (89-90).
Originally published in 1941, these words have never been more applicable than they are today. We live in a time of unprecedented complexity and confusion. Our high tech culture is obsessed with novelties, gadgets and an endless variety of “time-saving” electronic devices. The world has never known a society with more leisure time on its hands, and yet, we are among the most chronically exhausted, stressed-out people on the planet. There must be a better way!
“For over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by … we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Center!” (92).
Thankfully, Kelly offers hope for those of us who continue to struggle against the forces that would keep us from “slipping over into that Center” of Divine Love, out of which we are enabled to love others as we have been loved by God. The hope Kelly offers us can be found not only in the words he writes, but in the life that he, and others, lived. Citing the examples of prominent Quakers such as George Fox and John Woolman, Kelly highlights those traits that set these spiritual leaders apart as passionately devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
One of the greatest insights to be gleaned from A Testament of Devotion, however, is actually not even written by Thomas Kelly, but by his close friend and colleague, Doug Steere, as part of a biographical memoir that is attached to the end of the book. Here we discover that living out of the Divine Center came late in life for Kelly, an intellectually restless, professionally ambitious, Harvard-trained, Quaker scholar. According to Steere, the pivotal event took place sometime in the autumn of 1937, during which time “a new life direction took place in Thomas Kelly. No one knows exactly what happened, but … a fissure in him seemed to close, cliffs caved in and filled up a chasm, and what was divided grew together within him” (118). A year later, following a summer visit among Friends in Germany, Kelly himself testified to Steere, “It is wonderful. I have been literally melted down by the love of God” (120).
Could it be that each of us is not so different from Thomas Kelly, not to mention George Fox, John Woolman and every other prominent spiritual leader who has gone before us? Could it be that the only way for the spiritual fissures in our lives to close is by allowing the retaining walls we have built up around our souls to cave in? Could it be that the best antidote for “frantic fidelity” is a “holy meltdown”?
As we prepare to enter into a new season of life and ministry together as friends, colleagues, brothers and sisters, I am thankful for all of the flawed yet faithful men and women of God who have gone before us, and for their willingness to allow their lives to be refined in the furnace of God’s purifying love. By their examples, each of them call us to surrender our own lives to this same holy fire, with deep confidence that the One who melts and molds us is utterly good and trustworthy and has our best interest in mind. In the process, we are relieved from the burden of “frantic fidelity” and we can find rest for our weary souls as we recognize that it is God’s work, not ours, that will stand the test of time:
“Thus we have begun to live in guidance. And [we] find He never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness … for after all God is at work in the world. It is not we alone who are at work in the world, frantically finishing a work to be offered to God … we need not get frantic. He is at the helm. And when our little day is done we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well” (100).
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