Deep space: Abigail Maxwell’s Thought for the week
‘This serious playfulness opened me to my deepest self.’
I have been speaking in Meeting for twenty-two years. Has what I said been ministry at all? Might it be, now? How could I know?
Shortly after starting to attend Quaker worship, I stood to speak, and then wondered if it was ministry. I craved reassurance, and sought it in reasoned argument. Only when I considered what I felt could I be sure enough that it was.
It is my experience, backed up by a lay interest in psychology, that there is what Carl Rogers called an ‘organismic self’, a self which responds to stimuli in the moment, according to the needs of the organism. In childhood it forms an ego, to enable it to fit its circumstances and society. The ego tries to protect the self from hurt, but reacts out of past experience, which may not be relevant to the current situation. I formed my ego to fit my family, which was unusually controlling. I still have an inner critic, a terrified small child part of me, demanding that I conform to my mother’s wishes.
In Quaker worship, my true self began to appear. When I have ministered I have spoken, usually, from that part of me. Compared to the ego, it felt like a pearl of great price, or even that of God in me. I live more and more from that true self, which Richard Schwartz, creator of Internal Family Systems theory, calls simply the ‘Self’. I wanted to sacrifice the ego to let the Light shine through me undimmed.
One day in August last year I was relaxed enough to be living in that Self, rather than the ego, and I became aware of something deeper. Three unconnected words came into consciousness. I felt those words were valuable, increasing my understanding. At Yearly Meeting, I stood and spoke more disjointed words, which I hope spoke to some people. Before, I have ministered in sentences, even paragraphs, though when I am tempted to summarise my ministry, or draw a moral at the end, I have felt strongly moved to sit down.
Last month, I attended a workshop led by Jamie Catto, former singer with the band Faithless, film-maker and writer. He led a game with a group of thirty people, each of us seeking personal or spiritual growth. Over lunch, he asked us to come up with ten questions we really wanted answered, and get a kitchen utensil. Later, he explained that a spaceship from Sirius was passing through the solar system, and we could tap into the wisdom of the beings aboard by holding our utensil like an aerial and establishing a connection. In groups of five, in turn, we had nine minutes to answer each other’s questions. I spoke from the true self. Jamie then explained that another spaceship, from the Pleiades, was also in the solar system, transmitting on a higher frequency. This serious playfulness opened me to my deepest self, and I spoke.
Could play or fantasy help Quakers open to spirit? The profundity of our aim, to co-create Heaven on Earth, does not mean we must be solemn. Paul the apostle whirls through my mind: ‘test the spirits’. The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.
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