My Quaker Perspective on Spiritual Truths
Dan Vaughen, February 27, 2026
[Editor’s Note: Here, as a first post, is my old roommate’s perspective embracing paths to peace in the violent Mideast and the world. I hope through Dan to get to conversations directly between grassroots Jews and grassroots Quakers, addressing our alas differing respective beliefs regarding our Jewish people’s homeland of Israel.]
Dear Jerry:
I continue to think about Israel and the Middle East; a “powder keg” of desperate human beings angry enough, and – with “weapons of mass destruction,” – capable of, destroying the human race. Either the human race will adapt to life together in community; to cooperate with, aid and support each other in harmony, through justice and compassion, or the human species will go the way of the dinosaur. The Roman path to “Peace through Victory” is demonstrably false. The alternative path, as described by a Jewish wise man, of “Peace through Justice”, is demonstrably true.
Jesus has been misunderstood and misquoted. He, and his followers, have been murdered and manipulated. His message has been twisted and distorted. Many people have been tragically misled. The “Spirit” within him, however, is eternal. As he is reported to have said: though invisible, that Spirit lives within us all. In some translations, Jesus is reported to have used the word “Paraclete,” a Greek word meaning an advocate or legal helper—someone called to speak in our defense or plead our cause. Quakers use the words “Inner Light” or “Inward Teacher” to describe the spiritual guidance and advocacy that comes from that Spiritual presence within. Many of his followers use the words “Holy Spirit,” to describe that invisible, internal, palpable “Guide.”
Many Quakers believe that listening for that “Inner Light” is most effective when done in silence; in the presence of other like-minded, similarly-motivated seekers. That Inner Light can be discerned – like moving leaves on trees – in a united response from the gathered listeners. In that Silence, we set aside the urgent. We attempt to focus instead on the eternal. We go to Rumi’s “Field” beyond notions of “Right” and “Wrong.” There we hope to find an evolved and evolving Moral Arc, containing reciprocity, compassion, mutual care, comfort, and respect in our relationships with each other; helping each other to live through a sustainable circle of Life where every living thing must take what it needs in order to survive, leaving something for other living things to take, and giving something back to that circle in order to sustain its ability to provide what is needed for others to take.
That invisible guide or source is given many different names by those seeking to understand how it works; how to align themselves with it. The common human effort to make that invisible guide or source into something visible has always led to disaster. From the Golden Calf in the time of Moses, to the anointing of a king in the time of Samuel; to the excessive accumulation of money, or other more tangible things of value; the human desire to make the invisible visible has misled us to our ruin. Like Peter, we can only “walk on water” for so long, before we look down, breaking our connection with the invisible. According to the story, Jesus had to reach out his hand and regain eye contact with Peter before he could be “saved” from drowning. We need tangible evidence that what we believe will provide “security.”
Trust in that eternal, but invisible “Spirit” must now be restored in the Middle East. Evil is not overcome through violence. That is a Babylonian Creation Myth, the Enuma Elish. That myth is perpetuated by many sources, including the entertainment industry. From the movie “Jaws,” (which bears an uncanny resemblance to that creation myth), through the fictional heroes of our culture, heroes are led to the point of defeat by some evil person or force, only to summon at the very last moment a superhuman strength sufficient to vanquish that evil through a violent response. The belief that evil can only be overcome by violence is a myth. It is demonstrably false. See: “A Force More Powerful: A Century of Non-violent Conflict, by Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall. To the contrary, evil is PERPETUATED through violence.
A different creation myth found in Native American culture is described in “Braiding Sweetgrass,” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. That native American creation myth is consistent with the message of that wise Jewish man from Nazareth. The “Spirit” is eternal. It is within us, closer than the air we breathe. Though that support may be as invisible as the wind, or the support provided by water, it is solid. It will nevertheless support us as abundantly as the “lilies of the field” and the “birds of the air.” All we need do is maintain our focus on that invisible Spirit; align ourselves with that Spirit and follow the guidance of that Spirit, in the company of each other, and with help from each other, in its careful, day-by-day discernment.
Jesus was murdered. More recently, six million of his countrymen were murdered.; Similar evils continue to this day. That does not prove the validity of the Babylonian myth; only its prevalence. The contrasting Spirit of which Jesus spoke – the “Paraclete” – predated him. As he reportedly predicted, it has survived him. As he also reportedly predicted, it will overcome that evil.
Our science tells us that human beings originated in Africa around three hundred thousand years ago. They spread throughout that Continent for about two hundred thousand years. About 70,000 to 100,000 years ago, they began spreading out from Africa around the world. Life itself has existed on our planet for far longer than that. Our science can document an Evolution over the period of time since the origin of our species, in our physical bodies as well as in our moral philosophy. Imagine what changes have occurred in our physical bodies over that time, from our height, to the color of our skin, to the nature and function of our organs. From that perspective, the two thousand twenty-six years that have elapsed since Jesus described a different moral philosophy, is the time equivalent of the blink of an eye. Our search for the origin of all life, for the prime cause, for the “Creation,” for “God,” must go back much, much further, before the beginning of the Evolution of all Life.
We need not go back that far, however, to see the direction in which Evolution is proceeding. We can see a “Moral Arc of the Universe that bends toward Justice.” We can see how the survival of any species has depended upon cooperation, adaptation; mutual aid and support. That is our tangible evidence of the existence and direction of the “Spirit of God;” the invisible wind that rustles the leaves of a tree; the unknown origin of Life on this planet; the Creator of the “Evolution of the Species.”
We can observe how that “Moral Arc” has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. We have evidence that reciprocity (sometimes described by its correlative, the “Golden Rule”), though invisible, works well, when respected and practiced by human beings. We can see that species or families, or tribes, or groups which take care of each other, which work together, who listen, negotiate, and compromise conflicting needs will survive, just as those who do not, will not. We can learn from Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” and the works following it.
We can notice the inconsistency between the preservation of the species and the practice of war. To wantonly kill human beings is to confront and challenge the direction in which Evolution (our only tangible evidence of the “Spirit of God” – the wind rustling the leaves of the trees) is heading. Why would we cooperate in the destruction of our species? We must absolutely resist the recently reported Hedgeseth demand that Anthropic permit the use of its artificial intelligence tools to facilitate the killing of human beings.
Wise men throughout recorded history have pointed to the scientific truths described in Darwin’s book as being guides in the “Struggle for Life.” Imagine how many religions have come and gone since the origin of our species. Imagine how the color of our human skin, how our human culture and language, have changed over that span of human existence. Imagine how “moral truth” has changed over that period of time, trending toward the enhancement of human chances of survival, rather than to its opposite: human destruction. Imagine how land “ownership” and boundaries have changed over that time. Remember all of the wars fought over those issues; boundaries invisible from space. For what?
Let us focus on those truths which unite human beings, which preserve, protect and enhance the survival of human beings, instead of those myths which have misled us; which are now coming ever closer to destroying us.
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. . . . He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist.” In that famous 1897 editorial by Francis Pharcellus Church in The New York Sun, Church also wrote about how “the most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.” He spoke of faith, fancy, poetry, and love as essential to pushing aside the curtain and viewing the “supernal beauty and glory beyond.”
That editorial transitions from a child’s literal question to a profound meditation on faith, wonder, and the invisible realities that give life meaning – very much in line with how faith matures from simple trust to deeper understanding. Church essentially reframes the question from literal existence to the reality of what Santa represents: generosity, joy, and the capacity for wonder that transcends mere material facts.
That understanding resonates with my Quaker perspective on spiritual truths that exist beyond the purely material world; that “continuing revelation” can help us understand eternal truths in new ways as we mature (or “evolve”). It is that transition from the literal to the real, though invisible, Truths that will may save our species from self-destruction.
Peace!
Good Sabbath!
Your “Honorary” MOT,
Dan
