David Cadman

I hope you will find some of these extracts from A Way of Being to be of interest.  More details of the book can be found by clicking here.

So all things tend through their movements and actions toward the divine likeness, as towards their ultimate end.

Thomas Aquinas.

All is one.  The material world is at the same time the field of mysticism – the union of the mind and heart with the eternal reality underlying all that exists, the ultimate fulfilment of the love of Truth.  The mundane and the divine are one.  What may at first seem to be realms separate and apart are, in truth, so interdependent that the one cannot be understood, or even spoken of, without the other.  Thus, if we seek Truth, we cannot discuss any matter, however mundane, other than in a language that brings us to a Oneness of Being, a way of being that draws us into union with the Great Mystery, The Divine.

This is especially so in the realm of economy – the “divine realm” of secular modernism, with its own creed of unquestionable truths.  Indeed, the power of its priesthood is such that, despite all the evidence of disarray, it remains difficult to ask questions without being accused of mischief or impertinence or both.  But if the king has no clothes on, some poor child must say this is so.  To be true to our faith, we must at least be prepared to ask the question; for unless and until we do so, we shall be unable to find our way through to a form of economy that is at one with The Divine.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 1.

For something like 350 years, our lives and our understanding of what is or, indeed, can be considered to be true or real has been shaped almost exclusively by an unbalanced, reductive and materialist rationality.  Beginning with The Age of Reason and then The Enlightenment, this mode of rationality has encouraged us to see things as separate and apart.  And although we are now, once more, beginning to see the interconnectedness of all that is – for example in our concern with environment and ecology or with integrated health care – this rather narrow, particular but outmoded way of thinking still holds us in its thrall.   Although we are now beginning to see that being is always “being-in-relationship” – or as I would say relating-ness – it still requires conscious effort and discipline for us to shun the damaging propaganda of what I sense will soon be known as “the old time”.  For this old time mistakenly describes a world unerringly riven with competition and strife, where, by looking out for our own advantage, we will miraculously contribute to the good of all.

In coming to terms with the challenge of climate change and limits to growth, and in answering anew the question of who is my neighbour, we will have to break free from the bounds of this old, fractured and insufficient world; for otherwise … our ability to see what might be possible will be mightily constrained and diminished, and our vision for the future will be blinkered.  We shall find ourselves, like the politicians at the 2009 Copenhagen summit, fettered by old ways and by an old language.

This being so, it is important to remember that, despite our inheritance, there was “a time before”, a time when the understanding of one-ness was commonplace; when seeing the world as whole and interconnected seemed obvious and natural; when justice was seen to be part of our natural participation in the goodness of being.  This was not some Golden Age of perfection but just another time.  Midst all its own difficulties, injustices and unhappiness, this was a time when the experience of wholeness was simply common, the experience of the everyday.  In the traditional and sacred mythology of all peoples, it has always been there.

I want to propose, then, that we need, once more, to reclaim this notion of wholeness or “holiness” as part of our everyday lives now; to suggest that without this common experience and remembrance something will always be missing; to suggest that the absence of wholeness and holiness leaves us incomplete and empty both within ourselves and with neighbours near and far.  I do not know how we can find the right way forward, the right way to be together, but I do know this will not be possible unless and until we are able to dwell within and become part of such holiness, to find a way of being that unites us with Divine Presence.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 3-4.

The blinkers worn by Englishmen enable them to trot all the more steadily along the beaten road, without being disturbed by curiosity as to their destination.

R. H. Tawney

Nature is expressed in pattern, order and rhythm.  We live within this regularity and are a part of it.  It is so familiar to us we seldom notice it.  And yet we would be surprised if our inward breath did not follow our out-breath; if morning did not follow day or springtime follow winter; if the ebb-tide did not follow its flow.  We expect the sun to rise in the East and set in the West; and we expect the moon to grow, become full and decline into darkness before arising again.  Within these patterns, within this regularity, we too arise and decline, and I take this as my frame of reference – for whatever else is unknown, I know this to be true.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 9.

When you make the two One,

and you make the inner even as the outer,

and the outer even as the inner

and the above even as the below,

so that you will make the male and female

into a single One,

in order that the male is not made male

nor female made female…

Then you shall enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Gospel of Thomas

The Teacher [Jesus] answered:

“All that is born, all that is created,

All the elements of Nature

are interwoven and united with each other.

All that is composed shall be decomposed;

Everything returns to its roots;

Matter returns to the origin of matter.

Those who have ears, let them hear.”

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

But who is this Mary Magdalene who speaks to us and why should we heed what she has to say?  Because the picture is unclear, we can only find answers to this question by opening our hearts, waiting and, as it were, allowing her to speak to us.  From the cloud of uncertainty some clarity shines through: she was especially loved by Jesus and washed his feet with her tears, drying them with her hair; Jesus purified her spirit so that she could see clearly and just before his betrayal, she anointed his head with oil; she was there at the foot of the cross; wept for him and came to his tomb with sweet spices, before being the first to see the risen Christ; and she was the one who received special teachings, with an instruction to take them to the other disciples.  It may be it is these teachings that we read in her gospel – although some are more sceptical about this than I am.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 12.

… “Since you have become the interpreter

Of the elements and the events of the world, tell us:

What is the sin of the world?”

The Teacher answered:

“There is no sin.

It is you who make sin exist,

When you act according to the habits

of your corrupted nature;

this is where sin lies.”

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

According to Aquinas there is Eternal Law beyond and within the realm of Nature as we know it and experience it.  This law governs all and does so not by will but by a natural and wholesome participation, which is ever moving all that is towards goodness and union with the Good, with God.  This is the true nature of reality and we can only be truly ourselves when we act in accordance with it.  Within Eternal Law, there is Natural Law, which is the manner in which we live when we live in a good and wholesome way; a way that enables us, in all we do, to be at one with that divine, lawful and eternal reality of which we are naturally a part.  Love is the power holding us in this way of being and Providence is its guiding principle.

In all of this, says Aquinas, the special part played by humankind is our ability to reflect upon that which is.  In doing this, we give expression to the inherent mindfulness or intelligence of Nature and its fulfilment in being truly known.  Human lawfulness is therefore that which accords with the greater good of the whole – for the individual, society; for society, Nature; and for Nature, wholesome-ness and union with the Divine.  Since we are part of both society and Nature then, to be truly ourselves, we needs must also participate towards their goodness and wholeness – which I would call “holiness”.

And then there is Providence, which is the essence of Natural Law, since it is the flowing stream into which we step in our participation with lawfulness.  It is quite unlike predetermination, which, of course, expresses a sense of compulsion.  In stepping into the unfolding stream of Providence, we choose to participate, for when we do so we are most truly ourselves and are naturally carried onwards towards the Good.  Thus there is (and we by nature participate in) an intelligent, lawful and purposeful reality, ever moving towards wholeness and goodness.  In the words of Aquinas:

So all things tend through their movements and actions toward the divine likeness, as towards their ultimate end.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 15-16.

To find our way forward, we will, first, have to be prepared to re-align and clarify our perception of the way things are.  We will have to find our way out of the constraints of separation and dis-integration – which have been set by “the old time” – and find our way into a new realm of reverence, connection, interdependence and wholeness.  There was a time when to see the world in this way was commonplace.  We have to bring such understanding back into our lives.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 18.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

John Greenleaf Whittier.

Letting go of anxious mind – the restless quest to put everything in order with “me” at the centre – there is ease; surrendering to the Great Mystery, which gathers me in, there is peace – at-one-ment.

When the Buddha awakened from his deep meditation beneath the Bhodi Tree, he spoke of what he had seen – the rising and falling away of life birth and death; “Coming to be, coming to be! Ceasing to be, ceasing to be!”.  At every place, in every moment however long or short, this is what is happening.  And the holy life of the everyday – the life that is common and whole – is found in such daily surrender, by the letting go of self.  This we must learn.  For in the end we will all have to surrender.  At some time, and for each one of us, life in this world will end and our bodies will be given back to the earth or the air, leaving our souls to find their way home.

So much of my life has been taken up with what I thought had to be done – to study, to work, to “succeed”.  Often this has meant that my attention has been distracted, driven by ignorance and stupidity, by vanity and foolishness.  And so it is I have searched outside for what was always there, inside; struggling when I should have surrendered.

But now I see more clearly what it is I must do.  Dadi Janki of the Brahma Kumaris says: “The more you practice taking spiritual light and might from God, the lighter you will feel internally as this becomes your spiritual state of being.  You will also experience yourself to be a divine point of light”.  I listen to what she says for she is wise.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 25-26.

We are part of a greater whole and this requires us to situate ourselves within, surrender ourselves to, this natural order as part of an essential inclination towards the fullness of being and goodness.  It means that understanding our potential destiny depends upon a truthful correspondence with Nature, and thus with Natural Law.

In the light of this, I have now come to see the matter of my life and death in a different way.  When I see a thrush pulling a worm from the ground, do I see an act of violence or sacrifice?  For whether I like it or not, I, too, sacrifice my body day and night to minute, microscopic organisms that feed upon me; and when I die my body – flesh, bones and tissues – will return to Nature.  What is important is whether we give or take each of these acts of mutuality and reciprocity with a sense of thankfulness, true understanding and humility or whether we resist them; whether or not we surrender and behold in this the work of Love.

This may sound at odds with all we see around and about us but in the end we find what we are looking for.  If we expect to find a world of violence – red in tooth and claw, the worm torn from the ground – then we shall.  But if we open our eyes to the wonder and goodness of the world, we will find that, too.  In this sense, what is good is that which properly plays its part for the good of the whole; and the bad is the reverse of this.

By surrendering the self, we come to see that our true nature is neither inherently bad nor good.  At root, to act well does not lie in the realm of ethics but in the realm of truth, of true being.  To act badly is to act otherwise than in accordance with our true nature, otherwise than in accordance with Natural Law.  And when we do this we are without grace, we act grace-less-ly, not by way of judgment but by way of being.  It is not a matter of morality but a matter of revelation.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 27-28.

According to Aquinas, this orientation towards the good is the essential nature of all that is. In created things, good is found not only as regards their substance but also as regards their order towards an end, especially their last end, which is divine goodness. The constant and providential unfolding of Nature is eternal and good and we are a part of it and we needs must surrender to it.

The notion that Nature is intelligent and purposeful seems to me to be likely to be true.  For when I look at Nature I see rhythm, pattern and order.  Order implies purpose and purpose implies mind or intelligence.  That Nature is intelligent seems self-evident and in accordance with my experience – albeit there are always obstacles and, time and again, they cause us to break the order of Being.

David Cadman, A Way of being, 29.

Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Centre, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return.  Eternity is at our hearts, pressing on our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself.

Thomas Kelly

Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts.  … Bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ.  … Seek to know an inward stillness…

Quaker Faith and Practice, Advices and Queries 1-3.

As Quakers, we are open to teaching but not inclined to receive it without question.  Collectively and alone, we believe we must find our own way to God by waiting upon His presence.  In bringing the teachings of others to bear upon our own concern, we need, attentively and with humility, to test them by our own reflection and experience until we know them to be true.  This is our tradition, our way.  Working within this tradition, we, surely, need to feel that teachings speak to us in truth.  As best we can, and with all our own frailties, we have to listen with a discerning but open heart and find whether or not we are truly guided by them.  I am sure there are many others who feel the same.  And I am convinced that, in this, the relentless working of a busy and grasping mind will not be enough – and may even be a hindrance.  Quakers or not, our discernment has to be of another order, something almost impossible to describe but nonetheless knowable.  We need to behold rather than see.  For revelation rather than explanation is our mystical path, a path of knowing through being true and waiting – the promptings of love and truth in our hearts.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 33.

What, then, does this say about a “way of being”, and the ways in which we might come to understand one of the most compelling problems of our time – that addiction to economic growth?

Let’s start from where we are.  At the end of this first decade of the second millennium, we find ourselves in some distress and disarray.  We find ourselves living through a period of great financial and economic disruption.  We have seen banks all but collapse and economies falling into recession, only to be “rescued” by the kind of state support that would have been impossible to imagine before it happened.  Once again, those with least suffer the most, and it is clear that government expenditure, which was the sticking plaster used to stop the immediate bleeding, cannot be sustained.  Indeed it is already being cut back.  At the same time, post Copenhagen 2009, we continue to face the threat of climate change and resource depletion.  For some, midst flood and drought, this is no longer a threat but an awful reality.

We are living in a period not simply of change but of transformation – an old world is giving place to a new realm.  In ancient myth, the possibility of such change was understood and told in many stories, not least in the story of the sons of Zeus, Apollo and Dionysus, where, to enable renewal to take place, the order of Apollo is disrupted by the chaos of Dionysus.  In our own mythology, the tale is the same: the maker of change, the one who turns the wheel of life, the “shift-shaper” is the Old Woman who, in the dark half of the year, enables the seeds of Autumn to be transformed into the green shoots of Spring, where she will appear as the Maiden and, later, in times of harvest, as the Queen.  The wheel of the year must turn. Transformation will have its way.  Therefore, however much we may long for stasis, the truth is that all is (has to be) in flux.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 34-36.

From all that is happening, we can see that the old world that we are leaving was deeply flawed; the difficulties it has brought about are not an unfortunate and inexplicable accident but are a direct consequence of the values and principles upon which it had come to depend – too disconnected, too materialistic, too greedy, too self-centred, too violent and, I would say, too prosaic and too godless.  Seeking a new realm will require new forms of perception and a new language in which that perception can be expressed.  The old and flawed language of convention – the language of selfishness, acquisitiveness and institutionalised greed – and its supposed but narrow rationality is not an option because it will simply bring us back to where we are.

However difficult it might be, what is needed is the re-birth of a way of being rooted in, and expressive of, the perennial or timeless wisdom which lies at the root of all of the great spiritual traditions and which was, of course, taught in the parables of Jesus and his sermon on the mount – meekness, simplicity, peacefulness, generosity of spirit, forgiveness and justice; truths of integration, wholeness and self-less-ness.  However difficult this may be, however unrealistic it may at first sound (and there will be many who say it is), it is no more complicated than this and we should not be persuaded that it is.  We do not have to find something which has never been known before but, since we have lost our way, we do have to rediscover it.  It is this (and only this) wisdom of wholeness, participation and integration, which will be able to provide our foothold.  The chances are that the new realm towards which we are moving will be fraught with difficulty – a shortage of resources, a hostile climate, a population too large to be sustained, great inequalities and injustice, significant insecurity, anger and hatred – but these are the very conditions which require a new way of being.  This is the challenge we face.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 36-37.

We must learn to dwell in thought in such a way that we are ever mindful of an essential interconnectedness.  Above all else, the problems we face show a need for an understanding of “related-ness”, the ways in which the economic, the social and the environmental are, in the words of Mary’s gospel, “interwoven and united” with each other.  In doing this, the structure and character of Aquinas’s Natural Law helps us to see that above all else we act most truly when we act for the goodness of the whole – the economy as a whole, the community as a whole; an ecosystem as a whole.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 38.

From the very beginning, and inspired most especially by verses from The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, I have been directed by a profound sense of interconnection and interdependence – a sense that the mundane and the divine are one and inseparable.

If these two realms appear apart, this is only because we have been taught to make a false distinction between the two.  We may not even have been inclined to make such a distinction but we have learnt to do so.  Where there is only one realm, convention requires that we see two – the one practical and the other mystical.  To see that this cannot be so, let me, finally, take one or two of the mundane propositions of “limits to growth” and see how they needs must dwell within a divine “way of being”.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 43.

And so my testimony is that the problems we are about to face are of such a dimension that present convention is entirely unacceptable.  It will not do.  I am not sure how this change can come about or what it would mean for each one of us if it did, but I am utterly convinced that it requires a radical change of heart and being.  This will only come about when we disrupt our complacency and find new ways of being that acknowledge our interdependence not as an idea but as a way of life, a way of being.  This requires such a momentous shift in our perception it can only be brought about by an act of mystical transformation, an act of deliberate surrender, a new way of being.

David Cadman, A Way of Being, 46.