Following the time I spent in the U.S. Army where I became a Conscientious Objector, I spent time with a variety of peace activists. Although I was grounded in Mennonite circles, I also got to know Quaker folks who opposed all war and especially the one raging at that time — the war in Vietnam.
In a gathering held in Wilmington, Ohio, I met T. Canby Jones. I had read one of his essays on the Lamb’s War* and was excited about getting to know him. Jones, a Quaker peace activist, a professor emeritus of Wilmington College. And, notably, he was a student of Thomas R. Kelly. Among the special things I received from my relationship with Canby were copies of some of Kelly’s hand-written sermons from the 1920’s. I had read Kelly’s The Testament of Devotion; now I had these amazing sermons written in his own hand! Years later, while in seminary, I wrote a paper on Kelly with those sermons as resources.
Who was this guy? He taught and wrote on mysticism. Kelly was brought up in a branch of Quakerism that was a lot like revivalist, evangelical Protestant groups. A mentor, Rufus Jones, showed the way of a more traditional vein of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers): this movement tapped into the mystical stream of the tradition.
During WWI, Kelly worked with German POWs in England. He was fired due to his strong pacifist leanings. Returning home, he completed seminary and got married. With his wife, Lael, he then went to Germany to work with the American Friends Service Committee in a feeding program for children. While there they also helped found a Quaker community.
Kelly taught at Earlham College, Wellesley College (while working on a Ph.D. at Harvard), Haverford College, and the University of Hawaii. While in Hawaii he did advanced research in Eastern philosophies. I recall one of the sermons mentioned above in which he described Buddhist thought for his Quaker listeners.
An unusual, and extremely traumatic experience, deeply affected Kelly. He had published his dissertation for a second doctorate in 1937. But, due to a memory lapse, he did not pass his oral exam! In grief, Kelly returned to Germany to encourage Quakers living under Hitler’s regime. When he came back to the U.S. in 1941 he got word that Harper and Brothers wanted to meet to discuss publishing a devotional book. He died of a heart attack later that day.
Douglas V. Steere. a colleague, submitted the essays that were published as The Testament of Devotion. Other essays came out entitled The Eternal Promise.
Since its first publication in 1941, A Testament of Devotion, by the renowned Quaker teacher Thomas Kelly, has been universally embraced as a truly enduring spiritual classic. Plainspoken and deeply inspirational, it gathers together five compelling essays that urge us to center our lives on God's presence, to find quiet and stillness within modern life, and to discover the deeply satisfying and lasting peace of the inner spiritual journey. (from Goodreads)
My copy of The Testament of Devotion includes a “Biographical Memoir” by Steere, 28 pages depicting Kelly’s life and contribution to the world. Later editions dropped Steere’s piece and picked up a foreword written by Richard Foster, an important Quaker writer, born a year after Kelly’s death. Foster’s popularity made including his foreword in the new edition a good idea, but I think that the power of Steere’s writing and personal friendship with Kelly was a loss. Anyway, I am glad that I own the 1941 edition.
I also have a copy of The Eternal Now, first published in 1966, which can be seen as a sequel to The Testament of Devotion. In preparation for this writing I opened The Eternal Now and found this note: On Loan: Please return to : (a stamp giving T. Canby Jones’ name and address). Heavens! I have had this book for over 50 years. Canby must have gifted me with this copy, or else I stole it from him. He is gone, I am going, let it be.
Get a feel for Kelly……
From the essay The Blessed Community:
When we are drowned in the overwhelming seas of the love of God, we find ourselves in a new and particular relation to a few of our fellows. The relation is so surprising and so rich that we despair of finding a word glorious enough and weighty enough to name it. The word Fellowship is discovered, but the word is pale and thin in comparison with the rich volume and luminous bulk and warmth of the experience which it would designate. For a new kind of life-sharing and of love has arisen of which we had had only dim lights before. Are these the bonds of love which knit together the early Christians, the very warp and woof of the Kingdom of God? In glad amazement and wonder we enter upon a relationship which we had not known the world contained for the sons of men. Why should such bounty be given to unworthy men like ourselves?
From the essay The Simplification of Life:
And we are unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed, and fearful we shall be shallow. For over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because 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! If only we could find the Silence which is the source of sound! We have seen and known some people who seem to have found this deep Center of living, where the fretful calls of life are integrated, where No as well as Yes can be said with confidence. We’ve seen such lives, integrated, unworried by the tangles of close decisions, unhurried, cheery, fresh, positive. These are not people of dallying idleness not of obviously mooning meditation; they are busy carrying their full load as well as we, but without any chafing of the shoulders with the burden, with quiet joy and springing step. Surrounding the trifles of their daily life is an aura of infinite peace and power and joy. We are so strained and tense, with our burdened lives; they are so poised and at peace.
Think about it. The above words were written 90 some years ago. Does the pace of life change? Meister Eckhart, 600 years before Kelly, wrote, “As thou art in church or cell, that same frame of mind carry out into the world, into its turmoil and its fitfulness.” It seems that people through all time have needed the Eckharts, the Senecas, the Easwarans, the Teresa of Avilas, the Kellys, to call us to quiet and peace and to take refuge in the inner shelter that is within each of us. From that Center we are able to do the work of the world.
* The Lamb’s war is a Quaker teaching, begun by James Nayler, George Fox and early Friends. The Lamb’s war is an eschatological vision in which all obedient followers of Christ the King, who is at once the suffering and all conquering Lamb, enlist in a total and unending struggle against evil in all of its forms in this present world until the Lamb and his army win victory and history comes to an end with the triumph of good over evil and the coming of God to dwell with [people]. T. Canby Jones
From a piece dated February 5, 2017 and prepared by the North Seattle Friends Church