LOVE OF PLACE

Introduction to Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist

In the second century A.D. the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius may have best defined pantheism when he wrote, “Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy.” My account uses many more words and covers a year in my life, roughly November, 2005 to November, 2006. It barrels through the history of pantheistic thought in the West, from the Greek philosophers of the sixth century B.C.E. to the internet sites 2500 years later. This overview is personal, not definitive. I am in love with Marcus Aurelius. I ignore Plotinus. I admire Virginia Woolf, whom many would not consider a pantheist at all. As for Eastern philosophies, they come late in my story, in the 1960s and 70s after their texts had entered American mainstream and my local bookstore.

In this account, science is a good friend--although not perfect; friends are not perfect. Quakerism is central to my experience, and I am grateful to belong to a Quaker Meeting which allows for pantheism as one of its beliefs. My title Standing in the Light comes from the Quaker phrase “to stand in the Light,” a concept with many meanings, encompassing political beliefs as well as spiritual. In my case, it is very much related to the bright New Mexican sky. In my case, pantheism is a word whose back I ride like a man on a horse trying to get somewhere. Or maybe a word more like a house, a place of shelter when it is cold and rainy, a house with big windows and a gorgeous view.