My friend, John Punshon, died some months ago. I came to know John in the very early 1980s. He had been appointed a Quaker Tutor at a Quaker college that is part of the University of Birmingham in England. I spent a sabbatical year at that college and came to know John fairly well. John helped me understand British Quakers and he taught me many other things as well.
John was a very bright guy. He was educated at Oxford and enjoyed some of the privilege that goes with that. But he was never arrogant and was able easily to relate to common people. After all, John’s own family and upbringing were not wealthy, upper-crust kinds of folk. With his upbringing and education, he was able to straddle two worlds.
After coming to know him fairly well, John joined me throughout the 1990s and others on the faculty of the college I taught. It was wonderful to have his collegiality and his friendship. He was fun and funny. He embodied the British humor that is different than our American humor. John was a popular teacher and wrote a fair amount. Much of what he wrote grew out of conversations he had with me and countless others. So when we would read his next article or book, there were always the familiar parts and, then, the surprises that we had no idea he was including in the writing piece.
John was asked to offer the lecture at a very special annual Quaker lecture in Great Britain. That lecture grew into a small book, which John entitled, Testimony & Tradition. I have my own signed copy from John, which I now cherish even more. When I learned of John’s death, memories flooded through my mind. And within a few days I was asked to write a memorial reflection that will be included in a special journal honoring his life and work. This invitation provoked me to pull some of his writings from the shelf and look through them.
One of my favorite stories from John comes at the end of that Testimony & Tradition book. John shares some memories of his grandfather. He begins by saying, “My grandfather was enormous.” John tells us that his grandfather taught him many lessons in life. I like how John nuances his grandfather’s pedagogy. John says his grandfather taught him, “not through what he said so much as by what he was.” I never met John’s grandfather, but it is easy to begin imagining him. But none of this is worth much until we see what comes next.
I smiled when I read a little further and came upon this sentence. “One of these lessons is that it does not really make sense to watch a sporting event without gambling on the result.” You can imagine how some Quaker ears would hear this passage! Quakers are not known for their gambling prowess. So I am confident John told this story to get the audience’s attention and, no doubt, to poke some fun at his fellow Quakers. And it is really a set up for where he wants to go.
John gives his reason why you gamble on sporting events. “The reason is that much sport is ritual, and not sport. In rituals, unseen changes of a very serious nature are taking place, and are of great importance to the participants. To observe rituals for enjoyment is a species of sacrilege. You cannot watch boxing for fun. You have to have something riding on the result. You have got to stand to lose.” In clever fashion John has gone from boxing to ritual. Very quickly he is talking about sacrilege, which implicates the sacred. Almost magically, through boxing John has shown us that life has something riding on it. You can lose! Life is risky.
This is where John really wants the reader to go. Inherently, we know that life is risky. In fact, most of us try to eliminate or, at least, minimize risk. Many of us are risk-averse. I think institutional religion becomes this way. And to become risk-averse is to risk losing the Spirit. I am confident the Spirit is always doing a new thing---sometimes in the form of renewing. And this often calls for change, but too many of us want nothing to do with change---especially when it comes to religion.
It is at this point John allows that he does not watch boxing or gamble. But he has set us up to make what will be the final point. He says, “The principle I am trying to illustrate is that there is all the difference in the world between playing a game yourself and watching other people play.” In this sense religion is like sport. You play; don’t become a spectator.
This is exactly where John wanted to take us. “The same principle holds good in religion. Many people think they are practicing religion when they are in fact only thinking about it. They do not realize that knowledge of religious truth comes only through practice and is inaccessible to thought alone. This is because religion is an activity and has to be done to be understood.”
Life is a gamble. Thanks to John, we know we should bet on it!
John was a very bright guy. He was educated at Oxford and enjoyed some of the privilege that goes with that. But he was never arrogant and was able easily to relate to common people. After all, John’s own family and upbringing were not wealthy, upper-crust kinds of folk. With his upbringing and education, he was able to straddle two worlds.
After coming to know him fairly well, John joined me throughout the 1990s and others on the faculty of the college I taught. It was wonderful to have his collegiality and his friendship. He was fun and funny. He embodied the British humor that is different than our American humor. John was a popular teacher and wrote a fair amount. Much of what he wrote grew out of conversations he had with me and countless others. So when we would read his next article or book, there were always the familiar parts and, then, the surprises that we had no idea he was including in the writing piece.
John was asked to offer the lecture at a very special annual Quaker lecture in Great Britain. That lecture grew into a small book, which John entitled, Testimony & Tradition. I have my own signed copy from John, which I now cherish even more. When I learned of John’s death, memories flooded through my mind. And within a few days I was asked to write a memorial reflection that will be included in a special journal honoring his life and work. This invitation provoked me to pull some of his writings from the shelf and look through them.
One of my favorite stories from John comes at the end of that Testimony & Tradition book. John shares some memories of his grandfather. He begins by saying, “My grandfather was enormous.” John tells us that his grandfather taught him many lessons in life. I like how John nuances his grandfather’s pedagogy. John says his grandfather taught him, “not through what he said so much as by what he was.” I never met John’s grandfather, but it is easy to begin imagining him. But none of this is worth much until we see what comes next.
I smiled when I read a little further and came upon this sentence. “One of these lessons is that it does not really make sense to watch a sporting event without gambling on the result.” You can imagine how some Quaker ears would hear this passage! Quakers are not known for their gambling prowess. So I am confident John told this story to get the audience’s attention and, no doubt, to poke some fun at his fellow Quakers. And it is really a set up for where he wants to go.
John gives his reason why you gamble on sporting events. “The reason is that much sport is ritual, and not sport. In rituals, unseen changes of a very serious nature are taking place, and are of great importance to the participants. To observe rituals for enjoyment is a species of sacrilege. You cannot watch boxing for fun. You have to have something riding on the result. You have got to stand to lose.” In clever fashion John has gone from boxing to ritual. Very quickly he is talking about sacrilege, which implicates the sacred. Almost magically, through boxing John has shown us that life has something riding on it. You can lose! Life is risky.
This is where John really wants the reader to go. Inherently, we know that life is risky. In fact, most of us try to eliminate or, at least, minimize risk. Many of us are risk-averse. I think institutional religion becomes this way. And to become risk-averse is to risk losing the Spirit. I am confident the Spirit is always doing a new thing---sometimes in the form of renewing. And this often calls for change, but too many of us want nothing to do with change---especially when it comes to religion.
It is at this point John allows that he does not watch boxing or gamble. But he has set us up to make what will be the final point. He says, “The principle I am trying to illustrate is that there is all the difference in the world between playing a game yourself and watching other people play.” In this sense religion is like sport. You play; don’t become a spectator.
This is exactly where John wanted to take us. “The same principle holds good in religion. Many people think they are practicing religion when they are in fact only thinking about it. They do not realize that knowledge of religious truth comes only through practice and is inaccessible to thought alone. This is because religion is an activity and has to be done to be understood.”
Life is a gamble. Thanks to John, we know we should bet on it!
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