New Methodists vs Old (Grandpa John Wesley) Methodists: A Passing of the Torch

       “Honor Thy Father and Mother.”

As we introduce the New Buddhist Methodist (New Methods) Church it is only fitting to give a tip of the hat-a shout out, a ping, a like, a thank you tweet- to the old Methodist Church. Thanks, you old Methodists. You basically done good.

The old Methodist Church was my childhood church, and at one time my parents’ church, and my grandparents’ church, and my great grandparents’ church, ad nauseam on back to to the Apostles, or thereabouts. (Indeed, some amateur researchers of our family genealogy suggest there’s a possibility that I and my two brothers are direct descendants of John Wesley himself. Or perhaps to his brother, Charles, or Charlie, as he was known in the family. I personally think that’s quite a stretch. A few gaping holes exist in that particular genealogical chart such that one would have to make some very personally advantageous assumptions to claim a direct lineage with Grandpa Wesley. I am not in the least adverse to making personally advantageous assumptions, but I know one should be sparring with them, for credulity’s sake. Thus, I’ll save my personally advantageous assumptions to spend on some issues which actually matter and where I might get more bang for the buck. )

For the past ten or twenty years whenever I would meet a practicing old school Methodist I tended to ask, somewhat jokingly, a little teasingly, but also because I really wanted to know, “What’s the Method?” I had read somewhere in college how John Wesley and his cohorts had articulated a method–or perhaps several methods–with which they were vigorously experimenting to see if they might draw closer to God. (As Senior Librarian of the New Buddhist Methodist Church my understanding of “drawing closer to God”, on most days,  means drawing closer to Love, or Presence, or Prosperity, or even The Loving Presence of Prosperity, but that, of course, is a different post. “With Names,” as Lao Tzu observed, “one should know where to stop.”)

Whenever I would ask an old school Methodist about the Method of the Methodists they tended to look at me skeptically dumbfounded. Seems like the Method of the Methodists had been lost to the ages. Just last month, however, when I asked this question of my son’s new neighbor, a retired Methodist minister, he actually had an answer. (I had asked several ministers on previous occasions and they either thought I was being a smart-ass and refused to answer or they just didn’t know.) The retired neighbor minister at first waved me off with a joke, but then, when I pressed him, referring to the rumor of Grandpa John’s early experiments, he gave a fairly brief but straight forward answer, saying the Method was to meet together regularly and to examine their lives and to pray and discuss.

As honest as it was I was a bit disappointed in the answer and wondered if he might just be making it up. I’d heard–or maybe just hoped–that the original Method was a particular method of praying, or maybe of worship or ritual that would get everybody blessedly blissed, and/or healed, visionary, spontaneously singing praises, coming home, hallelujah.

Again, skeptic that I sometimes am, I wondered if the retired minister was just faking his answer to the question of what is the method of the Methodists. So in my next weekly e-mail I posed the same question to my Wednesday walking group. (For the past six or seven years anywhere from two to eighteen of us–old and new friends–gather at the bike trail near the river for a Wednesday afternoon metaphysical walking meander. A lighthearted weekly question, most often metaphysical, is posed a day or two in advance. Sometimes on our walk some of us actually discuss the question, but most of our discussion occurs via “reply to all” lighthearted e-mails.)

One of my best, long-time atheist friends (a good percentage of the walking group is either atheist or agnostic, which makes for sometimes fiery but most always fun metaphysical discussions) replied, “In my own Methodist upbringing the method we were taught was ‘don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t dance, go to church, feel guilty and ask forgiveness.”

Another longtime friend, a believer and practitioner of dousing, of the labyrinth and of the get-high method for drawing closer to Truth, did a simple, obvious, yet, to me, overlooked and surprisingly fruitful thing: he googled “John Wesley’s Method.”  He quickly found and shared the actual “Rules [methods]of the Methodist Band Society,” dated December 25th (Christmas!) 1738. (You can, of course, find that document here.)

Finally reading Grandpa Wesley’s actual methods, I was deeply disappointed about how time-encrusted they were, and even somewhat mean and clearly unfruitful for most people today who yearn for methods to help them draw closer to God (Abba, Allah, Amma), or Love or Truth, Prosperity, Presence, That Which Can Not Be Named (but which we name, obviously, anyway just for fun and profit, prophet.)

So it was maybe appropriate that the old “Method of the Methodists” fall from sight.

But the need for and validity of the numerous “new methods” now extant for drawing closer to God, to Natural Vitality (that’s a good God Name, yes?) is obvious for most of us who share that yearning. Grandpa John’s methods were appropriate for his day and age, but clearly . . .

That said, we happily acknowledge and give thanks for the two hundred and eighty years or so of the Methodist folks working their way, day by day, towards a deeper understanding, a deeper experiencing and expressing of life’s purpose and potential.

Sure, there have been some very narrow-minded, bigoted, racist, superstition-addled and/or downright mean and ugly Methodists, just as there have been similar miscreants in every sect and every religion ever practiced. (The Bahai’s are still new enough and thoughtful enough to not yet have produced many of such type.) Such is life among humans on planet earth.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of the old Methodists seem to earnestly strive to live by the Golden Rule, which is Method Numero  Uno in almost every authentic life discipline. (The Nietzsche and Ayn Rand brand of philosophy might dispute the Golden Rule, but let’s forgive them their silly and violent trespasses, when and where we can.)

The Methodists have generally worked hard and steadfast over two hundred and eighty years to bring more light and life, love and truth into the human consciousness, many of them even putting their lives and purses at risk to stand for and express such truth. The Old Methodist Mission has been a mostly worthy mission, due honor and respect and gratitude. We bow deeply, and are ever mindful of the Tradition that has now been passed to the New Methodist community. Drawing what we can from the past, we now engage in our own experiments, articulate our own methods for drawing ever closer  to reality, that we might simply live a good life, an honest and authentic life, curiously exploring the mystery that is within and without.

Thank you, Grandpa John Wesley. You and yours done good, sir. Real good. We’ll do our best to take the light forward from here.

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