Learning to listen, as the Aborigines do, had produced a powerful change in Chaim. But now he was starting to actually hear things from God, and it had an equally dramatic effect on him. He had, in accepting the authority of Jesus, a starting place... a cornerstone, from which to build a broader understanding of all that he experienced.
And what a cornerstone it was! Chaim devoured everything that Jesus said, with an understanding that he was going to do his best to follow Jesus...obey his instructions... submit to his authority. He had become an unabashed Christian in the true sense of the word. And what he was being called to build (He learned with delight.) was not some Christian sect; it was to be Christianity as Jesus taught it and as Jesus lived it. Chaim observed that what went on in so many denominations and churches was no more based on the teachings of Jesus than were any number of service clubs or political parties.
But in the teachings of Jesus he discovered explanations for life that he had never even imagined before. He heard God speaking most forcefully through the Gospels, but he also started to receive information in his listening times... words, visions, even an occasional song. They took some practice to understand, but they were invaluable when it came to filling in the gaps between what the Gospels said and what he needed to do and say each day himself.
His fears about falling into the traps that he had seen other Christians fall into appeared to be groundless. He was still able to exercise discretion, to observe and criticise his own behaviour, and to recognise the roots of hypocrisy.
Belief in miracles, submission to the authority of Jesus, and even faith in the prophetic parts of the Bible did not make Chaim anything like the fundamentalists with whom he had always associated such things. The whole world had been conned into believing that right wing Christianity was built on the teachings of Jesus when it was almost exactly opposite. Chaim had found the real thing.
*
During a visit to his old meeting in Newcastle, two weeks after the drowning incident, the "quaking" finally expressed itself in words... words that were backed up with a deeply changed life. But even before he spoke, Chaim knew that what he said was not so important as the fact that this was the right time and the right place. He could have stood up and burped and what followed would have happened just as surely. Such was the power of the Spirit that Sunday morning.
"I've been a thief," he began. "I've taken the social benefits of being a Quaker without knowing personally the One whom we call the Seed. I have enjoyed the peace and the holy silence which was purchased with the blood of early Friends; even as I have laughed at their commitment, despised their extremism, and boasted of my own uncertainty. Week after week I went through the motions of worshipping God. But now I can say that I have found Him. I have found the One for whom early Friends were willing to suffer and die, and I can testify that it is a whole new level of living."
Then he turned toward those in the meeting.
"Friends, do you know him? Are you really a child of the Light? We talk of this infinite ocean of light and love, but have you ever swum in it? Conformity to a people is not enough. It takes a hunger for something better, a willingness to be changed in the deepest places of your being.
"I believe God wants a response from each of us... today. Do you feel it?
I'm not imagining it, am I? This could be the most important day of your life.
What are you going to do with it?"
Chaim spoke with earnestness; but there was something present in that room which went beyond what he was saying. Some were speechless with embarrassment and not a little shocked that he should be speaking with such authority. But others were touched deeply. A few produced tissues with which to wipe tears from their eyes.
After a long silence, a young man stood up.
"I came here three years ago," he said, "seeking this Light, this power that had made Quakerism so great; but what I found seemed to be only the remnants of bygone days. It was better than nothing, but I have longed for more. I want this that Chaim has spoken of. I want to change and I want to be changed. You don't know how much I've wanted it." His voice was cracking as he spoke the final lines, and when he finished, he turned and faced his chair before falling to his knees in front of it, with his head resting on the seat.
He sobbed quietly for a few moments before another member, a young woman this time, slipped off her seat and knelt similarly in front of it. She too had tears running down her cheeks.
Then others joined the movement of the Spirit, some just bowing their heads, but others kneeling in submission to the One whom they sought now with all of their hearts. Two or three stood and walked conspicuously out, but the others took no notice. Something was happening that was much more important than whatever was bothering them. And it was going to echo around the world.