Advent Day 5: Rufus Jones
Find your Inner Light
There is a Beyond, a More yet, within each of us.
Advent Day 5: Rufus Jones (1863-1948)
In the summer of 1903, author Rufus Jones was sailing across the Atlantic to begin a lecture tour in England when he had one of the great mystical experiences of his life. It was long past midnight and he woke in his berth to a heavy feeling of sadness. For a while he lay there, trying to pinpoint the cause of this trouble. Finally, unable to fall back to sleep, he dressed and went up to the main deck. As he walked in the chill sea air he felt suddenly overcome by a divine Presence. It was as if the space between he and God had collapsed. The feeling was so powerful it nearly brought him to his knees. Later, he described it as being wrapped in the arms of Love.
The next morning, Rufus’s ship docked in Liverpool. After passing through customs, a man handed him a telegram from America. Rufus opened it to find tragic news: his beloved only child—an eleven-year old son named Lowell—had suddenly died back in Maine. From the information provided, Rufus realized Lowell had passed away at the same time he had that overwhelming rush of Love on the boat.
Rufus Jones’ spiritual openness—his receptivity to God’s saturating presence in his life and the world—was rooted in childhood. Born in Maine in 1863, he was raised at the edge of primal New England woods. His family was devoutly Quaker, a faith of experience that calls it followers to inhabit a world,
…ashimmer with the presence of a God who is as close to us as our own hearts...a God experienced in the joys and sorrows of everyday life, a God who is worshiped when we love and laugh and listen in expectant silence and share ourselves with others. (Rufus Jones: Essential Writings)
For Quakers, each person carries within them an Inner Light that is the spark of the Divine. God does not stand across some unbridgeable chasm, but is in us and among us. And the primary way—the uncomplicated Quaker way—of opening oneself up to seeing God all around, in the miracles of everyday life, is through silent prayer and meditation.
For the Joneses of Maine, nothing was more important than being attuned to ordinary, everyday miracles and then discerning how that guided their actions in the world. Rufus later said,
I was not christened in a church, but I was sprinkled from morning till night with the dew of religion. The life in our home was saturated with the reality and the practice of love. We spoke to each other as though love were ruling and guiding us.
Key to Rufus’s development and future life was his Aunt Peace. She was there at his birth, declaring prophetically that one day he would bear the message of the gospel to distant lands. And she was there, caring for him for a full year when he was ten years old and had contracted a blood infection that confined him to bed.
During this year, Peace spent countless hours talking to him of God, life and death. She taught him not only how to get in touch with his Inner Light through prayer and meditation, but the purpose of a contemplative lifestyle—not to retreat into quietism as many Quakers around them had done (retreating being the great temptation of contemplative life), but to carry the Inner Light out into the world for the good of all. Not to get something from the world, but to give something.
Rufus’s year with Peace changed the course of his life. Once recovered, he decided he needed to leave Maine. He applied for, and received, a scholarship to a Quaker boarding school in Rhode Island. After graduating, he attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Though he would travel widely in the years to come, and occasionally live other places for brief stints, Haverford would be home for the rest of his life.
The late 19th century was a time of epic change. Industrialization and modernization was rapidly transforming human life. Scientific discovery had begun to explain phenomena that, up to the time, had been attributed to the hand of God. For many, this opened a chasm between science and religion. Rufus described the choice many young people like him faced:
We were hanging in mid-air between a Christianity and a science which would not come together. It seemed we had to give up one or the other.
For Rufus, this was a false choice. He refused to give up either. The way he saw it, scientific revelation did not negate spiritual revelation, or vice versa. Rather, each became richer when complemented by the other and held humbly, and with awe and delight. To embrace either one while rejecting the other was just a form of fundamentalism.
Bridging divides became a running theme in Rufus’s life and work. It showed up in his job as editor of The Friends Review where he sought to unite Quakers who, like other denominations of the time, were dividing up between fundamentalist and mainline factions. It showed up in his political work fighting war and poverty, and in his global travels where he met, and was spiritually fed by, people of all faiths. And it especially showed up in his teaching which, thanks to a prolific output of books, attracted seekers of all backgrounds to Haverford (including one who, as we will see, had an incalculable influence on the Civil Rights movements of later decades).
Of all the bridges, the most important for Rufus was the one his Aunt Peace told him he must build, between action and contemplation. The purpose of life was to live love and compassion out loud.
A religion that does not express itself in action is no religion at all.
That said, the most important thing isn’t what you do, but how you do it. Every action, Rufus believed, must be born from love. And the key to that was maintaining and cultivating contact with the Inner Light of God that he knew was in him, everyone else and all creation.
We are, each of us, guided by a light that does not come from any external source but is within us and is our most precious possession…[This] Inner Light calls us to be still and listen for the voice of God that speaks in the silence of our hearts…God is not far away or apart from us, but…in our own hearts and souls.
By the 1890s, Rufus had settled into a life brimming with purpose and joy. Though not yet thirty, he had built a reputation that was drawing more and more students to Haverford. On the home-front, he had also found happiness, marrying Sarah Coutant. In 1892, they welcomed a son, Lowell.
But the turn-of-the-century proved a brutal time for Rufus. In 1899, Sarah died of tuberculosis. The following year, he fell in love again only to have his fiancé die soon after. 1902 promised better when he met and married Elizabeth Cadbury with whom he had a second child, a daughter named Mary. But then came 1903 and the death of Lowell, which proved to be the defining event and great sadness of his life.
Though the late 19th century was a time of fast-paced change and social upheaval, it paled in comparison to the early 20th century. Science was helping people like never before, with innovations in medicine, transportation, and technologies that made life easier. But science also was at the root of mass misery like the world had ever seen. World War I, with its mechanized killing, was Exhibit A for this misery.
Quakerism is one of the historic peace churches that rejects violence of any kind, along with the Brethren, Mennonites and Amish. So in 1917 when America entered the first world war, young Quaker men refused the draft. This landed many in prison with long sentences. In response, Rufus went to Washington and personally lobbied President Wilson to commute the sentences. Europe was being ravaged, he said. Wouldn’t it better if, rather than languishing in prison, these conscientious objectors could be put to work? To this end, he proposed the creation of a relief organization whose purpose was to heal a wounded world. With President Wilson sold on the idea, the American Friends Service Committee was born.
In 1918, with the end of the conflict, thousands of able-bodied young men who’d recently been in prison were joined by thousands more women, and together they decamped to Europe where they organized the distribution of money, food, medicine and supplies. Not just a relief organization, the AFSC became a model of spiritually-engaged action.
The attention the AFSC received for its outsized role in war recovery, along with a steady output of books and articles, dramatically raised Rufus’s profile. In the wake of the war, he became one of America’s most prominent voices on the rethinking and reinvention of religion, pointing Christianity back toward its contemplative, mystical roots. This drew more seekers than ever to Haverford, including, most significantly, a young man named Howard Thurman.
Thurman, who had grown up in the Jim Crow South, had just taken his first preaching job, in Ohio, when he came across a used copy of Rufus’s book Finding The Trail Of Life. It was, he would later say, the best dime he ever spent. That night, he devoured the book in one sitting.
As he read, he grew more and more excited, each page bringing another passage that resonated with his heart.
The Light within us is our spiritual compass, a quiet, persistent voice that guides us through life's complex paths. To follow it is to discover a wellspring of wisdom we did not know we had.
Thurman, too, had felt an Inner Light from boyhood, a guiding Light that was both compass and comfort. And he was certain that everyone else possessed this same divine spark. Now, for the first time in his life, he was meeting someone who shared his belief that,
The Inner Light is there for each person, not confined to any single faith or tradition but alive wherever hearts are open to it…To live by the Light within is not to escape the world, but to see it with new eyes—to find the Divine hidden in every corner, every person, every experience. It is there we find our true direction.
Though he and Rufus were born nearly forty years apart, and came from drastically different backgrounds, Thurman knew he’d found a kindred spirit. He decided then and there he needed to meet Rufus Jones. As soon as his contract in Ohio was up, he left for Haverford.
Rufus Jones and Howard Thurman’s year together was not only personally fruitful for both men, it had an impact on history that has been largely forgotten. Thurman had increasingly felt a conflict between his desire to serve in a public role as a preacher and activist, and his equally strong desire to live a contemplative life of writing and reflection. Soon, he believed, he would need to make a choice, one or the other. Rufus, however, told him this was a false choice—that Thurman could, and should, lead a life of both engaged public action and quiet contemplation.
While Rufus’s public work in the decade preceding their meeting was directed primarily toward war recovery, Thurman could see that Rufus’s principles of contemplative, compassionate action could form the basis for any movement, including that of racial equality. Decades later, when Howard was a dean at Boston University, he passed these principles on to an eager young student named Martin Luther King who, in turn, applied them to the Civil Rights movement.
Though he was nearing retirement, in the 1930s Rufus ramped up his global travel with the AFSC, visiting Asia and Europe. In Germany, he made an ultimately unsuccessful appeal to Nazi officials to grant permission for many Jews to leave the country. As the drumbeat of a new war grew louder, he also led a delegation to India. There, he spent time with Gandhi, learning more about how nonviolent principles could be applied to conflict resolution and social justice. Rufus reported his findings back to Howard Thurman, inspiring Thurman to make his own pilgrimage to meet Gandhi a few years later.
Rufus spent his late seventies and early eighties, once more, in the relief and recovery of a world ruptured by war. In 1947, these efforts were awarded the Nobel Peace prize, which Rufus accepted in-person, in Stockholm. By then, however, his health was in serious decline. He spent the last year of his life in Haverford completing a memoir and other writings devoted to his unshakeable faith, taught to him by his Aunt Peace, that,
The Divine seed within us, which we call the Inner Light, is the eternal part of us. It calls us to be fully awake and to live in harmony with that deep, quiet center where God speaks.
His last days were full of visits from friends and students whose lives had been transformed by his teaching, and even more by his example of a spirituality that was an inward journey of learning to be still and listen for the voice of God that speaks in the silence of our hearts—not for our own gain, but in service of what the world always needs more of: purpose, peace and love.
On June 16, 1948, Rufus Jones died as he lived, wrapped in the arms of Love. He was eighty-five.
Practice
One of my favorite bits of wisdom is from Carl Jung. He says,
We all need to find what supports us when nothing supports us.
I believe what Jung is doing here is nudging us to consider how we hold on to our Inner Light when we are brought low by life’s difficulties which include but are certainly not limited to disease, depression, financial distress, relationship collapse…the list goes on and on.
When I think about what supports me, what comes to mind first is my Inner Light—that transcendent love that is the spark of the Divine in me—a love that undergirds and infuses all of creation, and which is the very ground of being. I try to find firm footing in that Inner Light through a variety of practices, including daily meditation.
What do you do to find, nurture and strengthen your Inner Light? Whatever it is, think about how, in the year ahead, you might deepen these practices.
Then, are there new practices you’d like to take on? Do you want to learn to meditate? Would you like to reduce your screen time? Spend more time outside?
If you’re like me, and writing things down helps keep you accountable, put them on paper. Consider taping them up where you can see them regularly—on the fridge, next to your computer, etc. If you have an accountability partner/friend, consider sending the list to them.
Holidays at Life In The City
All in person events take place at 205 East Monroe Street in Austin, Texas.
Dec. 8, 11:15 am: LITC’s original musical, Make Room In Your Heart. Dec. 21, 6:00 pm: Blue Christmas, an intimate service for the longest night of the year. Dec. 23, 6:00 pm: Christmas Eve-Eve, an LITC tradition! Dec. 29, 11:15 am: Welcome 2025 with a fun, casual service that includes cookies, coffee and resolution-setting.
Contemplation In The City
Life In The City’s contemplative community meets regularly to practice sacred traditions like Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer. If you’re in Austin, consider joining one of our gatherings. You might also find meaning in our monthly newsletter in which we wrestle with how to live a spiritually engaged life in the modern world. Read more here.
Ready For More?
Read the Introduction to the 2022 edition, to find out how my experience of September 11, 2001 became my gateway to Advent.
Read the Introduction to this year’s edition of The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints and Prophets.
Find more mystics, saints and prophets in our Archive.
Feedback
Catch a typo? Have suggestions for mystics, saints and prophets for a future year? Leave feedback in the Comments below or email Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.
Superb entry! I learned so much about history that I vaguely knew and wanted to learn more. The reflection questions are also right on the mark! Thank you! Well done!
I was wondering why I felt like I knew Rufus Jones from the start! Thank you for piecing together Jones with Thurman and MLK Jr and their commitment to non-violence born of that belief in the Inner Light and the powerful connection between contemplation and action!