How to experience joys unspeakable
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“To you who are seekers, to you, young and old who have toiled all night and caught nothing, but who want to launch out into the deeps and let down your nets for a draught, I want to speak as simply, as tenderly, as clearly as I can. For God can be found.
There is a last rock for your souls, a resting-place of absolute peace and joy and power and radiance and security. There is a Divine Center into which your life can slip, a new and absolute orientation in God, a Center where you live with Him and out of which you see all of life through new and radiant vision, tinged with new sorrows and pangs, new joys unspeakable and full of glory… The reality of Presence has been very great at times recently. One knows at first hand what the old inquiry meant, ‘Has Truth been advancing among you?’”
— Thomas R. Kelly, 1941
Quaker educator and mystic
Reader Responses
When have you learned a spiritual truth that has remained with you?
About 25 years ago during the Gulf Wars I was pretty despondent over the military madness taking over the country. During worship I had a vision. I was hovering high over the Western hemisphere, and all was darkness. But then there started to be flickers of light - scattered across the country, one after another. And the message was, It is enough. If we each do our job, do what we are called to do, it is enough. And to never give up hope.
David C., from Facebook
When a mentor in an internship for my social work education responded to my confusion about the right choice in a difficult situation this way: "No matter the question, love is the answer." 45 years later, that truth has not failed me once.
Carroll Ann S., Marquette, MI, USA
When I was 14, 50 years ago, I realized that silence was a sacrament.
Jan H., from Facebook
The reality of the Spirit is deeply embedded, and I can no more express it in words than I can explain why I am alive.
Kate B., Philadelphia, PA, USA
I learned to show myself compassion and empathy, because I am loved as I am.
Ruth A., Brighton, UK
In vacation bible school: “Jesus loves me.”
Pam W., Jacksonville, FL, USA
Wait in the Light, and ye will shine.
Sarah L., from Facebook
One thing that I hold onto very strongly, particularly when I'm feeling a sense of despair, is the reminder that a piece of my faith is that many things are possible through God in ways that I cannot imagine. Essentially that when my reasoning leads me to despair, that is an invitation to understand that my reasoning is incomplete, and I can instead rest on my faith that inexplicable and wonderful things happen every day that I could never have anticipated.
I don't remember a particular time when this sense crystallized, but one of the moments I go back to is my first return to Quaker Meeting as an adult - we had one message, and it was a Friend sharing Fox's quote about being surrounded by an ocean of darkness and coming through the darkness to an ocean of light. That spoke to my condition in that moment, and the sense that when I am most fearful it is an invitation to wait for (or work for) that coming ocean of light, has stuck with me.
Jonah, from Discord
This Week’s Messages
The promptings of love and truth in your heart
O Spirit of that early day
To love God is to love Truth
Mind the light
Where to find vivid religious truths
We must leave room for doubt
Read the source of today’s quote
Banner art by Sophie Wood Brinker
