No sooner will you have given yourself up to serve the Lord in this inward way, than he will begin to purify you and try your faith in order to draw you nearer to himself. And, for this purpose he will lead you through the paths of dryness and desertion, so that when you endeavour to fix your mind in silence, in order to feel after your God, you will not experience the comfort and refreshment you expected.
“For the first Quakers, convincement was about much more than accepting new beliefs. Even a powerful experience of the Light of Christ within was only the beginning. Then they learned how to allow that Light to be an active and growing force. After turning their attention to the inward presence of Christ, early Friends were shown startling and uncomfortable truths about the nature of their society and their inner psyche.”
“‘Pause and Sense’ [is a] practical body-mind experiment. This practice has been transformative for me. […] It’s about counteracting the tendency to live solely in the realm of thoughts, especially in situations where we’re physically present but mentally elsewhere, like when you’re waiting in a grocery store line.”
“The pacifist is literally a peace-maker. He is not a passive or negative person who proposes to lie back and do nothing in the face of injustice, unrighteousness and rampant evil. He stands for ‘the fiery positive.’ Pacifism is not a theory; it is a way of life. It is something you are and do.”
“There are three aspects of the Quaker understanding of life in the early days of the Society. […] The first is that religion must be experimental and experiential. […] The second is the sense that true religion has implications for the whole of one’s life. […] The final starting point is the dedication to certain means as the most valuable and truest approaches to God. […] There is the basis for true unity, and that is the determination to testify honestly and fully to whatever is most deeply meaningful to each of us and to engage in dialogue with all others who are equally willing to be known by what matters most in life to them.”
“In the time of great trouble there may be life stirring underneath, and a true and tender sense, and pure desires, in which there may be a drawing nigh and breathing of heart to the Lord; but, in the time of trouble and great darkness, may not a man easily desire amiss, and pray amiss, if he have not his guide. A little praying from God’s Spirit, and in that which is true and pure, is better than thousands of vehement desires in one’s own will, and after the flesh.”
“Breathe in the quiet purpose of this place; / Through outward stillness, seek a calm within. / Here we can find forgiveness and forgive; / Here feel the healing miracle begin.”
“[Minor ecstasies are] bits of star dust which are for all of us, however limited our opportunities. […] Something seen, something heard, something felt, flashes upon one with a bright freshness, and the heart, tired and sick or sad or merely indifferent, stirs and lifts in answer. Exercising our faculty for minor ecstasies may actually increase the number of them we feel.”
“My experience is that there is a single root of our faith and life as a religious society — a taproot much older and runs much deeper than Quakerism. The taproot of a tree runs straight down from the trunk into the deepest soil, anchoring the tree against storms and providing nurture from the very deepest of sources. There may be hundreds of secondary roots, but only the taproot is necessary for the tree to survive and thrive. The Big Story — the Cosmic Story — is the story of creation’s eternally repeated encounters with its taproot.”
Although I collected messages for this week without a theme in mind, the topic of peace kept bubbling up, perhaps because the war in Gaza has been on my heart. Monday’s message about nonviolence towards each other and the earth stood out to me especially. I had an “a-ha” moment when I read Jennie M. Ratcliffe explain that violence is actually born from a feeling of disconnection.
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