Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles
“Mary Magdalene has been called the Apostle to the Apostles because she was the first to share the good news of the Resurrection (John 20:17-18).”
God Is Within Her
“God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.”
Lovely Mary Dyer
The lovely Mary Dyer / With her eyes could start a fire. / And lovely lady Dyer / Could have called the law a liar. / Mary with her head held high. / Mary with her head held high.
Preparing the Way for Powerful Quaker Ministry (with Guest Editor Ashley Wilcox)
November 25-December 1, 2024: This week’s messages are guest edited by Ashley M. Wilcox, Quaker minister, best-selling author of The Women’s Lectionary, and founder of Public Friends, a new nonprofit created to support Quaker ministers.
The Reason for our Being
“My soul sings in gratitude. I’m dancing in the mystery of God. The light of the Holy One is within me and I am blessed, so truly blessed. This goes deeper than human thinking. I am filled with awe at Love whose only condition is to be received.”
Nurturing the Light in Each Other
“In my selections this month I tried to capture the holiness and messiness that closeness brings. We read about the power of spiritual friendships, and how friendship can become spiritual. That sexuality is a gift from God, which we are tasked with using with integrity. That marriage is a divine leading built on reciprocity. That we are our children’s first spiritual teachers. And that when we experience loss or loneliness, we are presented with the opportunity to enter into ‘deeper and more continual acquaintance with the unseen and eternal things.'”
How We Should Speak to God
“I came to realise that the best way to deepen my love of God was to use my experience of the love in my everyday life in all its variety, subtlety and uncertainty. Getting on with those I love is often a business demanding patience, discretion, tact and understanding. It gets complicated sometimes. It also gets strained, occasionally to the breaking point. But without expression it is barren. I show my love in the things I do, and I also show it by words of endearment. These things are all part and parcel of one another. This is what worship should be like. This is the idiom in which we should speak to God.”
Wait Patiently and Creatively
“For me the certain realisation of God came at the time of the breakdown of my marriage. The unthinkable had happened and I seemed to be at my lowest state physically and mentally. There seemed to be no present and no future but only a nightmare of dark uncertainty. One distinct message reached me: to ‘go under’ was out of the question, I could only start again, learn from my mistakes and take this second chance at life that I had been given. I found a strength within I did not know I had, and I believe now that it came from the prayers and loving support of so many people round me.”
There Is No Greater Thing Than Pure Unselfish Love
“Every man knows in his heart that there is no greater thing in the world than pure unselfish love. Death cannot conquer, nay, he teaches ever that love is supreme. Good men do not die. Their lives are as the tearing of the veil, they show us something of that which is eternal, for if here love is greatest in the heart of man, must it not be greatest in God himself? And if greatest in himself, then let the mystery of his will be never so dark, we may gird ourselves each to his life’s work with something more than courage.
I Praise Thee, Lord, With My Breasts
“…There is for some of us beyond the sexual experience a further one, in which there comes a spiritual blessing of the body. While this is not in the least pious it is intensely held and when it happened to me I found myself murmuring, ‘I praise thee, Lord, with my breasts, I praise thee with my womb, I praise thee with my whole body and all my love…’ I had been in some suffering and was determined, if I could, to remain faithful to my marriage and to those I had such affection for.”
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