“This may be what some modern Friends find unpalatable – that they may be asked to endure the prophetic or teaching ministry of gifted ministers who have actually been given permission by the meeting to tell us when we fall short in our faithfulness.”
“The first time you practice contemplation, you’ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing. You won’t know what this is. You’ll only know that in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing God clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling God fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions.”
“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, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.”
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.
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.
“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.”
“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.'”
“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.”
“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.”
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