“In my own life, I was steeped in the religious understanding of my Quaker forebears on both sides of the family, and in a closely-bordered childhood on a dairy farm in an Indiana Quaker community. But it wasn’t until a spiritual epiphany in 1964 that led to my becoming a conscientious objector that I made Quaker spirituality experiential rather than ‘inherited.'”
In a time of increasing division and concern over the direction of our country and the world, it might feel superfluous or insufficient to spend our time sitting in silent worship. But this is exactly the moment to apply our nearly-400-year-old practice of waiting on the spirit to guide us.
“May our minds be gathered to it, let our name and our profession to religion be what it may, and may we experience this divine communion of saints, and deeply ponder God’s unbounded love in solemn silence, for there is no power of eloquence can sufficiently acknowledge the obligation and reverence we owe his infinite majesty”
“Open spaces are the analogue of the silences in a meeting for worship. Too full for articulate expression, the glory and fullness of the Infinite can only be portrayed by the unbroken silence.
Unhurried, unharried, we feel our way back to the world’s Mother, as the child feels its way to its parent’s arms. And there the Unspeakable is enough, fuller than expostulations and assurances. Yet again and again from out of that background emerge words, outthrusts of the Divine Life, a few sentences uttered in time yet pronounced from Eternity, a daily matter is set in cosmic frame. Resumption of silence is but the continuation of silence; unbroken space extends behind crag and cascade and river.”
“In the stillness and silence of the power of the Almighty dwell, which never varies, alters, nor changes, but preserveth over and out of, and above all the changeable worships, religions, ministers, churches, teachings, principalities, and powers, with the power of God, which keepeth over all this, to the kingdom of Christ, that is everlasting, in which there is no changing, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords.”
End of content
End of content
