Finding what you need

I've been trying to get here all week. I'm headed to Canterbury, NH this morning, and it may mean I'm late to arrive at my own meetinghouse for the "work day" that's also necessary. I can't be any good for the rest of the weekend unless I've been here.

This week for me has been all about continuing to learn where I fit in, what I am called to do, and how I can best serve where led. It's often in terms of other people. Today, in a non-selfish way, it must be about me for the morning. The rest of the good work will happen, in the company of others. But first I'm led to just listen......

Howard Zinn - "The Holy Wars"

I am hoping to see Howard Zinn speak on Nov 11th at BU. He is simply my hero. I have never heard him live.

The foundation of any culture resides in the way it answers the question

"Where do reality and power reside?"

For some cultures the answer is the gods,

for some it is nature; for some it is tradition"

Parker Palmer

Listening to leadings.....

I've been very busy trying not to be so busy. In an excellent twist of events, NEYM's feed sent this message to me today:

What a wonder this Divine Presence is..... Am I awake enough to really be aware.... Of the deepness..... Where am I being led?

I think being "awake" has many meanings for us today. I see a morning scramble for the coffee pot in my work life, and my home life as well. Always "on the go", fulfilling the needs, keeping things up and "running".

The kind of "awake" I require now is a calmer one. An awareness preceded by a necessary emptiness. I need to make room to be filled with whatever comes my way of true importance.

I have been often slowed, come to a grinding halt in fact these days. Sometimes a simple comment, a simple moment brings me back into a reality that I was not expecting, or even quite comfortable with. But the connections I see, the community that is forming, the ways in which I interact with others are only able for me to see if I have space in which to let them reside.

"And now I began to have openings, leading to the ministry, and this brought on close exercise and deep travail of spirit. For although I had for some time spoken to business in monthly and preparative meetings, yet the prospect of opening my mouth in public meetings brought me a renewed and close trial. Yet, I endeavoured to keep my mind quiet and resigned to the heavenly call - if it should be made clear to me to be my duty.

Nevertheless, when soon after as I sitting in a meeting in much weightiness of spirit, a prospect opened and a secret, though clear, intimation attended to speak a few words that were then given to me to utter. Fear so prevailed that I did not yield to the motion, for which, I felt close rebuke and judgment seemed for some time to cover my mind.

But, as I humbled myself under his mighty hand, he again lifted up the light of his countenance upon me and enabled me to renew covenant with him, that if he would pass by this my offense, I would in future be faithful if he should again open the way therefor. And it was not long after when I was again moved to express a few words, which I yielded to in great fear and dread.

But O the joy and sweet consolation that my soul experienced as a reward for this act of faithfulness! And as I continued persevering in this duty and this watchfulness, I witnessed an increase in divine knowledge and an enlargement in my gift.

- "The Life, Exercises, and Experience of Elias Hicks"

Iraq Today

Caretake This Moment

Caretake this moment.
Immerse yourself in its particulars.
Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed.

Quit the evasions.
Stop giving yourself needless trouble.
It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.
You are not some disinterested bystander.
Exert yourself.

Respect your partnership with providence.
Ask yourself often, How may I perform this particular deed
such that it would be consistent with and acceptable to the divine will?
Heed the answer and get to work.

When your doors are shut and your room is dark you are not alone.
The will of nature is within you as your natural genius is within.
Listen to its importunings.
Follow its directives.

As concerns the art of living, the material is your own life.
No great thing is created suddenly.

There must be time.

Give your best and always be kind.

~ Epictetus ~


I have a way opening up into a path that's still pretty murky and confusing and I'm not sure how it all fits. A leading, though, for sure. This poem ended up in my morning. Paying attention.

Today

Today

The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere

a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays

come down. A tomorrow has come. Open

your hands, lift them: morning rings

all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.

Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,

you could close your eyes and go on full of light.

And it is already begun, the chord

that will shiver glass, the song full of time

bending above us. Outside, a sign:

a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,

“Be warm.” No one is out there, but a giant

has passed through town, widening streets, touching

the ground, shouldering away the stars.

~ William Stafford ~

Finding a poem for a prayer/meditation retreat. Really, won't any poem by Stafford do nicely?

Craft in America - Season 2

Craft in America Season 2 is fabulous! I have only watched "process" so far - but they are available online until next week here.

Over the course of five hours, major influences on craft artists come to life: Memory, Landscape, Community, Origins, and Process. How does each play a part in how craft came to be? What about them drives artists to do what they do? How do craft artists develop and adapt their techniques in today’s world? Through their own words, dozens of craft artists reveal what makes their work – and the lives they lead – unique. View the programs online or purchase DVDs of the Peabody Award-winning series for your home library.

Called Out Of Darkness - Anne Rice

Ironically, this is the first book I've read by Anne Rice. Not sure how I first came across it, but it was interesting to read Rice's story of a return to her Catholic Faith. It made me think more about how our early years shape who we become. I too, have returned to a journey of faith - but not the same Catholic one that I began. For me it was interesting to see Rice's return and how she reconciled her difficulties with some of the dogma of religion. Perhaps all of her earlier writings, in a way, were working out those difficulties as well.

I am eager to read more of her works - this was quick and accessible I am curious as to her prose style in works of fiction. She has written both many books about Vampires, and more recently books about Jesus - I'll have to do some thinking about which end of the spectrum to start on! But I am glad I read this book as another version and glimpse into someone else's journey. This video also shows some her descriptions of beauty, which she saw in the church. How interesting to look at this now from a more "sparse" Quaker perspective!

The Abnormal is Not Courage

The Poles rode out from Warsaw against the German
Tanks on horses. Rode knowing, in sunlight, with sabers,
A magnitude of beauty that allows me no peace.
And yet this poem would lessen that day. Question
The bravery. Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.
Would say courage isn't that. Not at its best.
It was impossib1e, and with form. They rode in sunlight,
Were mangled. But I say courage is not the abnormal.
Not the marvelous act. Not Macbeth with fine speeches.
The worthless can manage in public, or for the moment.
It is too near the whore's heart: the bounty of impulse,
And the failure to sustain even small kindness.
Not the marvelous act, but the evident conclusion of being.
Not strangeness, but a leap forward of the same quality.
Accomplishment. The even loyalty. But fresh.
Not the Prodigal Son, nor Faustus. But Penelope.
The thing steady and clear. Then the crescendo.
The real form. The culmination. And the exceeding.
Not the surprise. The amazed understanding. The marriage,
Not the month's rapture. Not the exception. The beauty
That is of many days. Steady and clear.
It is the normal excellence, of long accomplishment.

Settlin' in

Yesterday I finally felt like I had settled into my job. I saw the kids not as classes of kids that needed to be disciplined, controlled, or led with an iron fist, but as individuals - and I relaxed.

I walked into this job with many perceptions of how I would need to "create" discipline. And yet, I have happily found that if I work hard to provide a lesson I believe in, the discipline takes care of itself. If I am so excited that we MUST sing this new song, play theses instruments, the kids sense that and shape up!

There is no substitute for an overwhelming need to share your subject with passion and careful attention. It does not erase the "problems" - but it puts them into perspective. I am looking forward to a good year of risk taking with these kids!

Community

I've been thinking a lot about community lately. Not always the specifics, but just the communities I find myself in.

I teach now in a small school, certainly a community in itself. I asked one of the older girls in my class this week what it was like to attend such a small school, for nine years. She said it was great to know everyone, and have classed with kids of different ages, and feel like we were all a real family. Years ago, I might have thought exposure to so few people would not be a good method for education - but there is time for that. Learning to live and get along in a community is a rarer task and goal.

Quaker meeting is also a community for me. In fact, ti is the community itself that most appeals to me. I've taken many varied opportunities to serve the meeting this year, and they all have been involved in the members as a community. Taking our food to a shelter, cleaning the meetinghouse - these are all just as important as marching for peace and social issues. The health f our meeting, the spiritual health, is what allows us to do more important work.

I have felt a leading of late - to be of more service in a new way. And of course, way opened for me to serve on a new committee in aid to the meeting. I was nervous at first - such a large task, caring for others, especially when I have not known the members of meeting for long yet. And yet I feel strongly called to service, to be open to new avenues of community, and to retain a sense of wonderment and not fear as I follow these leadings.