Books, books, books...

I spent this afternoon cleaning and organizing some bookshelves in the worship room at the meetinghouse with some Friends. The result is a neater space, the beginnings of an accessible library, and a realization that we own some of the very books on my "to read" list.

We also had a large pile of Bibles in the meetinghouse, most in pretty poor condition, and probably needing to be disposed of. We saved a few copies of the newer ones, and promptly stored them on a high shelf behind a closed door that might be very noisy if one wanted to open it during meeting for worship, perhaps, let's say, to access one of those Bibles.

I was back there this evening, and as I sat quietly I was overcome by a certain sadness. I tend to end up in that worship room many a morning, and as often as not I tend to grab a pile from the stack-of-bibles-that-used-to-be-there. I instinctively looked at the empty shelf where they used to be, and wasn't sure what to think. I remembered back to this month's query, which had just been read yesterday in this very room:


Spiritual Life
Do you live in thankful awareness of God's constant presence in your life?
Are you sensitive and obedient to leadings of the Holy Spirit?
Do you seek to follow Jesus, who shows us the way?
Do you nurture your spiritual life with prayer and silent waiting and with regular study of the Bible and other devotional literature?

I'm not one to get really picky with these queries, I see them as point for deeper reflection - in fact, I must admit I might not often even remember them specifically the next day. And yet this one stuck with me - the Bible/Jesus parts. I'm just not sure how to process all of this. I'm sure this nagging feeling must mean something - perhaps I'll figure it out tomorrow in filling up the space where the Bibles used to be?

Update: Hey hey hey - Brent Bill's thinking about Bibles too over on his (fantastic) blog - and this post just popped over to me as I was finishing mine. YAY.

The Quest

Rare moments come to us in our journey when the penny drops, the tumblers click, the pieces fall into place, the lights come on, and our breath is taken away. The old paradigm falls away behind us like a port of departure, and we are won over to new possibilities, caught up in a new way of seeing, looking toward a new and wide horizon. The Lord has more light and truth to break forth, we believe, and so we raise our sails. We are embarked on our quest. - Brian McLaren

I've been reading some complementary books this week - Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces and Karen Armstrong's The Case For God. Both have elements of myth, folklore, journeys, and a sense of one's "quest" to find a higher power, meaning in life, making sense of the greater world in which we live.

Although I am reading Campbell's book for a spiritual book club, (thus my reading is focused on more "religious" themes of late) I am hearkened back to many of the wise words of Julia Cameron. She, too, speaks of this quest, this journey - in terms of our latent creativity, our blocks in becoming our true selves, the obstacles we find and in many ways, create.

I think if we focused more these days on the universality of the quest itself we might all get by a bit better. When the quest becomes a search for "heaven" - MY heaven, MY God, MY spiritual path - we no longer hold fellowship with each other. And what a rare gift to be able to recognize that quest, that longing in others, regardless of its name. Great artists have tried to show us this path for years, in their own unique interpretation. What makes one painting flow, speak to us, call out to us in a way we instantly connect with? It is that thing that cannot be named. It is that spirit, that connection, that I hope we are able in this world to gain more focus of.

We undertake certain spiritual exercises to achieve alignment with the creative energy of the universe..As a teacher, I often sense the presence of something transcendent -- a spiritual electricity, if you will -- and I have come to rely on it in transcending my own limitations. I take the phrase inspired teacher to be a quite literal compliment. A higher hand than just my own engages us. Christ said, "Wherever two or more are gathered together, there I am in your midst." The god of creativity seems to feel the same way. The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity. Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as the creator but seldom see creator as the literal term for artist. I am suggesting you take the term creator quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. - Julia Cameron

CERTAINTY

CERTAINTY

Certainty undermines one's power, and turns happiness

into a long shot. Certainty confines.

Dears, there is nothing in your life that will

not change - especially your ideas of God.

Look what the insanity of righteous knowledge can do:

crusade and maim thousands

in wanting to convert that which

is already gold

into gold.

Certainty can become an illness

that creates hate and

greed.

God once said to Tuka,

"Even I am ever changing -

I am ever beyond

Myself,

what I may have once put my seal upon,

may no longer be

the greatest

Truth."

~ Tukaram ~

Trying to be flexible. We had a big Peace Center event this week - it went well, it was well attended, we became more informed. However, it left me feeling an absence of a more immediate impact. While I know we cannot ever know the impact of our actions in the long term, the discussion of the evening focused around our country's going to war, while so many other planetary concerns are growing at an alarming rate. How do we also address those concerns, locally, in our own environment, as we seek to create a better future for all of us?

My whole graduate degree, in fact perhaps my whole life since, has been a focus "outside the box". We will need this skill if we are to combat the future problems of the world. I found myself trapped this week in a perception of what "peace" should look like. I felt limited, powerless, unable to help anywhere. But by letting myself be open to the problems as they really are, not just as I perceive them, I may be able to slowly find a new way to solve them. Not all of them, certainly not even the large ones, but at least a small local difference.

Creating Space

Imagine your soul as being like the
Tyne Bridge. There are busy times and
quiet times. The job of the bridge is not
to ask what is in the cars or lorries but
simply to bear their weight for a few
seconds and then allow them to go on
their way. There is no problem when the
flow of traffic is even, but when breakdowns
and bottlenecks occur, the fights
and the impatience begin. Your soul,
too, has to take the weight and let it go.
The suffering becomes prolonged only
when you do no acknowledge its existence
and let it pass on. Then it sits on
your soul like a judgment.

The time to repair the bridge is in the
night when the traffic is light. Your
prayer in quiet times gives you the
strength to cope with the heavy, busy
times. You dig, patch and repair in the
night. As a result, the world can flow
over your soul in the day without congestion.
You must allow the flow of
faith, love, healing, hope, joy and light
to pass through you into the world. You
must allow the flow of hatred, darkness
and sin to flow from the world through
you to God.

All of this is done by prayer, and by
forgiveness of yourself, of others and
perhaps even of God Himself for what
you feel He has done to you. Little by
little, you grow in the power of prayer,
in the ability to bear the weight and
accept the contradictions of the two way
flow between God and the world.

This passage from Aidan Clarke has popped up in a few places for me this week. I feel like I have been trapped recently in that "heavy time" Clarke speaks of. And yet, my efforts to create a quiet space, to meditate and clear my mind of daily troubles, has become a practice for me that has helped me this week. By the end of the week, I was able in visits (with Friends socially, in committee meetings, and in other meetings for worship) to see some new insights, enjoy being in the company of others, and be open to find new similarities of experiences that give me strength. The small moments, the taking time to really look at a painting, read a passage of scripture, visit a friend in need, were actually all the "big moments" I needed.

Carrie Newcomer

I thought I’d live a louder life
I’d learn a lot and get it right
I’d rent a loft I’d drink all night
I’d be a living archetype
And in a blinding flash of light
I’d see that one great insight
But silence called me deeper still
Like nothing else ever will


So today I’ll drop stones into the river
And the current takes them out into forever
And the truth is most of us will never know
Where our best intentions go
And still I’ll drop another stone


First there is the folding in,
To gather light and dark to you.
The journey down so far that it,
Has nowhere else to go but through.
I thought if I tried hard enough,
With endless motion like a bribe,
As if by this the will of God,
Could be bent to my version of right.
What happens next is nearly weightless,
The opening where we stand breathless,
On the clean edge of change.

Just a few wise words from Carrie Newcomer, who I was fortunate to hear sing last night in person. She performed at a Unitarian Church's "coffee house" gathering - she sang in their worship space, and it was intimate and informal, and profoundly moving for me. I listened to Carrie's music long before I knew she was a Quaker, or even what Quakers were. Her music seems to connect with me on a deep level, naming things that so often cannot be named within me. She is also a F/friend to Parker Palmer and Brent Bill, both writers whose work I also admire deeply. Perhaps we are all just standing in the same stream? It was an honor and I was humbled to hear her wise words last evening. As so often happens, it was a last minute finding of a last minute performance as way opened effortlessly for me to hear her message.

In A Dream (to video)

The film about Isaiah Zagar's mosaics an his life is out on DVD - just rewatched it courtesy of Netflix. I'm reminded of how creativity is so individual, and the creative drive cannot be suppressed in so many people. I am glad this film is available for more people to watch!

Isaiah Zagar's Magic Gardens

A link to the film

Real Knowledge

You can go to theological seminary, and study about religion. You can learn the history of the Christian Church. You can know all about the Synoptic problems of the Gospels and have your own theories about Qand the J, E, D, and P document of the Hexateuch, you can know all the literature about the authorship of the Johannine epistles, whether the author was John the beloved disciple or another of the same name. You can know all about the history of Quakerism, you can know the disputes behind the Nicene Creed and the Constantinopolitan Creed....the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. You can know the homilectics and rules of good sermon structure, you can know church symbolism and the meaning of the feasts and fasts of the church. You can know all this, and much more. But unless you know God, immediately, every day communing with Him, rejoicing in Him, exalting in Him, opening your life in joyful obedience toward Him and feeling Him speaking to you and guiding you into ever fulling loving obedience to Him, you aren’t fit to be a minister. There is so much that is wonderful about books.
But he who relies for his sermons upon book stuff about religion, and is not at the same time enjoying immediately and experiencing vitally fresh illumination for God, is not a real minister, even if he has a degree in theology from Oxford or Cambridge. Second hand sermons aren’t real sermons. Only first hand preaching counts. -- Thomas Kelly, 1939.

Silence.

In Silence

Be still.

Listen to the stones of the wall.

Be silent, they try

To speak your

Name.

Listen

To the living walls.

Who are you?

Who

Are you? Whose

Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)

Are you (as these stones

Are quiet). Do not

Think of what you are

Still less of

What you may one day be.

Rather

Be what you are (but who?) be

The unthinkable one

You do not know.

O be still, while

You are still alive,

And all things live around you

Speaking (I do not hear)To your own being,

Speaking by the Unknown

That is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them

To be my own silence:

And this is difficult. The whole

World is secretly on fire. The stones

Burn, even the stones

They burn me. How can a man be still or

Listen to all things burning? How can he dare

To sit with them

When all their silence

Is on fire?”

~ Thomas Merton ~

First-day was particularly trying for me this week. We had a heat problem in the meetinghouse, and we never as a group seemed to decide whether to try to fix the problem or sit in silence. As the problem seemed to be attended to by people who knew what they were doing, I chose to sit, although the cold got to all of us soon and we abbreviated the meeting.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my own silence. Technically, this whole Spiritual path for me has been about finding my own way, my own journey, and one day in a cold meetinghouse that's too chatty shouldn't matter. It was my expectations that got me in trouble - I expected after a long week to have silence and Spirit and calm, and even in in our social time afterwards I kept getting interrupted and could not hold a meaningful conversation. Thus I left frustrated and angry.

I have been fortunate this year to have carved out some contemplative space and time almost every day. Often, it has been at the meetinghouse. But perhaps that is too "easy" a solution sometimes - spiritual place, Spirit happens. If I am able to carry that peace inside, I should find it wherever I go. Good to consider for the week.

Next week I travel to another meeting, held not in a meetinghouse at all. I will meet new people, and hear of new joys and concerns. In the meantime, I have work commitments this week, a difficult interaction with schooling issues for my daughter, and some eating/lifestyle changes that will take some getting used to. Committee meetings seem to fill the next few weeks as well. Plenty of time to see if I can find and preserve that peaceful space through all the mayhem.

Habits.

(from: Cast All Your Votes For Dancing)

I know the voice of depression

Still calls to you.

I know those habits that can ruin your life

Still send their invitations.

But you are with the Friend now

And look so much stronger.

You can stay that way

And even bloom!

~ Hafiz ~

Been thinking a lot about new year's resolutions this morning. I guess it is the time for that, January 2nd and all... sometimes my strongest resolutions are those that invite me to revisit them daily. Being a good parent, good partner, good friend. Seeing the good in others around me. Daily and constant reminders that do indeed become the "good" habits I need to cultivate. Sometimes it is not in the BIG decisions where we find the magic and space and love for each other on the planet - it is in the little moments. I am resolving this year to become even more aware of those smaller moments, for in them is where I see the "big picture" of my life most clearly!