A Ritual To Read To Each Other - again.

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

Deep pondering of a way not yet open for me tonight. I find myself in a little space with which to think, a little more free time tomorrow, and I must try to wait and see what happens. How do we know when to wait, and when to act?

Gifts

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. ..... To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. - Corinthians

I've been reading a lot about how we all manifest our true natures, our "gifts" if you will, in different ways. I seem to often be surrounded by many who use their gifts wisely, amazingly, and in no way are they similar to mine. How can I begin to see my own strengths and needs?

In my past studies I have been amazed and drawn to the stories of artists - especially those who seemed to march to the beat of a "different drummer" and created new venues, used new mediums, and truly fully actualized their own artistic potential. Most often, they were simply open to new ways, or not open at first, but forced - and then the energy came.

das End der Welt

"I came once up the Engelberg Valley in Switzerland to a place which the natives call the end of the world - das End der Welt. A huge mountain closes the pass, the road stops abruptly and no one can go on there. It is a terminus.... How often in life the gateway shuts, a semaphore drops in front of us, the way closes. We have come to a terminus. The next day, however, I found a zigzag path farther down the valley that went up the side of the mountain. I climbed up and went on over the End of the World. There is always, if one can find it, a way higher up that goes over these closed ways which confront us." - Rufus Jones, New Eyes For Invisibles

I am growing into a new kind of understanding of Rufus and his ways. He was articulate, well-read, a scholar to the core - and yet what mattered most to him was how spiritual contact manifested into action. For Jones this was the proof that the spiritual encounter was indeed "real" and lasting. His words, while sometimes complicated, are ever hopeful throughout his many books.

Rufus Jones

Revelation, then, cannot all be on a single level. It depends for its height wholly upon the person through whom it comes, as the same breath through a flute gives a high note or a low note, according to the stop that is fingered. If this be so—and it is hard to see how any other view could be held—then the thing we are to look for in a revelation is not infallibility, not a dictated word, but a divine message spoken through a human personality, tested in a personal life and preserved for our use to-day because it has proved its supreme worth through all the siftings of the ages. - Rufus Jones, A Dynamic Faith

Tested in our life.
Preserved for day-to-day use.

Taking note, Rufus!

Separations....

It's too hard to balance the Quaker stuff and the non-Quaker stuff in one blog. I am finding that daily writing is helpful to me, but I tend to avoid the blogs due to the overwhelming amounts of varied information....

So.... Grainger Fan 4 Ever is back!

And we'll see how I fill this space with my readings and musings as of late!

Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street

Fabulous! I am and always will be a fan of "the street". I am hoping to add this to my Sesame bookshelf for Christmas.

Nothing Was the Same

by Kay Redfield Jamison

"It has been said that grief is a kind of madness. I disagree. There is a sanity to grief, in its just proportion of emotion to cause, that madness does not have." So writes Kay Redfield Jamison, the clinical psychologist whose widely acclaimed 1995 memoir, "An Unquiet Mind," revealed her lifelong struggle with manic-depressive illness. "Nothing Was the Same" is the story of her marriage to the late Richard Wyatt, a man who overcame severe childhood dyslexia to become a leader in schizophrenia research. With the blend of straightforward frankness and poetic eloquence for which her earlier book drew praise, Jamison describes the almost 20 years of their life together as a love affair that encompassed not only their shared work, colleagues, family and friends, but also her mental illness and the cancer that ultimately claimed his life in 2002. One thing that makes this book especially compelling is its quiet matter-of-factness in the face of personal catastrophe. ..... Every step carries emotion -- shock, dread, hope, joy, despair -- and Jamison portrays each of these with piercing clarity. Still, the overall tone of her recounting is even, spare and thoughtfully analytical, avoiding grimness and offering some leavening lighter touches, like Wyatt's affectionate characterization of Jamison's manic-depressive mind: "a delicate ecosystem, a pond of subtle alkalinities, which was kept alive through a finely honed mix of lithium and love and sleep, or, as he imagined it, 'water grasses and dragonflies, and a snail or two to tidy up.' " (Amazon)

This was a very bittersweet read, to know the inevitable ending, to hear of the hope in the varied diagnoses, to wonder if Jamison would be alright without her husband. It is a well-written memoir and a sad but comforting book.