Spirituality: Meditation/ Contemplation
SPIRITUALITY: MEDITATION/ CONTEMPLATION
193. The Available Mind (by Carol R. Murphy; 1974)
About the Author—This the 11th pamphlet from the pen of Carol R. Murphy, who has been exploring the roles of reason, revelation, and mystical experience in the mature religious faith. In the present essay she surveys some of the new thinking about meditation and suggests that even those who have not yet become adepts in contemplation can live in a greater state of awareness with minds available to the Holy Spirit.
The Great method of prayer is to have none. If in going to prayer one can form in oneself a pure capacity for receiving the spirit of God, that will suffice for all method. Prayer should be accomplished by grace and not by artifice. St. Jeanne De Chantal
While walking in the woods one day, I realized how little under discipline my thoughts were. My mind, like an untrained puppy, was galloping off to roll in a mire of self-pity, yap angrily at some unwelcome idea, or sniff at an approaching chore. [Efforts at] prayer cause only acute fits of self-conscious effort in those whose faith is precarious at best. The mind has tides of its own, and cannot be forced to think about what it is not ready [for].
[Busy minds don't] naturally turn to pleasant thoughts. Thinking is both the active mind's vice & virtue. I begin to classify preoccupations in [TV terms: commercials (self-justification); public service messages (warnings of duties); coming attractions (expected events). Peak experiences we treasure come, if at all, from hard-to-attain heightened awareness of the present. [Anything which brings fresh perspective, like travel or seasonal change, or different focus for our attention like exertion] can bring minor ecstasy. What does all this awareness of Now have to do with the search for God? If we're to be ready for God’s presence, we must shut up & listen.
Inner Silence—If a mystical sort of experience is made the basis of religion, how can we know if it tells the truth about reality? Most of us have to find some sort of religious belief without any blissful certainty of union with the Ultimate. If the mind expands its scope, it is expanding its view of reality or discovering an alternative view of reality. The meditator can: [focus on one symbol of his religious faith]; become [through his mind a non-distorting mirror which accepts and relinquishes every event that flows through his awareness; or he can enter the shaman’s or visionary’s perilous world of dreams and vision.
[One type of meditator] uses his ability to become habituated to a constant sight or sound until it vanishes from awareness leaving a void. He is trying to break up [or “stop”] a customary way of organizing his consciousness so that a new vision or revelation of reality becomes possible. If you learn to “stop” your [inner] world you may be able to enter an alternative world. The brain’s right hemisphere is the gestalt-perceiving, image-making, artistic, simultaneous-thinking half; scientists need this part of the brain for inventive leaps & new discoveries.
The Mystical Alternative—One vision is not “hallucination” and another “objective reality. What we call “reality” includes the interpreting mind. The more complementary interpretations there are to enrich each other, the better. A Believer may say that all is perfect divine harmony; I must be true to my experience of an imperfect, tragic, absurd world. We must be open to this alternative reality even when we cannot enter it ourselves.
Arnold Koestler offers the theory that in weaving together temporal events, there is along with the warp of causality, the weft of [non-logical chance events that nonetheless] weave the threads of temporal events together in patterns of coincidental encounters. We can begin to realize that, however distinct in logic, spirit and matter actually do interpenetrate. The alternative world is a restructuring of our everyday world so that it can intersect with real power. We participate in creating the world we live in from moment to moment; so does God, of course. If we create in harmony with God, we live in God’s world.
The Ambiguity of Power—Before the saint, there was the shaman. His magical use of power can be called pre-moral, rather than amoral or diabolic. [A shaman knows] places of power, wrestles with power, [trusts in] the “walk of power,” Our Establishment religion has many ways of dealing with a lack of spiritual power: [shrewd politics]; pietism; salesmanship; private hypocrisy. How many Friends Meetings are the powerhouses of shared contemplation they were meant to be?
Jesus was ambivalent about his use of power for a good reason. The divine can become demonic if there is the least bit of love of power instead of love of people. True contemplative spirituality is enlargement of consciousness, attainment of power, [&] conquest of self. Living [gradually & unconsciously into] a life of commitment, beginning unawares & proceeding step by step is a more genuine way than a conscious resolve to be a self-sacrificing Christian. The mind & body together [need to be] an outward expression of the life of meditation.
The Non-violent Life/Expectancy—Which comes first—meditation or way of life? [Meditation without knowing how to live is a near-empty silence]. Life without meditation becomes dead conformity. W. D. Norwood write: “[A master of judo’s] willingness to be struck in order to help is almost a definition of love. [This attitude] can be extended to every circumstance of life, a continuously aware, non-calculating, non-antagonistic “grooving” with the movement of events. In traditional Catholic spirituality, this is known as abandonment to the will of God in every moment. If I can’t fight my endless chains of thought, I must flow with them.
Expectancy is a fruitful quality in the available mind. A healer finds the expected healing; the healer helps to create it. It is probably necessary for it to be present in both healed & healer. Is skepticism necessarily the villain of [circumstances calling for expectancy]? When does expectancy become gullibility?
In consulting Chinese I Ching, the student must be open to the possibility that psycho-kinesis or the synchronous weft of life will [make sticks or coins fall so as to] direct one to the proper portion of the book. In the Chinese view reality has a complementary dualism. The Chinese encoded this in 64 hexagrams showing all combinations of yang & yin elements in earth, man & the heavens, & each ready to slide into the other configurations. I will liken 3 basic Chinese concepts to the Trinity. T’ai Chi is Universal Principle, the Ground of Being (Godhead). The Tao or Way to be followed in seeking harmony with the Ultimate; this is the Logos, though not incarnated. Tao enters our own minds to guide us as Teh, and can be likened to the Holy Spirit. Probably all religious descriptions must have ultimate reality, its expression in creation, and the response of the created.
Guidance/Humility—The I Ching, provides no magic protection, but a series of cosmic “traffic signs,” leaving you the adult responsibility to read & heed the “signs of the times” in order to flow with the traffic. I Ching doesn't minimize hazards, but displays optimism that all things can work together for good to the superior man. [The use of this ancient work gives] no direct command or prediction, but a mirror for the subconscious mind so that the resultant augury comes from a creative interaction between the prophetic statement and oneself.
[While liberals are concerned with and national issues, others are concerned with personal financial and family issues] And there is no escape from the ambiguity of inspiration and our obligation to interpret and to test it. Obeying God requires the investment of our own responsibility and creativity. If individual inspiration can go astray, what shall we say of testing by the consensus of a group? There is the danger of group-think and majority pressure to continue a wrong action. What is needed is a “broken and contrite heart,” i.e. the ability to admit error, to be able to change course 180 degrees if necessary, out of faith that the truth is larger than anyone’s ego. The meditator must be open to enlarging the vision of one’s world.
The Leaven in the World—Meditators will need faith [in the relevance of their inward search] when they go out into the world of social action. Because unenlightened and desperate action is wrong. Those who can “stop the world” or attune themselves to the Tao, will go out from that central experience with spiritual power and do things with a difference. The “superior man” can show us how the judo spirit of living agonistic encounters is more salutary to the commonweal than hostilities to the point of annihilation. Ideally, neither party wins or loses; both are brought to tame their opposed forces to the discipline of a shared pattern of coexistence.
We do have to use nature; the meditator can help us to do so, with the sense of kinship & wonder felt by American Indians toward animals & “our little vegetable redeemers.” In providing us with this leaven of contemplation, the meditator will meet with opposition & [misunderstanding]. We who can't follow all the way must be able to discern genuine meditators when they come among us teaching & healing, & be open to the glimpse of the vision they try to make real to us. I am still walking through the woods, a meditator who never quite got started, but at least we have followed the argument. We need: inner quiet; to flow with life's conflicting/ cooperating forces; expectancy, enlarged awareness; humility, self-correction, rebirth. Abraham Heschel said: “Life's meaning is to build a life like it was an art work.” & so the available mind must become the available life.
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304. Mind What Stirs in your Heart (by Teresina R. Havens; 1992)
[About the Author]—Teresina Rowell Havens was born 1/13/1909 and died 2/14/1992 in [the home in Portland OR she shared with Joe Havens]. She studied in several places, and received her Ph. D. in Comparative Religion from Yale in 1933. She found her heaven on earth at Itto En, a Buddhist-Christian community in Japan. Teresina discovered a rich mine of movement-language which invited literal expression, especially in the pastoral letters of George Fox. [This pamphlet grew out of] exploring some of the “movings” with Quaker gatherings.
FOREWORD—I am a liturgical dancer, whose understanding of dance & prayer has been altered by some of the very processes that Teresina writes of in this Guide. [At her Temenos retreat center] she would wake me with “Morning has Broken,” & close the day dancing with fireflies]. She said: “Frequently we lose touch with the River; we muddy or dam it, & break connection with pure & steady currents which are its heart.” Mind What Stirs in Your Hearts helps us touch this deep-flowing source. The [exercises &] work urges us, gently, to develop our capacity to listen profoundly to our bodies, so that our “dance-body” becomes the focus of our meditation. Teresina encourages us to find the inner, [unprogrammed] dance of our being. Carla De Sola Eaton
PART I. MOVEMENT AS CREATIVE FORCE—In the beginning, according to ancient Chinese sages was Flow—the Rhythm, the Tao, the Process. Out of this flowing “Empty Source,” emerged primal polarity of Yin & Yang, Inflow & Outflow, 10,000 things; movement precedes form. In all things great & small the whole of nature is interwoven with interpenetrating rhythms & movements, & forms are created in the interplay between them. This view turns upside down the classic Western view [where the form comes 1st, then movement].
This primordial moving energy in dance cannot be split into “spiritual” vs. “physical.” Through the movement of our bodies we experience the unity of spirit and breath. The way you move may be your teacher; we learn through moving. Preoccupation with the amazing circuitry of the brain has tended to blind us to the mutual interaction between the brain and the rest of the organism. Kinaesthetic experience may lead to insight.
PART II. BREATHE/Exercise 1: Breathing with One Another—The divine Ruakh (breathing Spirit) brought form out of chaos in the Beginning & continues to renew us in each moment of out-breathing & in-breathing. Between the first opening of our tiny diaphragm at birth to the last closing of our faithful, weary diaphragm our life unfolds. With spiritual awakening or “2nd birth,” this sensitive intersection of the autonomic with the central nervous networks becomes pliable & yields to mindful intent.
Join someone near you to form pairs. Sit down together, one behind the other with their hands gently on the middle of the front partner’s back, over the lungs and diaphragm. Be aware of the rhythmic out and in. The listener may gently reinforce the partner’s out-breath with very light pressure. After both have done it, face one another and share insights gained from listening to breathing rhythm.
Exercise 2: Breathing with Penington—After stretching, sit down on the floor; center down. Let your hands gently support your own out- and in-rhythm. As you listen to Penington, let your body respond. Listen to:
Breath is the prayer of the living child to the Father of Life, in that spirit which quickened it, which giveth it the right sense of its wants. The Father is the fountain of life, & giveth forth breathings of life to God’s child at God’s pleasure. /// My dear Friends, let us retire, & dwell in the peace which God breathes. /// In time of great trouble there may be life stirring underneath . . . in which there may be a drawing nigh & breathing of the heart to the Lord. /// Oh! … small breathings, small desires after the Lord, if true & pure, are sweet beginnings of life. /// Wait to feel the Seed, & the cry of thy soul in the Seed’s breathing life.
Each of us may have our own intention or aspiration or “cry of our soul” to send forth on the breath. You may want to try it daily and write down what you learned for future exploration.
Exercise 3: Breathing Life into the Dry Bones—[In nature there is a place that represents the Divine Breath-Wind-Spirit. It is] the “Sacred Breathing Mountains” of the American Southwest. [The Black Mesa Aquifer has] “a number of blow holes into which the air rushes for about 6 hours; then it rushes out again for 6 hours. There is an endless, swaying, oscillating movement of air, water, breath and spirit [within the aquifer].”
The Black Mesa aquifer is endangered by the demands on its water. We must broaden our prayerful breathing to include the needs of our planet. Imagine enacting Ezekiel 37: 1-11a and the spiritual “Dem Dry Bones”, with a narrator, Ezekiel, Dry bones [rest of class] and scarves for wind. [Close with] “Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.”
PART III. WALK/Exercise 1: Placing Feet on the Earth—Scout the outdoor area beforehand & establish limits for the area to walk in. Find a partner, sit down, gently hold & bless one another’s feet. Everyone move outdoors in a circle, standing in pairs; the “mover” closes her eyes; the witness/supporter gently holds the mover’s hand. Feel your connection with the earth, the pull of gravity. The supporter is there to provide protection, not to guide. Walk as if you were sauntering to the Holy Land, trusting land beneath your feet to be holy. Each partner will have about 5 minutes to walk blindfolded, with a few minutes afterward to share experience.
B. Walking with the Psalmist—We have “listened” with the soles of our feet. We have paid attention to the feel of the earth beneath us. We have become aware of how much we depend on our eyes in relating to Nature & the world around us. We now turn to a way to discover new dimensions of meaning in Biblical & Quaker metaphors by physically walking them. There is a natural affinity between the Hebrew & Quaker images of the spiritual life as a walk; the very way we move is an expression of our inner state, & in turn affects our outer state.
Exercise 1: “Moving a Verse from the Bible”—In this exercise each one is invited to select a passage from the Old Testament (OT) passages listed below and to express its spirit in movement and posture. The OT passages are: Lev. 26:13; I Kings 8:23; Pss. 18:33, 36; 35:6; 40:2; 55:22; 90:15; 119:45; 135:7; Prov. 19:2; Job:2-3; Isaiah 40: 31. Find a partner and together choose one passage. The warm-up exercises are designed to free up inhibited participants for group movement [i.e. tossing around a “ball of air”]. Read the passage and “listen” to the body images it invokes; let your body lead you. Don’t be too literal. Return to center spot. Invite each group to share a movement-insight. Close with a period of silence.
Individually, you may “move a verse”; you may also use a verse as a mantra or seed-verse in your daily life. When used with body movement, this practice has power to reinforce intention, to remind us of our direction. Walk very slowly. Repeat the phrase until it begins to say itself. A mantra may help to keep wandering thoughts at bay and may open the door to a deeper silence. Sidney Carter’s “George Fox Ballad” may be walked and moved to. How do we walk differently when we walk in the light?
C. Walking in Truth/Exercise: Walking with Fox—We shall open ourselves to the cumulative impact of Fox’s walking advices because it is difficult to enact them singly, literally, one by one. They are suggestive seeds to take into our imagination as we walk, letting them germinate there at their own pace. Choose one or more of the following phrases, [and walk with them]; find your own pace.
Let no Friends be discouraged, but Walk in the Truth & the love of it, & to it bend.
Walk as becomes the glorious Order of the Gospel, having the Water of Life in your Cisterns, & Bread of Life in your tabernacles & fruit on your trees, to the praise of God.
As to Unity, it makes all like it self, that do obey it; Universal to live out of [away from] narrowness & self.
Unity watches over all Professors of it, for their good, to keep within its bounds, & walk within its Order.
Dwell in the Truth & walk in the love of the Truth, in patience.
All you who know this Glorious Gospel of Peace; live and walk in it.
Keep your feet upon the top of mountains and sound deep to the Witness of God in everyone. Then will your feet be beautiful, that publish Peace, and to the captives proclaim Liberty.
Meet together, & in the Measure of God’s Spirit wait, that with it all your Minds may be guided up to God, to receive Wisdom from God; that ye may all come to know, how to Walk up to God in God’s wisdom.
WALK soberly, honestly, modestly & civilly & lovingly & gently & tenderly to all people.
PART IV. WAIT/A. Woolman and the Ecology of Haste—Our purpose in this part is not movement per se, but deeper understanding of our Quaker heritage and its implications for our lives today. John Woolman was, like Fox, an indefatigable walker, and also pondered explicitly the symbolic meaning of walking. Woolman traveled long distances on foot, declining a lift. He refused the ride because he could not conscientiously contribute to the oppression of post-horses and post-boys. Woolman points out how both the world of Nature and the human spirit pay a price for our haste. He said: “The true Calmness of life is changed into Hurry … many by eagerly pursuing outward Treasure, are in great Danger of withering as to the inward state of the Mind.” “Many have looked on one another, been strengthened in superfluities, one by the example of another … Dimness has come over many, and the Channels of true Brotherly Love been obstructed.” “In the love of money and in the wisdom of this world, business is proposed, then the urgency of Affairs push forward, and the mind cannot in this state discern the good and perfect will of God concerning us.”… “[Even when I say] ‘I must needs go on; and in going on I hope to keep as near the purity of Truth as the business before me will admit of,’ the mind remains entangled and the Shining of the Light of life into the Soul is obstructed.”
Exercise 1: “Shining of the Light … into the Soul.”—Walk forward while repeating the quote beginning with “I must needs go on …” How do you walk when the Light is blocked from shining into your soul? How would it change our economic justice efforts to focus on the psychic costs of our competitive economic system? Where are Woolman’s observations about hurry most relevant today?
B. Penington’s Way of Waiting—Is your meeting graced with a waiting spiritual worship? Let us explore [and “listen to”] how our bodies react to the necessity of waiting.
Exercise 1—Allow ample physical space. Imagine yourself in a particular waiting situation; be specific. Find a posture expressing how your whole organism is feeling. Hold that posture until you can repeat it. In a group, take turns showing your posture and letting the others guess what you are waiting for.
Exercise 2: Waiting for a Birth—Find a posture suggestive of waiting for an inward development. Imagine you are pregnant. How would your posture change as you progressed through the process? Share postures and discoveries with the group.
Exercise 3: Waiting to Feel the Seed with Penington—“Oh, wait to feel the Seed, and the cry of thy soul in the breathing life of the Seed … Wait for the risings of the power in thy heart … Be still and quiet, and silent before the Lord, not putting up any request to the Father.” Let your body respond spontaneously and directly to Penington’s images, without undue thought. Make some notes on what you have discovered.
Through the practice of “Authentic Movement” [which is only the title of this discipline], I learned to wait till my whole body was quiet & ready to be moved from within from a deep inner impulse. Expectation, programs, agendas had to be set aside. “If so moved” is familiar language to Friends. This discipline also fostered a discernment that answers the queries: How do we know when we “are moved?” How do we distinguish our own will from a true “leading?”
It is not easy to wait or just be unprogrammed; it takes effort to stop and wait. Penington suggests:
Come out of the knowledge & comprehension about things, into the feeling life … without reasoning, consulting, or disputing. ///There is a river, a sweet, still, flowing river, the streams whereof will make glad thy heart. & learn but in quietness & stillness to retire to the Lord & wait upon him. /// & so, sink very low & be-come very little, & know little; know no power to believe, act, or suffer anything for God, but as it is given thee.
Another movement discipline grounded in Zen is found in Japanese Noh dances. Janet Heyneman writes: “I still understand very little of what goes on in the plays, but I know how the boards feel under my feet … It is a kind of waiting, this mindless repetition of movement, waiting for the articulation of an understanding that is too physical for consciousness. It’s a meaning brain can’t explain, but that body understands. Noh dance had developed out of the sacramental movements of a human being filled by a god. It would uncover the movements that trace the furrows of human inner life.”
In the mysterious organism of Mother Gaia, including not only our planet but our interstellar system, everything affects everything else. The unfolding of the divine Seed within us is so momentous, so unpredictable, that we cannot afford to clutter our worship with pre-programmed hymns, prayers and sermons; the only appropriate response is to wait. Keeping deliberately and faithfully unprogrammed is a way to keep that void or center open. One format to encourage spontaneity is to leave a spacious center free for movement, with members sitting until moved to move. Trust the Unexpected.
V. “KEEPER” & “FORWARD PART”—This exercise utilizes the previous chapters Breathing, Walking, and Waiting of the. It may be used by itself as a single workshop without preparation. “It is one thing to sit waiting to feel the power, and another to feel and keep within the sense and limits of the power when Ye come to act… Oh, wait and watch to feel your keeper keeping you within the holy bounds and limits, within the pure fear, within the living sense, while ye are acting for your God; that ye may only be God’s instrument.” [In this scenario there are three figures]: The “Forward Part” (“outruns her leadings”); the “Keeper” (i.e. “within holy bounds and limits; the Quaker/Pilgrim (asked to wait). The first 2 interact with the Quaker/Pilgrim; each person tries every role. Each group shares their movement-discoveries with the whole circle.
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About the Author—Both a birthright & a convinced Friend, Bertha May Nicholson 1st came to Pendle Hill in 1948-49. Newly married, she was Anna Brinton’s secretary; her husband was a Haverford-Pendle Hill scholar. In 1984, she rejoined the staff as a part-time receptionist. Besides serving on different Worship & Ministry committees, she has traveled in ministry to England and Ramallah, and to Yearly Meetings (NW, IA, IN, OH).
Introduction—Specific ideas for these meditations have emerged in the last few years, but I have been asking questions about Friends and the arts for a long time. Is there a relationship between music and the spiritual life? The writing, having taken form during a week-day Meeting for Worship, has had a life of its own. My theme is a D scale, a moment of truth explored from several perspectives.
Scales—For a number of years I have given private [violin] lessons. I enjoy working with young musicians and developing a style that will help them learn well. 20th century western music has been built on the major and minor scales. For learning classical music, the scale is a given to be explored. I find it helpful to show my string students visually on the piano the pattern of whole and half steps making up a scale of 8 notes.
Young violinists usually find D a comfortable key, since it begins with an open string. The memory of this D scale remained with me. How do you acknowledge a golden moment, & then move beyond it? At each new stage you are vulnerable, running the risk of mistakes & tempted to stay with easy things. If you really want to become a performer there is always more to be learned, as you apply your growing technique to your repertoire. What is the truth that is like a scale, that could help us learn more about God? Both individual experience and tradition can be seen in the development of music, biblical tradition, and Quakerism.
Musicians in our culture discovered that major & minor scales support the most potential for musical expression; the groundwork was laid for classical music. In Judeo-Christian history there has often been tension between prophet & priest. Quakers are understandably concerned about the use of form without inspiration. If individual inspirations are true they should not be unrelated to the corporate experience in the end. Mendelssohn wrote in a tenor air: “If with all your hearts ye truly seek Me,/Ye shall surely find Me/Thus saith our God.”
Songs—I enjoy searching out a good piece for a given key, one that has both technical challenge and intellectual interest for a specific student. [Later], in a group you learn to keep together, to sustain your part while others are playing theirs, and to contribute to something larger than yourself. I was born into a Quaker family that enjoyed music. My parents welcomed my interest in the violin.
Moving into Philadelphia YM gave me a new perspective on the Quaker testimony against music. There were understandable reasons supporting early Quaker attitudes towards the arts. In Puritan England many serious-minded people were sharply critical of both church & secular music. It was a creaturely invention, distracting people from the life that was eternal. As years went by Friends put more emphasis on controlling behavior. Because time was better spent on spiritual pursuits, you were discouraged from trying the arts for yourself.
From the middle of the last century interest in the arts began to surface among members of the Society. We see the creative side of our nature as positive, and we are free to sing. As musicians are supported by playing or singing with others so are seekers of any age uplifted by gathering together to worship God. My early church recollections include hymn-singing, my father’s sermons and the primarily silent midweek Meeting.
Etudes—An etude is a musical study piece. Teachers write collections of them in different ranges of difficulty, with each etude having one or more techniques, which are important to acquire. Mazas’ Etude #20 teaches the distances between notes and how to move up and down the fingerboard from one note to another smoothly & in tune. Your teacher listens & makes further suggestions for practice. [There is a balance between expecting too much before students are ready, & introducing all that the student is capable of at each level of development].
Each teacher I had brought something new to my understanding of etude #20, something I would not have thought of myself. It was valuable to learn to concentrate on just one thing. Growth is always intangible while it is happening, but sometimes I could look back & see improvement. God can come to you in any discipline, for secular paths, important & valuable in themselves, can also bring you glimpses into spiritual life in special ways.
I also was beginning identify what I now recognize as spiritual etudes. Their discovery comes out of your experience. When you grope and finally stumble upon a prayer, God answers, very individually within your space and understanding, at the time and in the way that is right for you, [perhaps] coming from a source you would not have found alone. This is your etude to practice. Progress may not be easy, but when you accept the Light that is given and make use of it in your heart and life over a period of time, then more can be revealed. If I try to quiet my fears and work with words that have been given to me, sometimes I have a sense of being above the concern, or find that one struggle helps in the next, as one etude builds into another in difficulty.
Orchestra—Since it was 1st performed in the music hall in Dublin in 1742, Messiah has been performed hundreds of times with differing numbers of singers and instruments. I 1st sang choruses from Messiah at Earlham and recently joined a Chorale which presented almost the entire work. I like to harmonize or help support with 1st or 2nd violin the singers in a large choral work. Your line is just one small segment of the work, but important in its turn as it fits into the whole.
George Fox said of Pendle Hill: “the Lord let me see atop of hill [where] he had a great people to be gathered.” That undertaking was a large work of another kind. After inspired religious leader appears, it often happens that individuals interpret vision partially & defend partial vision as the whole. [Splits have occurred in Quakerism over 300 years]. There are 4 major groups in American Quakerism: Friends General Conference (FGC); Conservative; Friends United Meeting; & Evangelical Friends Alliance. Meetings range from small, 300 year-old meetings held primarily in silence to large, modern churches with team ministry, choirs & organ. When we find our places, when we listen to other Quakers, when we attend YM, when we visit other Meetings & YM, when we are led to various kinds of Quaker service, we become part of larger family. When we’re open to the Spirit, when we are aware of God’s living presence, diversity can bring us a fuller experience of corporate faith and practice.
The Minor Mode/Composing—After a student has studied the easiest major scales and reviewed them in depth, it is a good time to introduce the relative minor scales. Johann S. Bach wrote B Minor Mass between 1731-1737; it was 1st performed as a whole in Berlin 1835, and in Bethlehem, PA in 1900. I heard it at the Bach Festival for several years. [One part of the Mass was the Kyrie]. This prayer—“Lord have mercy upon us”—has been used in many languages for hundreds of years and appears in various forms in the Psalms, the gospels, the liturgy and the Jesus Prayer. When you do not know the reasons, or the way out, when you are hurting, when the sun is hidden behind clouds for days—if you reach out to God in prayer, strength is given. I now find that I am sometimes changing the “Kyrie eleison” to “Lord having mercy,” [because] God is doing just that. Understanding can come through sorrow as we reach out for God’s hand in the dark. We receive not just the energy to survive, but the growing awareness that God is here with us in a way that [only a search will reveal].
In 1921 Arthur Honegger wrote a Symphonic Psalm, King David, which was 1st performed in 1923. [It has] added sharps and flats and unexpected intervals and rhythms. George Fox’s experience with music was such that he understood something which all musicians experience at one time or another—the negative aspects of the craft of music—superficiality, self-consciousness, pride. George Fox himself knew and valued the psalms and would have known that they had been set to various musical accompaniments. In his view a 2nd-hand musical rendition of a psalm was inadequate to describe either David’s faith or the glory of God. George Fox wrote: And I was to bring (people) off/ from all the world’s fellowships/ & prayings & singings/which stood in forms without power … that they might pray in the Holy Ghost, and sing in the spirit/ and with the grace that comes by Jesus,/ making melody in their hearts to the Lord.” Assuming a wide knowledge of scripture, he interweaves and develops biblical references together with his own insight and gives us verbal song. While inspired men and women still may speak profoundly across the years, the reality of God’s continuing presence needs to be re-expressed in fresh ways for each new generation, that the love of our Creator may be further and forever revealed.
Teachers/A Still Small Voice—Studying with a teacher is important part of becoming a musician, [learning finer points of bringing out good sound, good music selection, encouragement, etc.]. Concert artists need to think about refreshing technique; sometimes a master teacher will listen as concert preparations are being made. “Every person is a crowd—a combination of people who have really influenced you.” I sensed that others besides my-self were aware of a connection between learning a musical instrument & developing your potential as a person.
Where do we look for direction in the spiritual life? Where are our guides, our teachers? They are all around us, if only we can see & hear. God has spoken to me through: parents; children; friends; relatives; nature; men & women, living & passed; the Hebrew people. Sorrow has also been one of my teachers, although it takes time to comprehend that this can be so. I am recognizing the Inward Christ, the combination of all my teachers.
[God spoke to the Hebrew people & their leaders in unexpected ways, both dramatic & unassuming]. God speaks in unexpected fashion still. As father & mother, God is with each one of us for every step. For an interval our lives are illumined, & the memory remains. We need then to take up the measure of light that is given, making it a part of our lives, as we are called. Julian of Norwich uses a word—courtesy, the courtesy of God. God reaches out to us all in the best way for each of us, where we are. Love appears to be the name of the next scale.
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199. Contemplation and Leisure (by Douglas V. Steere; 1975)
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251. Nurturing Contemplation (by Carol R. Murphy; 1983)
About the Author—Author of 16 Pendle Hill Pamphlets, including this one, Carol Murphy continues to explore the roles of reason, revelation and mystical experience in the mature religious faith. She invites readers to consider the wellspring of action in the contemplative life. She writes: “I hope the title can be read both ways—as the nurture of contemplation and the contemplation that nurtures.”
[Introduction]—I wonder if there isn’t a deeper issue we ignore when we judge a saintly, contemplative way of life by the standards of efficient social change. Only rarely does a healing presence come to us who reveals not a plan of action but a new way of being & relating to the world. Those who go about healing by their presence keep social concern rooted not in the future but in the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. The present tense of the mystery of being comes to us in glimpses [of death], or through the contemplative souls who speak to our sense of wonder. To have a saintly or contemplative community in our neighborhood is to come to know a way of life which silently judges the shrill hustle of the world’s getting & spending. Thomas Merton writes: “We who have this call … are called to prefer the apparent uselessness, the apparent inactivity of simply sitting at the feet of Jesus & listening to him.” Some miss the point that Merton’s goal wasn’t output, but inner transformation.
Who is the Contemplative—What is the nature of the contemplative vocation? What kind of person are we talking about? [My contemplatives] include active souls like Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day. The common element is being rather than doing, looking rather than using, which leads to an intuition of the underlying unity with the being of all things. Frederick Franck writes: “Focus on … that plant or leaf or dandelion … Feel that it contains all the riddles of life and death. It does! You are no longer looking, you are SEEING.” May Sarton writes: “We are aware of God only when we cease to be aware of ourselves … in the sense of losing self in admiration and joy.” Religious experience is the lively expectation of finding the hidden One. Mystical experience is like opening a door—and there the One is actually revealed.
We can’t throw out the contemplative experience without casting doubts on everyday “reality,” ourselves included. In Western philosophy we look for the “skeleton in the closet”—the logos or logical structure hidden beneath appearances. In Eastern philosophy meaning is openly part of the appearances, concealed only by the searchers’ blindness or inattention. R. H. Blyth writes: “Zen is looking at things with the eye of God, that is becoming the thing’s eyes so that it looks at itself with our eyes.”
The Nurture of the Contemplative—What environment is required [for this way of looking]? What response is required to the often incompatible demands of the world? It is often necessary to escape not only from the deadly seduction of sleazy values, but even the legitimate pressure of activists’ good works. [It took a long time for me to] realize that I couldn’t change the world; it had to begin with me. I was prepared by upbringing as well as later circumstances for the happily celibate and somewhat reclusive observer’s life I now lead.
[Most] who try to be in the world but not of it have to come to terms with the dilemma of how to divide their time between contemplation and conforming to the world’s ways of earning a living. Earlier Friends were contemplative enough to be willing to limit their “creaturely activity” to make time for inward retirement as did John Woolman. Harvey Cox wrote: “Meditation could become a modern equivalent of Sabbath.”
The Setting of the Contemplative Life—The thoroughgoing contemplative has to spend his or her life in a single-minded journey of discovery. Thomas Merton entered the Abbey of Gethsemane with enthusiasm as a young man with a great need for structure & close community. He did find an austere life & outdoor labor. He also found a muscular American busyness that allowed little time for recollection. The abbot was a non-contemplative, former naval officer [who was as much concerned with patriotism and nationalism as he was with Jesus].
When organizational rigidity triumphs over spirit, the school for sainthood becomes a place where personal identity is obliterated by institutional clothing, shaving of hair & lack of privacy and possessions. When Merton was finally free to live apart from the community, he found a quiet joy in his own little hermitage & the time [for contemplation]. There is a deeper reason for the solitary life: the need to come to terms with self and God.
Thoreau wrote: “I have never found the companion as companionable as solitude.” Joseph Havens wrote: “[Solitude] intensifies the ecstasies and it also intensifies the depths. May Sarton writes: “I can tell you that solitude/ Isn’t all exaltation, inner space/ Where the soul breathes and work can be done/ Solitude exposes the nerve, raises up ghosts./ The past, never at rest, flows through it. Elise Boulding writes: “The wisdom of solitude isn’t easy to translate into the world … St. Augustine tried to say that in solitude he understood humanness, but easily lost track of it when confronted with his fellow specimens of humanity. I love humans now as I never loved them before when I depended on them daily.”
Finding the presence in yourself, in your hermit’s cell, becomes the 1st priority for those who would love their fellows in a contemplative way. Monica Furlong writes: “There is something dark & perilous about the contemplative experience which makes it hard to forget that one is human before all else, constantly endangered, often alone.” Merton finally emerged from the cloister to delight his contemplative eye in an Asian encounter.
The Contemplative’s Discipline—The contemplative way of life involves not only a place of community or solitude, but a discipline. For the holy person whose life is his or her creative work, the discipline includes all of life. Merton [thinks that] without a backbone of sober self-denial, community life becomes “mere gregariousness, vapid togetherness … Our freedom is by no means simply a removal of obstacles which permits us to fulfill our best natural aspirations.” The discipline of the spiritual life can be summed up in 3 principles: [detachment; quiet acceptance of what is; trustworthy, unshakable love]. The clarified love that can do as it pleases flowers from celibacy at its best. The contemplative must explore its claims.
Anne Lindbergh writes: “It is possible to be objectively in love—that is, to be in love with a person … just knowing that they are, & going to them in your mind as one goes [to a beautiful, safe place], for worship & peace. In the totally sublimated lives of celibates there can appear such spiritual friendships as that between St. Teresa & St. John of the Cross, or between St. Francis & St. Clare. Nearly all spiritual disciplines call for celibacy at least in the final stages when sexual energy of the psyche’s complementary masculine & feminine aspects are unified in the whole self. By the end of his life, Merton was able to form friendships with women & allow himself to enjoy their qualities without lust. Merton was able to develop an almost confessional relationship with the theologian Rosemary Ruether & learn to take her continued keen questioning of his monastic vocation.
The Outreach of Contemplatives—One feels that Ruether is valuable as a gadfly to make Merton write: “Is the cloistered life a mere cult of ordered serenity, or is it complete self-forgetfulness in obedience to God?" Sister Benedicta Ward writes: “The contemplative life cannot be justified in terms of what it produces, what it achieves, how it ‘relates.” I think we can spell out the specific ways the contemplative can help to heal society from within or outside of a cloistered situation. We no longer understand the contemplatives’ experience of being prayed through rather than praying. It is the contemplative’s task to go upstream from the world’s troubles to their source in humankind’s troubled relationship with the Ultimate.
The way next closet to home is contemplative poetry and inspirational writing which speaks to the hungering souls of the world. “That of God” in an inspired word can speak to “that of God” in every human. A closer engagement of the contemplative and the world is the use of religious communities as oases of quiet in the world through retreats or as centers of teaching. Later in life there comes a time when a place could be made for the elderly to turn toward the contemplative life rather than to worldly alternatives.
David Brandon writes: “The tragedy of helping is that so often we attempt to manage social processes …[With Zen] We revolutionize society by removing obstacles to greater caring from within ourselves … Helping and being helped have tended to merge, become joyfully confused, interactive and entwined to the mutual benefit of both persons. Contemplatives can engage still more closely with others the role of spiritual directors and teachers of the growth of the inner life.
Christopher Isherwood found that Swami Prabhavananda’s physical absence made less difference than he expected. He said: “I used to draw a breath of relief when I left his room.” Merton speaks of frustration which comes of getting “unconscious conviction that we are in the presence of wonderful spiritual values which aren’t reaching us … I would say it is very important in contemplative life not to overemphasize contemplation … How can we relish higher things of God if we can’t enjoy some simple thing that comes along as a gift from Him!”
Jack Huber said about a Burmese meditation center: “Perhaps it was the meditation that allowed me not to see [my withdrawal] as a failure. When we chain ourselves with notions of we must have happen, we lose what does happen. When we free ourselves to accept what does happen, we might even allow ourselves to appreciate it & live it fully. The contemplative spirit may help one to take a non-contemplative experience contemplatively. Thomas Merton writes: “[St. Francis and his hermit-followers] were deeply evangelical and remained always open to the world, while recognizing the need to maintain a certain distance and perspective.”
The call to Quaker traveling ministry of the late 19th century came often in a childhood sense of the presence of God when alone and out-of-doors. It was reinforced by powerful examples of local and traveling ministers. After sufficient testing, the minister would become more sensitive to the spiritual condition of others. He would travel long distances to speak at various meetings and to hold “religious opportunities” with families or individuals. The Quaker leaven in the world owes much to these “active contemplatives” of the past, whose central message was that the living presence of the Spirit is here and now.
Merton wrote to Rosemary Ruether: “I love all the well-meaning people who go to Mass and want things to get better and soon, but I understand Buddhists better than I do them the Zens understand me better. Relinguishing every attempt to grasp God in limited human concepts, the contemplatives’ act of submission and faith attains to God’s presence as the ground of human experience and to God’s reality as the ground of being. The contemplative who lives by the simple prayer of “looking” at the Divine mystery is closer to the untutored believer than to those who know theology or philosophy to have religious opinions. The contemplative influence in the intellectual world is more indirect [and can be found in ecology (man’s unity with all things), physics, Eastern religions, medicine, and political thinking,] with “everything affecting everything else].
The matured contemplative can return to the world, willing to work, but with a difference. Monica Furlong says of Christianity that its heart lies in “one shattering insight which is certainly implicit in other religions … that the heart of the human experience is death; this death, faithfully experienced, inevitably yields again to life.” Peré de Caussade writes: “Abandonment to God’s will is both active & passive … We are like a tool which is useless until it is in the hands of a workman … Many ordinary religious people cannot bear the thought of souls who let all they do depend on providence.”
It isn’t easy for most of us to feel so at one with flow of events that trust in providence becomes a reality. This isn’t everybody’s calling. A vocation to abandonment requires faith & daring. Contemplative life is a life of apparent leisure & inner adventure, a “rest most busy,” a life of both solitude & compassion, of disciplined renunciation with the freedom of love. Father McNamara suggests that: “We stop doing half the work that presently consumes us & attend to the remaining half wholeheartedly, with contemplative vision & creative love.”
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434. A Quietness Within: The Quiet Way as Faith and Spirituality (By Elaine Pryce; 2015)
` About the Author—Elaine Pryce qualified as a teacher specializing in multicultural education. Some of her most formative life experiences and learning have derived from the wisdoms of migrant and indigenous people and cultures she has lived and worked with [in the UK] and overseas, in particular a Papuan priest, who advised her to "find God within; say 'Yes' to the divine life within you." It has become a lifelong exploration.
The Depth in Which we are Quiet—Paul Tillich believed our actions would be more effective if they were found in a more profound, creative depth, "the depth in which we are quiet." We can't experience deep joy, unless we accept an uncomfortable, demanding way, risking & breaking through the surface things to the depths. Our lives are in such constant motion that we don't pause to consider more profound levels of being. True roads may travel in a different direction from the one we are following; in our haste "we feel something radical, total, & unconditional is demanded of us; we rebel against it, try to escape its urgency, & won't accept its promise." In the 15th century, Thomas à Kempis writes things about devoting our energy to material affairs that could be about our century. On the more authentic & sometimes suffering path we discover the spirit's depths & our true life.
Christian Origins: The Inner Quest/ Later Teachings—Early on, another word for contemplation was quies or quietud—quiet or quietude. The word conveyed a sense of resting [peaceably], both in & before God. Quietude here, came from the secure depths of the believer's spiritual life. [To pursue this], Christian men & wo-men ventured into the desert. Away from distractions, they explored the source of their faith's tributaries; monastic life developed from this. [They felt they were following Jesus' example]. Mystics & quietists were often regarded as spiritual adventurers, & dissenting pathfinders who ventured the depths of their consciousness to find God. They sought authentic ground of eternal truth, transformational encounters at the deepest level of being. If there emerged a credo in this quiet way, it spoke of questing spirit in the boundless compass of sacred mystery.
In the 15th century, Thomas à Kempis wrote The Imitation of Christ, which was especially prized by 17th- & 18th-century Quakers. Thomas believed [with Quakers] that spiritual renewal required radically yet simply emulating Christ's life & the earliest Christians' unadorned, devotional faith. Thomas cautions that community & we ourselves can be demanding & burdensome. Therefore know when to retreat to a place of quietude in order to reclaim & renew your spiritual self; just present yourself as you are before God. Thomas writes: "Enter like Moses into the ... [Tent of Meeting] to ask guidance of the Lord." Take refuge also in prayer, in the depths of your heart.
The Franciscan Francisco de Cisneros believed spiritual knowledge is for everybody, [regardless of] wealth, social status, education. If you bring as many people as possible to experience the God within the heart and to know the simple reality of divine love where and as each person is, the outcome will be a reformed and renewed church. There is a both/ and interrelationship between the individual and the wider community. For Quakers and Christian mystics, the way of quies connects deeply to a more open, accessible spirituality, expressed and lived out personally and in community. The early Quakers themselves were a new generation of venturers of renewal in the Christian tradition, calling people to the original undiluted source of the faith. They plowed their audacious furrows through the rutted landscapes of 17th century religion.
The Quiet Way as Mystery—The quiet way engages the heart and soul in the wisdom and emptiness of the still center, the sacred mystery within. This way, this theological boat invites on board the paradoxes of: fullness in emptiness; [in giving up our selves], we find our [true] selves; knowing in unknowing; [finding the way] by losing it. In the space [between the "poles" of these paradoxes] resides the truth of a God who refuses to hostage to the limits of human reason and its constructs.
Mystery is what we know we don't know. For the quietist, this not knowing expresses a quality of the sacred. It is like a seed in the loam of sheltered darkness, waiting for optimal conditions to germinate, to be revealed. Mystery is also letting go of what we think we know about God in order to let God be who God is. [Kenyans have a myth that after creating everything, God lived with humankind], but they constantly made requests, petitions and complaints, so] a wearied God decided to leave in the night. [The people were frantic] and called for God to return. Then, they realized that everything around them, even themselves, had acquired a sublime beauty. God had gone, yet only to be present in a different way. God in absence is yet present as God truly is. God, spirit, the eternal, is Presence itself. God said, "I am here, but not as you have known me."
Soon after George Fox's initial transformational experience, he was to write in 1653 of the "mystery" of the second birth, a spiritual rebirth, which accesses knowledge of God, accessible through the way of stillness and peace. Whatever you thought of God previously, God is more than the very summit of your thoughts. George Fox wrote that we need to enter a new world of being, a world of silence before God; to die to our natural wisdom, reasoning, and understandings, so that we can experience the life of God within.
Mystery as Sacred—Sacred mystery is profound. It inhabits whatever is inexpressible & unavailable to the [results] of reason & language; it is [the stuff of] questions without answers. The mystery of suffering has [puzzled] scholars & people of faith since Job's time & before. There is at times a paradoxical transformation that occurs in suffering's unanswerable mystery. We question Providence, yet Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, tells us that it's Providence that questions us. Abraham J. Heschel writes: "... our lives can be the spelling of answers."
The mystery of suffering is at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus was a master of the deep, healing one-to-one encounter. What renders the Christian faith sacred is its message of love, healing, hope, and reclamation, and its belief in human strength, survival, and inner renewal in the presence of the accompanying mystery, the Eternal Thou. From numerous accounts, it appears that Jesus was at heart, and by spiritual practice, a contemplative, who knew that we alone are accountable for the depths of our spiritual journey.
Contemplative practice's relevance in times of difficulty or suffering is expressed throughout world religion. Buddha said that existence itself causes suffering, but this shouldn't dictate or define who we are in our deepest or highest being. For the Sufi, everything indicates & embraces its complementary opposite, [i.e.] in joy is the possibility of pain, & vice versa. For the earliest Quakers, suffering wasn't to be avoided when truth was at stake. They taught always to seek the purity of truth in the sacredness of interior silence where [guidance is found].
Transformation comes in the nitty-gritty of simply getting through life and its challenges with an unbroken soul. Sometimes we experience a mystery that touches the soul with beauty, with pure perception of Presence and giftedness [through moments of tenderness, quiet and awesome beauty]. It is the mystic in us that causes us to "dwell poetically" in our lives, to harness more expansive dimensions of being.
The Quiet Way and Early Quakers—George Fox wasn't a stranger to paradox. He said that God is mystery, a hidden, "incomprehensible spirit; but wait ... God is also the living God, always present & accessible to us"; God is Presence itself. There is a "sinking down to that which is pure," & an upward trajectory which lifts us "up to God—out of the mortal into the immortal." Fox embraces the life within, [& the] presence, power, spirit, mystery, light & truth that are enfolded [in it]. [The experience of God in silence] brings each person's "heart, mind, soul & spirit to the infinite & incomprehensible God, & from it flows a love to all the universal creation."
Fox writes: "I saw into that which was without end, and things that cannot be uttered, and of the greatness and infiniteness of the love of God, which cannot be expressed by words." And again: "See and feel the Lord's presence amongst you ... and know one another in the power of it." "And so comes every spirit here to have a particular satisfaction and quietness in [ones] own mind ... and so that of God manifested in [one], leads [ones] mind up to God, [one] comes to the quiet and peaceable life, and comes to retain God in [ones] knowledge, and [ones] spirit is quieted, and [one] comes to hold the truth in righteousness." After Fox's death, William Penn wrote: "[As] a child, he was more religious, inward, still, solid and observing," and that as a young man "he taught and was an example of silence." Fox's numerous epistles were mostly addressed to groups of Friends; they contained teaching, inspiration, instruction, warning, and sometimes rebuke.
Isaac Penington sheltered a more sensitive & tender soul. He wrote extensive letters, many from prison, of both pastoral care for individual Quakers & encouragement for Quaker groups. Individual transformation leads to transformation of the spiritual community, & beyond that, of the world. His quies-focused faith acknowledged the most painful kind of personal struggle. To Widow Henning, he advises, "learn in quietness & stillness to retire to the Lord & wait upon him; thou shalt feel peace & joy." Attentive passivity for Penington naturally results in an experience of unity with God & the subsequent transformative effect of God's "visitation to the soul."
William Penn wrote: "Soon as you wake, retire your mind into pure silence from all thoughts & ideas of worldly things; in that frame wait upon God to feel God's good presence ... delight to step home (within yourselves, I mean), commune with your own hearts & be still. "There, in the home within, you will feel & experience God's presence. Jesus taught us to love God with everything you are; love yourself (by willing the best possible good for yourself); in the same way, love your neighbor. In this is the inner mystical law of the quiet way.
Signposts of the Way—Francis de Sales perceived the world as an interpersonal unity, a wholeness, and the inner life as essentially about journeying, developing the depths of the soul. He was a deep sea diver plunging heroically into waves of seismic change in the 17th-century worldview. Teresa of Avila was a scaler of the spiritual heights through her "mansions" of the soul. Pioneers of the spirit began to sculpt new, more expansive forms in which to shape their perspectives; they found God everywhere. Fox wrote in a psalm-like prose poem [shared in part]: "[God] is the living God, who clothes the world with grass and herbs, [and trees] ... and bring[s] forth food for you. [God] is the living God, who causes the stars to arise in the night to give you light, and the moon to arise to be a light in the night ... and the sun to give warmth [and weather] to you ... [God] is the living God, who made the heaven and the earth, the clouds ... the springs ... the great sea ... the light ... [God] is the living God who gives you breath and life and strength ... [God] is the living God, and God is to be worshiped."
Fox saw no contradiction between the "second-moment" expression of the spirit in an outwardly spoken hymn of praise and the "first-moment" experience of the spirit in inward, silent worship. In vision, metaphor, poetry, and imagination, he signposts us to God as living Presence, primal "cause" of all creation who deserves to be worshipped. Those who are estranged from "the witness of God in themselves, cannot be still, cannot be silent." Words (as in spoken ministry) are simply for leading us to the sublimity, the melding of the seeking self and the divine, of a first-moment encounter.
Signposts of the Quiet Way: A Personal Journey Begun—The quiet way calls us to fathom who we are & how we fit the shape of the depths, of our deepest calling in our life project & spiritual experience. The quiet way encourages us to begin an experiment with the sacred, with soul. The task of poets & mystics of the soul has generally been to attempt to give language & meaning to the Mystery, to the call to co-venture with the divine.
I was born in North Wales, in a stone cottage built by my paternal great-grandfather in a small settlement of 7 houses. 5 of these were built by my great-grandfather for himself and members of his family on hilly fields of wild gorse and fern banks. The large, 3-generation family home, Olive House, is still, in my heart, home. [I lived there with my godparents when my grieving mother could not take care of me]. I was with family members who gathered in Olive House to express their condolences after my brother's tragic death. We inadvertently formed a circle; one aunt got up and held my head close against her and gently stroking my hair while I wept. I remember mostly the experience of comforting silence, the deepest sense of being accompanied. As I listened to my godmother, I realized that faith itself had become a mystery to her, & that faith could be explored, questioned, reflected on. Faith was a flowing malleable concept, an ongoing, questing dialogue with self and God.
My mother's widowed mother lived a quarter-mile away in a tiny hamlet. She kept chickens for eggs, 2 cows for milk, damson trees for jam, her faith, and her own quiet counsel. Undoubtedly, I absorbed from her, and from my father's ability to be quietly present to himself, how to be a hospitable presence to myself in time of solitude. My grandmother was a wise elder ... perhaps because her life had been anything but easy.
[How does one] tell how life experiences mold themselves into the shape of our later psyches? How do things remembered and not remembered determine who we are? The thing about the work of transformation is not to let former "skins" continue to define us, nor to let others define us by "old skins", nor indeed to attire us with remnants of their own unshed skins. The people who have most influenced me have been those who, at some level, have nurtured close companionship with the depths of the quiet way. I have learned to recognize profound spiritual presences as pilgrims of the spirit and as soul companions on the human journey. I am molded for better or worse by the psychical paradox of my family's proximity in my life and journeying. My life story is attached to my psyche, but I am not my life story.
Conclusion—In the Welsh language, taith means more than journey. It indicates what happens along the way, the developmental progress of the journey. Hireath [roughly translates] as longing for home and [connection with ancestors]. Many years ago I experienced a traditional Maori funeral, a tangi. A Maori woman began a ceremonial call, a karanga. The powerful, soulful, primal sounding of the call seemed to fill the mountainous space, rebounding with a resonance that sank deep into my soul, with spirit and ancestoral longing and home. Waldo Williams used the Welsh word Awen to exemplify a sense of return to our true spiritual source and to transformation. For him, Awen is what arises from the quiet, hidden depths of the soul (the Awen) that transforms the world, that brings us home again.
Queries—Have you experienced deep inner peacefulness in quietness? What is your experience with knowing God? How is George Fox's "deeply & inwardly spiritual man" connected to his "fire-brand preacher? What is the difference between "first-moment" experience of spirit & "second-moment" expression of spirit? What do you believe about the source of personal & communal transformation?
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