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Showing posts from November, 2007

An Answer

So I may have stumbled across an answer to the questions I was struggling with a few days ago , about how to somehow live simply a life that seems too hurried for simplicity, or even thought. In an article given me by my environmental Ffriend Don C, " Fire in the Bones ," in Tikkun Magazine, Alastair McIntosh shares the question he asks himself, to stay spiritually centered in his activism. McIntosh speaks of "sitting down briefly each day and simply asking,"What does the deep Spirit of Life seek of me now?" Maybe it's OK if my life seems insane and cyclonic, if I can just keep enough of a still space to sit with that question. What is the deep Spirit of Life seeking of me now? Even if I have trouble sitting with the question on a daily basis--and I'm going to try to create it, somehow--I know I can listen for the answer in Meeting on First Days. I think perhaps it is enough, whether I am too tired for words or not. I think perhaps it is enough of

Trying to Float

Another day of being too tired to blog. Yeah, yeah, I know--technically this is a blog entry, right? But it's not what I want to be writing... I'm going to go ahead and write this as a big, fuzzy journal entry--no editing, no waiting for discernment, just stream of consciousness. (I'll try to spare you thoughts about what I ate for lunch, however. I really do want to avoid becoming that kind of a blog!) Every morning, as I'm waking up and getting ready for my day, I think about the things I'll do when work gets out. Today is the day , I think to myself, I'm really gonna go roller skating again. Today is the day I'll walk downtown after work with Peter and get supper at La Veracruzana , or browse for used books at Raven or Cherry Picked, or Half Moon books. But mostly I think, maybe tonight I'll get to write. And I'll spend the time I have alone in the morning, as I'm packing up my lunch and sitting down with my breakfast, thinking abo

"Up!"

Early in meeting for worship today, I was all caught up in my head--in ideas about what is ministry and what is faithfulness, and whether or not I'm "doing" Quakerism "right." And then an echo of the Song of Songs came to me: "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine." And everything changed, and the words washed away in just being with the Beloved. And the Light grew so bright and good around me and inside me, that I could just about bear it: There is an hour, every week, during which I get to drop all the hard work of trying to be something, and just be what I'm supposed to be. I don't have to be strong, or wise, or clever. I don't have to anything at all, because the Beloved is there, and it's just fine... At those times, the image comes to me, of myself as a tiny child, almost too young for speech. Have you ever seen a little girl, one just barely walking, make her way solemnly to her mother? That's me. And when I ge