A safe place?
I've been thinking a lot this morning about this post from Sheffield Quakers, which dismantles the canard that "the Quaker Space is accepting because it is largely content-free - you can bring anything you like to it, but it has little to offer in itself." (Again the writer at Sheffield Quakers isn't saying this, but rebuffing it just as I am.)
Quaker meeting is not content-free. God is there. Silence and the trusting willingness to listen is present and required of us.
What is safety anyway? If being accepted for your humanity makes you feel safer, welcome to Quaker meeting. Now get ready for real danger. The battle is not out there, and it is not in the seat next to you. The battle, like the light, is within, and it is as painful and un-safe as anything you may have experienced outside your own thought. Those of us who have already been to hell, thank you very much, are not comforted by the "safety" of knowing that it "doesn't matter" to the person sitting next to us if we are gay, divorced, orphaned, in recovery, or unemployed. It doesn't matter anyway.
We've got listening to do, and the fight that requires the most strength is surrender. Surrendering any definition of human self in order to let God in, to let God define who we are and what we do. It is the hardest battle any of us will ever wage.
Looking for a safe place? Heh. Psalms 46.
(image from here)
posted by Fran / Blue Gal at
10:24 AM
11 Comments:
Selah- lovely psalm. It is about letting go into surrender of what is.
None of us are really "trained" to do that. We must unlearn and relearn.
As I said at my place today, on this topic, it is about expanding and not contracting in the face of fear.
Peace to all.
Selah...pause and reflect
I just posted this yesterday and read this blog afterwards. I agree, I agree, go to the place you are afraid of and it is inside. (Is this too long a comment? What's the ettykit here?)
Resistance
Over and over
I resist
I stand at the edge
I stare at the torrent
The cliff
The falls
The abyss
Over and over
I resist
Over and over
I let go
I fall
Over the cliff
Down the falls
Into the abyss
Over and over
I am sure
I will drown
I will lose my way
I will not surface
Ecstasy is in the air
Between trapezes
I am elsewhere
I am other
No words
No thoughts
No body
No mind
The water is cold
As I expect
When I hit
I knew by the spray
Before I jumped
Submerged
Immersed
Subversive
Over and over
I am born
From the surf
I emerge
From the waves
I am delivered
Fear is my key
Grief is my key
In the places I do
not want to go
That's where I must go
Over and over I resist
And then let go
Hi Blue Gal,
Discovered your blog through the C&L site, thanks for the Moon Zappa post.
Nice place you have here.
I've only recently started to blog myself, I'd be interested in a citique if you had a chance to take a peek.
http://www.blockdogs.blogspot.com
Anyways, I noticed you are a Wilcox fan, so...
On letting go (Sorta):
Slipping Through My Fist
from the album Underneath
by David Wilcox
I have drifted down a ways along the shoreline,
I just watched these ropes give way
where they were tied.
I could have reached out quick when the ropes first slipped, if I had tried, but I was wondering
where the wind was trying to take me
overnight, if I never did resist, and
what strange breezes make a sailor want to
let it come to this,
with lines untied, slipping through my fist.
It is downhill all the way to the ocean,
so of course the river always wants to flow.
The river's been here longer,
it's older and stronger and knows where to go,
and I was wondering where the river's
trying to take me
overnight, if I never did resist, and
what strange breezes make a sailor want to let it come to this,
with lines untied, slipping through my fist.
This is where I played as a baby.
This is where I ran as a child.
This is where my dad took the last breath he had, and smiled.
I guess I'm wondering
where this place is trying to take me overnight, if I never did resist, and what strange breezes make a sailor want to let it come to this,
with lines untied, slipping through my fist.
?1999 Midnight Ocean Bonfire Music(ASCAP)/Cindy Lou My Dear (ASCAP) Goldheart Pictures Corporation Publishing Designee
All Rights Reserved/International Copyright Secured
The beauty of the Quaker faith is that it is centred on the proposition that we ourselves define god. We do not depend on others to define god for us. The silence of the meeting provides us with the opportunity to reflect on what our definition of god is. For me, as a Quaker,that which brings me inner peace is god. Being at peace with ourselves is the precondition for being at peace with others and with the unviverse/cosmos/etc. George Fox never took the Bible as the ultimate truth...and he advocated that we as individuals had the obligation to speak truth to power.
Peace be with you.
the above comment was not intended to be anonymous
I am not sure why it inists that I am anonymous lol...god acts in mysterious ways
I am Jim at www.reedwrites.ca
franiam said it best.
expanding in the face of fear, not contracting...not going into hiding.
i'm grateful to be reminded again of psalm 46, which i haven't read in some years until today, on your blog, in the beautiful and surely blessed kjv.
Hello,
You wrote: “Looking for a safe place? Heh. Psalms 46.”
My reply: Yes, Tehillim (“Psalm”) is very good. So how to get the Creator to be one’s refuge and strength?
David, who wrote the Tehillim, knew that in order to get the Creator to be “one’s very present help in trouble”, one need to do ones sincerest to keep Torah – which contains the instructions of the Creator.
Tehilim 103:
“Who forgiveth all thine iniquity; who healeth all thy diseases”
“Who redeemeth thy life from the pit; who encompasseth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”
And later on we read: “To such as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His precepts to do them.”
The forgiveness from iniquity (defined in Torah as transgression of the commandments in Torah) and the encompassion with “lovingkindness and tender mercies”, are promised to those who keep His berit (“covenant”).
So what is His berit (“covenant”) defined as? To be included in the berit Torah defines one must do ones sincerest to keep the mitzwot (commandments) in Torah.
So how to know that Torah contains the instructions of the Creator? It is possible to deduce that using logic, see the proof found in bloganders.blogspot.com (in the right menu).
Have a very nice weekend!!
Anders Branderud
"As thou hast realized thy own shortcomings, rest thou assured that thou art firm in the Covenant and Testament, and in the love of the True One art steadfast and growing."
I'm not perfect, but I struggle with my inner demons and strive to be firm. God does not look at my shortcomings.
Who is Satan? "The insistent self."
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