U for Unity Chapter Two

Area Meeting

Well, I went with my heavy heart and someone spoke to my condition.  Her name was Felicity Kaal and she came to give a workshop on using language to decribe our Quaker experience.

Quotation

"We Quakers call ourselves an experience-based religion.  Our central source of guidance is our direct experience as practiced in meeting for worship and meeting fr worship for business, where we step aside from our personal egos and connect with something greater. We all have our own conception of something greater. "

I use the term " Inward Light"

We all experience the inward light differently

The Witness, higher self, soul - immanent
The Diving Thou to whom I must surrender - transcendent
The Web of Life = the great perfection of existence itself nature - manifest.


If we as Quakers try to learn these descriptions of our experience of being a Quaker then perhaps we can unify a mode of language which we can use when we talk to each other and to those outside the society without hurting each others deeply held convictions.  In this way we may have a way of surviving in the modern world.

It is said that trying to inform Quakers is like herding cats. I pray that we can take this workshop on board and not hurt each other and find tolerance that our spiritual lives are not all experienced in the same way and while we may have an individual mother spiritual language, we do not try to convert each other to our own way of thinking, feeling and experiencing. Or try to use Meetings as power play over other people.

Unity

I am getting ready to go to Area Meeting with a heavy heart. I do not want to go, I do not like many of the Quakers there.My true friends are elsewhere.  However I am a committed Quaker and I take the Advice and Query which extols us to go to Meeting whatever our condition.

I posted on Facebook that Quakers are a collection of colourful, individuals striving for Unity, knowing that we all strive for unity.

Whether that unity is with a Loving God who is all seeing and all accepting of all our faults, or whether we strive for psychological peace believing in Karl Jung's alchemy of the human spirit. It is our life's goal before the final closing of our striving. Maybe these two ideas are very similar. We long for that unity which will take away suffering.

We as humans long for peace and for unity with our enemies. We long for a reconciliation where we ourselves are understood, seen and recognised. It means giving up something, which is painful.

I shall go to Area Meeting with a spirit of reconciliation and a loving disposition and live in hope.

Area Meeting

Well, I went with my heavy heart and someone spoke to my condition.  Her name was Felicity Kaal and she came to give a workshop on using language to decribe our Quaker experience.

Quotation

"We Quakers call ourselves an experience-based religion.  Our central source of guidance is our direct experience as practiced in meeting for worship and meeting fr worship for business, where we step aside from our personal egos and connect with something greater. We all have our own conception of something greater. "

I use the term " Inward Light"

We all experience the inward light differently

The Witness, higher self, soul - immanent
The Diving Thou to whom I must surrender - transcendent
The Web of Life = the great perfection of existence itself nature - manifest.


If we as Quakers try to learn these descriptions of our experience of being a Quaker then perhaps we can unify a mode of language which we can use when we talk to each other and to those outside the society without hurting each others deeply held convictions.  In this way we may have a way of surviving in the modern world.

It is said that trying to inform Quakers is like herding cats. I pray that we can take this workshop on board and not hurt each other and find tolerance that our spiritual lives are not all experienced in the same way and while we may have an individual mother spiritual language, we do not try to convert each other to our own way of thinking, feeling and experiencing.

T is for thinking things through

One of the reasons that I became a Quaker is that I really felt listened to by my Quaker Meeting.  That is a gift that we Quakers have; to really listen and accept other people in times of trouble or indeed to their quite different spiritual journeys.

Our Quaker Meeting House in Bridgwater Somerset has been sold and the buyers are the Muslim Community.

Perhaps we have a duty to listen when UKIP became so popular that it reflected deep seated fears of a divided society by our secular white brothers and sisters.  Perhaps we should listen to the fear of the Muslim community when their sons and daughters are being recruited for ISIS.

Isn't there a role for Quakers here?  Perhaps we can build bridges towards our black citizens and build a communication that will heal these problems. Are we ready to listen to the Muslim religion and welcome them in our Meeting?  I am sure we are, but  the Christian religion is perceived as insular and elitist. Is it a question of each to their own? How do we put our hands out towards the divided? I hope we can open channels of communication.  Then perhaps it will not be a question of Christians Together, but indeed All Religions and Faiths Together.