In Need of Stillness

These past few days my mood and some of my actions have been much less controlled than usual for me. I've generally been feeling better and in better moods during the day, but then I get random negative streaks - when speaking I feel like things come out of my mouth that I normally wouldn't say (not insulting or demeaning things, just new and more negative ways of griping about things that I normally wouldn't bother to gripe about); I've been talking more and listening less, it seems.

I know that I need stillness. Perhaps this lapse in control is part of a transition from intellectually led daily actions to more spirit led actions. This is not a problem to be solved by intellectual means - I must find stillness.

Joy

I just read an entry of a friend of mine about joy and being incredibly happy and joyous and ecstatic about life (thanks Cait, if you read this). It made me realize that all week I've been quite intense in my spiritual contemplations and readings that I've almost forgotten to find joy in the spirit! It's not that I haven't been happy or having a good time, just that I've been too intense. I was already beginning to realize that I need to find more stillness, but in this stillness I should remember joy in life.

It also reminds me of a conversation I had with a couple Friends at the clerking workshop at Pendle Hill last November about trying to stay centered while having a "rowdy good time". I think part of having a rowdy good time is the spirit present in the joy - being totally centered all the time is not how we stereotype it! One does not have to remain calm and of moderate energy to be centered - centeredness is not necessarily a state of meditation 24/7, but a focus on the spirit at hand in everything and everyone, that is everything and everyone.

I am sad that I'll miss meeting tomorrow (I'll be sitting on an airplane somewhere between San Diego and NC), but I'm getting much better at finding my spirituality at all times everywhere, these days. I'm working on bridging the gap between what I view as my 'secular' activites and my spiritual life.

Obsessive Quakerism

I'm feeling quite obsessive about Quakerism right now. Perhaps it's just the word 'obsessive' that gets me, but it's almost making me uncomfortable. However, to be fully focused on spiritual development, one really has to be somewhat obsessive until it entirely natural (where you don't have to think about things as consciously anymore).

Quakerism and my spirituality are in the forefront of my mind and of my thinking right now (and I think 'obsessive' actually describes my thought processes quite well).

I never really thought much about how I was sort of bottling up all my theological and spiritual contemplations; suddenly I feel like I'm pouring it all out on the table and examining it all.. well, except that I've been examining it all. I'm trying to better apply my sprituality to my daily life and interactions without losing sight of myself; I'm trying to figure out where it all fits into my own life without trying to alter my personality or ways of being.

I feel quite naive in this 'obsessive' feeling. I feel like this should all be natural and unconscious - my reactions to the world around me, that is. However, it's tending toward that way; my reactions to things are more and more natural.

I'm learning how to better listen to that still small voice in every situation, not just ones where I'm thinking about it. Sometimes this is quite difficult.

I don't think I just made very much sense. Perhaps it's time to end this entry and move on.

peace

On God

When it comes to the actual existence of God, I have put a lot of thought into things; I am a logical person and blind faith just doesn’t cut it. I’ve pondered questions like why should I believe in God when others can lead decent lives as atheists? What makes me think there is any sort of God? If I do believe in God, what kind of form is it/he/she? How does it ‘reveal’ itself or ‘interact’ with the world and myself? What would it mean in my life?

I believe God exists because there is love and beauty in the world. Even if beauty is subjective and love is just an innate chemical reaction in our brains, the fact that we can experience these things emotionally means to me that something deeper is involved.

Traditional views of God don’t make any sense to me. Why would such a concept be male, have emotions (such as anger), or be separate from all things? Would God not be an incomprehensively integral part of everything and every action everywhere? How could this concept be any other way? Besides, if this Spirit really is the ‘Father’ of Jesus, ‘the only Son of God,’ then what does that leave for possible intelligent beings on planets far gone from here who would have no possible way of knowing about Jesus?

If God made way for Life, then I believe God in its ubiquitous nature is ensuring that Life is lived fully and gracefully, which is why we have leadings and callings. God is helping us to Live fully. I don’t understand everything about these conclusions I have come to; in fact, they’re not really conclusions, they’re beliefs, concepts, notions, leadings. Such a journey is continuous and on-going.

A Passage that Speaks to Me

A passage from Emilia Fogelklou Norlind found in A Certain Kind of Perfection (Margery Post Abbott, page 77) that really spoke to me:

In this period she ceased to worry about the opinions and views of other people, and yet she felt a new sharing of life with everyone. She met others from the inside, including her colleagues, who had no notion of what she had experienced.

Was this not to have gained “the life which is life indeed”? Neither church, nor priest, nor Bible had converted her. It was the living spirit of God that had come down into the lifeless being, so that she finally knew what Life is and what Love is, without that knowledge being bound to any outward intermediary. She saw that we all belong indissolubly together in the depths of God. Christ knew this, lived this, found this among publicans and sinners. She stood before and inexhaustible well of new thoughts, feelings and certainties. The richness was too overwhelming for her to be able to draw up more than a few drops at a time. She was boundlessly happy.

I find in these two paragraphs many things that I, myself, feel that I have experienced or want to strive to experience. In this period she ceased to worry about the opinions and views of other people, and yet she felt a new sharing of life with everyone. She met others from the inside, including her colleagues, who had no notion of what she had experienced. I strive to “meet others from the inside”, even when they have ‘no notion of what [I have] experienced’. Being usually the only active young Friend around, I feel uncomfortable talking to others about my spiritual experiences and developments as I fear they would not understand (where one quite familiar with Quakerism might); also, sometimes I fear that I might make someone uncomfortable with all my contemplation.

Neither church, nor priest, nor Bible had converted her. It was the living spirit of God that had come down into the lifeless being, so that she finally knew what Life is and what Love is, without that knowledge being bound to any outward intermediary. “Neither church, nor priest, nor Bible” converted me, but my Inner Spirit. I am learning so much about Life and Love all the time, and am striving to keep myself from binding any of my notions of spirituality to outward intermediaries.

She saw that we all belong indissolubly together in the depths of God. We do. I feel it.

Beginning Ramble

I really want someone to talk to about spirituality. I have so much in me to express, to articulate, to sort out! Reading Margery’s book (A Certain Kind of Perfection) has opened new doors for me, spiritually; I’m grappling with the concept of Christ. I’ve found that reading selections from these well-known early Quakers and their experiences with “Christ” or “Jesus” or “Christ Jesus” (etc.) has allowed me to relate to people and words that normally would turn me away; “Christ” is a word that, in the past, has made me shudder or cringe or just glaze over, and when reading this book I have not responded in any of those ways. I have so many questions to work out, of which to discover the meaning. Why does Inner Light have to be “Christ”, per se?

I find Jesus to be a role model, someone to strive to be like. He is a prime example of someone who followed leadings and his Inner Light in life and through that has become one of the most influential people in the history of the world. I feel that I can say I strive to follow the example of Christ as I strive to find and listen to that still small voice within me (does this make me Christian? What does it really mean to be ‘Christian’, anyway?). When others refer to that still small voice as the Light of Christ (as George Fox called it), I see it as symbolic; it is Light like Christ’s Light, because it is in all of us, and Christ happens to be a shining example. I see God as something that is everywhere in everything; it doesn’t necessarily have a shape, form, gender, or classification. In fact, I see God as more of a verb than a noun. God is everything we do, love, compassion, kindness, generosity, the balance of pain and suffering, the boundless beauty in everything. That is my experience of God.

When people describe their immense moments of revelation and release and sudden trust in the comfort and love of God, I think I see that as a moment of recognition of Inner Light. I’ve always had trouble with any sort of literal interpretations of Biblical things (such as Jesus actually being the Son of God and that he ‘saved’ us from our ‘sins’), so descriptions of spiritual experiences when someone ‘found Jesus’ are hard for me to interpret sometimes. When someone ‘turns their life over to Jesus’, I see that as when they discover how to trust their Inner Light and leadings from it.

I believe not just that God or Inner Light is in everything, but that God/Inner Light is everything. I don’t just have Inner Light, Inner Light and I are one and the same. So when I have a leading or my Inner Light is guiding me to do something, it’s not some separate entity giving suggestions. It is an integral part of my very being that is calling me to action.