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.