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.
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.
posted by Claire at 1:26 AM
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