Still Small Voice

 

When my daughters were quite young, eighteen months, three years old, and five years old, I first began to explore the Quaker path.  The girls and I attended Meeting for Worship together.  I’d settle on a bench with a child on either side and the youngest snuggled in my lap.  Sometimes, they’d whisper a question.  I remember my eldest daughter, Rebecca, asking me what people were doing. “Listening for God.”  “Do they hear him?” “Sometimes.”  “Have you heard him?”  “Yes.”  “What does He sound like?”  Well, this stopped me short.  I had heard that inner voice but as hard as I tried, I could not describe what it sounded like.  That’s true even today, but the clarity and directness of it’s biddings continue to ring true in my life.

The first time I clearly heard that voice I was directed to lay hands on someone in healing.  That happened twice.  Each time I said “No, I don’t know how to do that.  You need to find someone else.” And each time my heart ached for having said “no” until I finally promised that if I were asked again I would do as I was bidden.  Years later, that call was repeated and for the first time, I laid hands on someone in healing. I listened carefully to the guidance of Spirit, and as I followed that guidance, healing happened.  That day I learned that I didn’t need to know what to do, I only needed to listen and obey Spirit’s guidance.  I learned that when Spirit asks, everything that is required will be provided to complete the work.  That voice was kind, forgiving, insistent, loving and yes, quiet.

Another time I was asked by New York Yearly Meeting to engage with Friends in the country of Georgia; to bring refugee aid and conflict resolution skills to that country.  I had never stepped into work of that magnitude and felt unclear that I had the knowledge or the ability to carry it forward – and so I prayed.  I prayed for three days before I heard that voice.  It was not small or quiet!  It roared “Just do it!!!” clearly annoyed with my persistent query. I asked for additional guidance but that was all I got: “Just do it!!!”  and so I moved into the work and again what was needed fell into place.

As I’ve learned to listen for and to the Presence, that voice has become a constant companion and guide.  Over the years it has become my habit to share these experiences, not because they make me special in any way – just the opposite – I share them because I firmly believe that it is possible for everyone in their everyday lives to hear the voice of Spirit as eyes and ears and hearts open to accept the reality of God’s presence and love and guidance.  May it be so.

 

 

Die before you die

 

“Die before you die.  There is no chance after.”  C. S. Lewis       

“Wash yourself of yourself.  Be melting snow.”  Rumi       

The secret to life is to “die before you die” – and find that there is no death.”  Eckhart Tolle

Many years ago I asked a friend who was a Roman Catholic Sister of St. Joseph named Anne, if she would be willing to work with me as my Spiritual Director.  Anne was trained and experienced in this work.  I was delighted when she agreed to work with me.  Even though we were friends, this relationship, and Anne’s approach to it, was quite different.  Early on in our first meeting she asked me if I had any goals.  What popped out of me, almost immediately, was a surprise to us both.  I said that my goal was to find unity with God, and then I took a very deep breath as tears streamed down my face.  That was more than twenty years ago.

Over the years since then there have been times when I have been clear that I was being well used by Spirit:  When I brought reports to New York Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions around the work of Peacemaking and around Fiscal Equality I would come to realize that the words that I was speaking were no longer coming from my head, but from my heart; that they were not my words and I would know that it was Spirit speaking through me.  When I bring a message in Meeting for Worship that comes through me and is not of me.  When I do hands on healing work and am faithful to the energy that passes through me and to the Leadings of the Spirit.  All of these are tastes of unity with Creator that make me hungrier than ever to live in that Presence full time!  It is that hunger that drew me to Participating in God’s Power.

So far, the School of the Spirit’s Participating in God’s Power program has been a deep, cleansing breath.  It invites us to journey into the very center of our beings to engage in soul wrenching, Spirit awakening and uplifting work that we, a cohort of fourteen, plus our teachers, step into together.  It is lots of reading that helps to open way as we learn to listen to each other and to the promptings of Spirit in our own and each other’s lives.  It is difficult, challenging work that leaves us with tears of joy, and sorrow, and sometimes fear.   But today, it feels most important to lift up that we are learning, and relearning, that the path to Spirit is strewn with boulders of our own making.  Boulders of pain and misunderstandings and grief that have been left unforgiven, unhealed, unheeded, that separate us from that place where Spirit is indwelling, and from Spirit that abounds outside our beings and in all places.  I am now journeying through and among my boulders; coming to embrace them as I learn to make peace with each one of them.  I have begun the conscious journey of dying.  I am grateful to you who journey with me.

Opening to Spirit by Opening to Pain and Grief

 Many of you are aware that I have begun a year long journey with the School of the Spirit's Participating in God's Power program.  It is a program that helps to clear way - to open our hearts and souls to walking hand in hand with Spirit;  It allows us to open way to be God's eyes and ears, voice and hands as we open more and more to the guidance of Love.

This second Segment (of five) centers around "working through spiritual scar tissue and internal resistance".  Much of that scar tissue and resistance are the result of pain and grief that we carry in our lives.  My own life long journey has been heavily crisscrossed with pain and grief.  Through the scars of a mother who did not want me or love me and who tried to kill me.  Through three failed marriages that I now see I entered into because I so wanted and needed to be loved; through the death of my father, my mother, my sister, my daughter and many others who I loved.  And through so many other lesser but significant stripes across my heart.  The readings for this segment have led me into the dark corners that I often work to keep hidden until I found myself describing my condition as standing in the middle of a spiritual tornado.  I felt as if my feet were firmly on the ground and I could picture myself in a favorite standing prayer attitude with unidentifiable objects flying around me and constant strikes of lightening.  I sensed that the objects were related to my pain and that the lightening was of Spirit.

I have spent much time in silence, holding this image and asking for guidance.  Guidance came.  I heard "Find the joy".  And so I began combing through my story looking for joy - looking for some kind of balance between the pain and the joy until I finally had an awakening.  There is a prayer that I've said almost daily for the past forty-five or so years. One of the final lines is "give me only the support of your presence and the joy of your love".  And there it was!  The Joy of being in the arms of the Creator.  

The pain melted away.  I am at one again!  I lift up praise and gratitude to that which is unnameable and unknowable and the very center of my being. Amen.

Art Thou in Darkness?

 Art thou in darkness? Mind it not, for if thou dost it will feed thee more. But stand still, and act not, and wait in patience, till Light arises out of Darkness and leads thee. James Nayler (1659)

 This morning I came across a clip of Paulette Meier chanting this Nayler quote.  I wept it so spoke to my condition.

By all rights; by all logic I should not be in darkness.  Logically I know all of the 'right' things to do; to reflect on; to say. However, I must acknowledge that there is little in my Spiritual journey that has risen from logic.I know that I am not alone and never will be as Spirit is always in my midst and yet lately I find myself yearning for human connections.  

I spend many of my days with my daughter, Jessica and grandson Brady.  I am truly blessed to have them and the rest of that family in my life.  They are my touchstones.  Even though I believe I am valued within my meeting I feel isolated from friends in my daily life. There is little else.

In the midst of it, there's Nayler who stands tall as one of the Valiant Sixty and as a personal hero of mine in Quaker history who admonishes me to "stand still, and act not, and wait in patience".  I'm clear that this is not meant to be a time of inaction - at least not internally.  For me I hear it as a lifting up of a time of prayer, of quiet sitting, of asking Spirit what comes next and, above all else, of trusting Spirit, having faith that Spirit will use me and all of the experiences of my life and those that I have not yet had to lead me forward into Light; to teach me that which I need to know for Light to rise "out of Darkness" and lead me.

 

 

The Pot has been Stirred

 The metaphor that occurs to me is that of  preparing cooked pudding.  When all of the ingredients for the pudding are in the pot it goes on the stove top and you stir, and stir, and stir some more.  As the pudding nears completion it thickens and becomes a rich, thick, and very delicious liquid.  It begins to boil under the surface.  If you stop stirring the pudding begins to boil with large pops and spurts.  I've never seen a lava spout rise up out of the ground, but I suspect this looks like a mini eruption.  

What does pudding have to do with spiritual life?  It feels to me as if as long as we keep ourselves busy (stirring the pot in this metaphor) that our lives just keep putting along without leaving much time for the movement of Spirit.  When we stop stirring and sit quietly, listening, praying, Spirit has the opportunity to bubble up within us; to grab our attention; and to feed us in ways that we had not yet recognized needed to be fed.

Since coming home from the first School of the Spirit's Participating in God's Power (SOTS PGP) residency, there has been much bubbling up.  The call to ministry that has been with me for forty some years has never left me and I am reminded of that.  Perhaps, then, it should not come as a surprise to me that a strong tug toward the work of chaplaincy has re-emerged.  My years of serving the men at New York State's Eastern Correctional Facility as their outside facilitator for the Quaker Worship Group there and serving that group as Spiritual Director bubble up.  To what end?  Time will tell.  Things are turning.

Simple Gifts - a Quaker/Shaker hymn

Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free
’tis a gift to come down where you ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shall not be ashamed
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Participating in "Participating in God's Power"

Participating in God's Power. The name itself feels somewhat intimidating unless your personal faith, your belief, your heart and soul, takes you to a place of believing that God, Spirit, Creator, Yahweh, is within.  If you believe that, you are always a participant in God's power. That is where my belief takes me and so, here I am.  It's day three and I'm forced to acknowledge that there maybe more to my being here than I thought there was.

Participating in God's Power is a year long program designed to lead a group of selected participants; a cohort, through a year long process of study, reflection, and various exercises designed to deepen spirituality; to deepen one's relationship with spirit, to deepen ones sense of Knowing.  There are five residencies and multiple other meetings throughout the year.

But what am I doing here?  What drew me here?  For me, there is only one answer.  Spirit led me here. My work in the country of Georgia has come to an end.  I felt clear that, even though my part in that work was complete, my work in the world is not done.  The Leading to the work of Peacemaking remains strong within me and tugs harder and harder on my heart to do something!  All that is well and good, but what is that work? Affirmation of my participation in the program came as I began to feel the tug to  be here: first from my support committee, then my application was accepted and a grant that I'd applied for to help pay for the program was approved, then through contributions from friends from various places in my life the balance of the funds for the course appeared as well as enough money to help with the purchase of the required books and the cost of travel.  In my life, when things fall together in this way, I feel the hand of Creator at work.

The first residency began this Friday (2/15/24) at Pendle Hill, in Pennsylvania.   It's now Saturday.  Already I feel my inner world is shifting.  I am being challenged mightily by an underlying sense that the strong leading that brought me here may not only be about the next steps for my work as a Peacemaker but may also have to do with healing my internal wounds so that I can be a better Peacemaker; a better lover to the world.

Mother's Day

Our Relationships with our Mothers differs greatly between each child, each sibling, each family and the next.  When others share how wonderful Moms are and share their belief that all Moms should be lifted up as role models, all Moms love their children unconditionally, I shudder.  I grew up in a household where I was unloved by my mother and unwanted.  I was absolutely clear that was true from a very young age.  My mother later affirmed it. I don't know how much this harmful, hurtful relationship with my mother colored my ability to mother my own children.   I love each of my three daughters unconditionally. Each one was deeply wanted.  I worked hard to be a good mother.  Here's how that turned out.  Of my three daughters, I have a wonderful relationship with my youngest daughter and her family.  My second-born died by suicide in 2016 when she was thirty-four years old.  My eldest daughter has chosen not to see me or to speak to me for the last five years - She will not share with me why.

I share these things not because I want you to feel sorry for me in any way, rather, because for those of us that carry deep wounds around mothering, Mother's Day can be an extremely painful time.  The loss of a child, no matter what the reason may be, leaves a hole in your being.  The desire to have a child that cannot be fulfilled rends a deep longing pain.   It's a time when women may simply withdraw or hide the pain that they carry deep within.  This brief  writing is a plea to everyone, everywhere, to acknowledge the pain of others even while celebrating the joy.  May this holiday be a blessed time of listening, healing, and joy.