Our call is to love

 

Our call is to Love 

“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy".   Thomas Merton

 

In these times when we are surrounded by acts of seemingly intentional harm, and uncaring, we are challenged to delve deeply into our Quaker faith.  I hear Friends lift up a call to live into our Peace testimony.  That is surely a good thing.  As we seek to lean into that testimony it is important to remember that it does not stand by itself.  All of our Testimonies work together to form a cohesive guide for us to test how we can live our best lives, no matter the circumstances that we find ourselves in.  Each one is integral to our understanding of the others.  We are called to testify to that enlivening movement in our lives. 

The work of peace and peacemaking requires delving  into our deepest selves, calling upon all that we are and all that  Spirit calls us to be.  For Friends it means acknowledging and living from that place where we encounter God within and remembering that place is not unique to us as Friends.  We say that there is that of God within everyone.  In acknowledging and accepting that as true, we acknowledge that each and every person is a child of God.  Once we acknowledge that, we must also acknowledge that no one is evil.  Some of God’s children surely seem to have lost their way as they choose to engage in evil acts but they nonetheless remain God’s children, carrying that of God within.  Our call is to love them; to hold them in the Light, to pray that they will find the Light within themselves and be moved to hope, and joy, and love.  We are called to love everyone without judgement and, in that most challenging act, we are lead toward hope and unity.  It is not easy work, but it is ours.

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.