by Editor
October 2009 issue
John Calvi is a Certified Massage Therapist specializing in trauma and a Quaker healer with a spiritual gift for the release of emotional and physical pain following trauma. Since 1982 he has worked with rape survivors, people with AIDS, inmates, and tortured refugees. He is also the founder and convener of The Quaker Initiative to End Torture, QUIT. John is well-known among Friends in the West, having visited Meetings in Pacific and Intermountain Yearly Meetings and offered workshops on healing at Ben Lomond Quaker Center. This is an edited version of his address to North Pacific Yearly Meeting this year.
So. Experiencing light in hard times: how do we stay faithful in times of trouble?
As someone who taught young children for ten years as a Montessori teacher, sometimes I like to take these larger questions and break them down into smaller questions to help the learning happen. And when I look at this title, which I think is very large, I break it down into two questions: how much are you freaking out? And how large is your anchor?
Times of trouble are known to all of us. There is pain for every person. There is trouble, conflict, difficulty, injustice, known to us as individuals and as groups, and certainly in our witness throughout the world. And so maybe what we’re talking about this morning is that our faith is going to be an aspect of our response to trouble. And when trouble comes, when we experience pain, are we able to keep that connection to the Divine? Are we able to remember our testimonies and our principles as we witness injustice, or maybe as we ourselves are personally offended, or personally endangered?
In some ways this is a very large question, and in other ways it is actually a fairly simple concept. There is a wonderful old Arabic saying, which is, “Pray to God, but tie your camel.” Yes, devotion, but have you done the practical things which are necessary to be in the world? The ways we respond to trouble are as important as the trouble itself. And is there a way that we can be responding to trouble which will maintain our connection to the Divine? Can we do as early Friends suggested, and leave the meetinghouse on first day, but not to leave Meeting for Worship? When trouble comes, can we still be working in the Light?
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