Membership is Important
Quaker membership is important. Mutual commitment matters. Membership is a relationship, not an achievement.
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Quaker membership is important. Mutual commitment matters. Membership is a relationship, not an achievement.
Oh, great creator,
who is in and around all of us,
rejoicing in the life you so wondrously made;
oh, lover of life and love, all love,
who celebrates all that is good and joyous,
who dances and sings along with us;
your name is praised throughout.
On December 14, 2018, I walked into the Multnomah Friends Meetinghouse for the first time. I felt enveloped in a circle of Light, at one with it and with everyone in the room. I had been searching, longing for this my entire life. I was Home.
I didn’t want to join the committee. As a “released Friend,” my role is to follow the leadings of my music ministry out in the world, freed from responsibility for the business of Multnomah Monthly Meeting. But I have found myself reckoning lately with a firehose of Spirit blasting a message through me that has nothing to do with songs or cello.
I reached maturity in a time when words were worth a death. Born in the 1920s, raised in the 1930s, I turned eighteen in 1942. As a young man, I knew, by the words Hitler used, that the Nazis represented a force that must be halted.
Dare imagine
exploring vast space in a
tiny, tender spaceship!
Dare seek knowledge
you are not ready to know!
Do extraterrestrial robots
control us until we mature?
We long to be wise and to venture
beyond our own limits, to grow,
to deserve uncharted space.
It is one thing to understand words, testimonies, and descriptions; and it is another matter to understand, know, enjoy, possess, and live in that which the words relate to, describe, and bear witness of.
– Isaac Penington, 1670
The word of the LORD came to Jonah. . .
How delighted we are when our children first begin to talk! What a miracle, what a joy!
