My world both shrinks and grows.
One day, a glorious god’s-ray
aimed directly at my heart;
then a declining, dying Dodo.
Little brown birds peck on my deck.
A Flicker steals their seed.
Another country bombed by robots.
A man-god waves at cheering crowds.
This late summer we welcomed a new resident into our home. She came in through the kitchen window, where she built her own abode. The day eventually came when we needed to close the window due to excessive heat.
“For the last time, I am ordering you to depart the grounds of Griffiss Air Force Base or you will be subject to arrest.” On a crisp spring morning in 1984, I came to realize – in a hands-on, hand-cuffed kind of way – that I was not just a participant in conflict; I was also its student. The tension in the air that day was as taut and clear as the bright blue line demarcating the base.
[This article was excerpted from a more detailed original, which is published online at: https://westernfriend.org/media/concepts-god-or-not]
Friends are doing a lot of reevaluation these days, reexamining our past and our venerable Quaker ancestors. In some cases, when moral inconsistencies emerge into the open, reexamination means that some iconic Friends are losing their luster. In other cases, stories of early Friends’ messy lives help us to see their humanity, which can lend greater depth and nuance to their spiritual writings.
O, Day!
We play a sculpting game:
take turns,
add clay
and take away,
caress and punch
until the night
when aproned
night-shift sculptors
work in the dark.
Here is a strange simile: God is like the parallel plates of a capacitor, and we are the molecules of dielectric between them.
A capacitor is formed from two flat sheets of metal; they do not contact each other, but are connected through a source of power. Electrons from one plate move to the other, impelled by the voltage across the plates.
The ear listens, the mind translates. How many times during meeting for worship have I gotten it backwards! I listen with my mind. I ask a question or mull over a problem inside my head and hope God will hear me and answer back, inside me. Then if a worthy thought emerges, I stand to speak. Or if nothing, I’ll blame hearing the bus rumbling down the street, so loud and distracting.
[The following text is drawn from a paper that is published online: westernfriend.org/media/living-universe]
Edifice of rock and ice
born of molten silicates
thrust from below the earth’s rocky skin,
built of clouds of rock ash and rivers of liquid stone,
patiently etched by streams of ice fed by winter storms.
