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!
Certain domains of words take aim at strangers –
to accuse, assault, open fire
on persons denounced, held to blame
Labels can bar the delicate image imprinted
behind every eye –
unbroken, unique –
secured in the soul’s secret lining
Some wannabe disciples of Brother Lawrence (like me) are baffled by quotes like this from a book of his teachings, The Practice of the Presence of God:
Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business and even in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave him not alone.
What does that mean? How? I tried praying his prayer:
“We’re not really watching,” said a member of the Watching Committee several years ago. “What we’re really doing is listening.” Not only was the term “listening” more accurate in describing the work of composing an epistle for our yearly meeting, it also struck a friendlier chord.
