Pages tagged "inward light"

A New Intimacy

• Authored by:
• Robert Griswold

I have always longed to be part of a community. But it has become clear to me lately that “belonging” depends on being accountable. I do not mean this in a quid pro quo sense, like an accountant balancing the books. I mean this in the sense of family members being accountable to each other, where they care for each other, and they all contribute as much as they are able. In the intimacy of a family, each member accepts a sense of vulnerability to the others. They put their trust in each other. They know that each person’s conduct reflects on the family as a whole. They know that they owe the family the consideration of behaving in ways that reflect well on it. The family has a right to expect the members to account for their behavior. By being accountable in an intimate setting, people strengthen the bonds of love among them.

On Beginning (March 2016)

Eastern Light - Review

• Authored by:
• Irene Webb

Eastern Light: Awakening to Presence in Zen, Quakerism and Christianity

On Beginning (March 2016)

Fresh

• Authored by:
• Judith Favor

Dear Editor: In appreciation for the May/June theme, “On Limits,” and each writer’s thoughtful response, I offer fresh words penned by Naomi Shihab Nye, a poetic expression of limits. She gives you her permission to publish this poem.

On Heritage (July 2016)

Into Beauty

• Authored by:
• Laurie Childers

Drawings by Laurie Childers (lauriechilders.com), who is a musician, artist, and member of Corvallis Friends Meeting in Corvallis, OR (NPYM).

On Music (March 2018)

Knowledge of the Lord

• Authored by:
• John Jeremiah Edminster

To Friends Everywhere: It is with joy that I present to the public again, after nearly two centuries out of print, Job Scott’s Remarks upon the Knowledge of the Lord, the Only True God.

On Seeds (November 2023)

On Conflict

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

As Friends, it matters to us that we try to listen. Those times when we are forced to admit that, in fact, we actually have not been paying attention . . . well, we want to fix it. The impulse to repair misunderstandings is commonplace. But the ability to follow through on such repair often takes more patience and humility than a person can muster on a given day.

On Conflict (January 2023)

On Insight

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Dear Friends: Each one of us has been evicted from the nice, cozy home of our mother’s womb. Howling at the shock of it, we plunged naked into the winds of change. A newborn who isn’t howling is cause for concern; so rightfully, we voiced our complaints, strangers in a strange land. And over the years, sometimes more, sometimes less, we still feel the sting of it – free-market swindles, red-tape regulations, wage theft, job theft – we feel the sting on the left and the right.

On Insight (March 2017)

On Perception

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Like circus cars ejecting impossible numbers of clowns right before our eyes, we humans emit endless parades of bright ideas into the crowded world. Then we jostle among all the world’s other creatures – animals, vegetables, minerals – and find ourselves wondering, now and then, about our own integrity, the coherence of our lives.

On Perception (March 2023)

On Play

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Let’s be friends. Let’s play a game, or play make-believe, or play around just to see what happens. Let’s play the Massively Multiplayer Offline Game called The Valley of the Shadow of Death. Each of us gets two characters – InnerFriend and OuterFriend – and the goal is to keep them together, as closely as we can, while we move them through The Valley toward The Eternal Mystery.

On Play (September 2015)

On Words

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Language is a technology, a means of employing experience-based knowledge for practical purposes. Words are torches that beam from mind to mind, prompting individuals to turn their attentions in the same direction and to coordinate their efforts for survival. Many species rely on communication systems in this way. Homo sapiens, however, is a species that seems to have undergone a freakishly powerful cognitive mutation about 70,000 years ago. We became enabled then to speak of fictions.

On Words (November 2021)