Pages tagged "Isaac Penington"

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.

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.

The only promise Life makes is this: Things will change. And when they do, we can try something new. We will still be we. But we will be different.

And thus have we learned of the Lord: to wit, not by the high striving, aspiring mind; but by lying low, and being contented with little. If but a crumb of bread, (yet if bread,) if but a drop of water, (yet if water,) we have been contented with it, and also thankful to the Lord for it: [for it is not] by thoughtfulness, and wise searching, and deep considering with our own wisdom and reason have we obtained it; but in the still, meek, and humble waiting have we found . . . the mysteries of God’s kingdom . . .

Excerpts from the keynote presentation to Intermountain Yearly Meeting; June 11, 2015; Ghost Ranch, Abiquiú, New Mexico