Meditation on the Light in Spring

I walked the nearly two miles to Quaker meeting this morning, and returned that way. The sun had come out after raining steadily for a few days. It sure picks up the spirits to revel in the blue sky, the sunshine, the loud glad bird songs, and the bursts of blooms in every direction. I saw metaphors for the Light in nature where I’d not seen it before.

Besides the lengthening of the days, two articles in Western Friend have been inspiring my meditation on the Light. In January/February 2012 issue, the Pacific Yearly Meeting’s delegates to the World Conference of Friends describe why they are going and their hopes for their trips.

How often have we’ve heard the admonishment not to hide our light under a bushel? The article quotes the Gospel according to Matthew, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house….” Matthew 5:14-16. I don’t think it makes a difference how perfect you are at being a Quaker – your measure of the Light is a continuously evolving thing and it grows with shining.

In the March 2012 issue, Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting (Berkeley, California) shares their conversation on the meaning and significance of that Quaker expression and custom, “to hold in the Light.” The article quotes the explanation in Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice (2001): “to desire that divine guidance and healing will be present to an individual who is in distress or faces a difficult situation; also, to give prayerful consideration to an idea.”

A member of Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting starts her answer to the question ”What does the expression “holding in the Light” mean to you?” with “to establish a sense of connection between God within and God without.”

After being raised as a Quaker by parents fully involved in their Meetings and then the erratic observance during my 20s, I became a convinced Friend around my 30^th year. It was a revelation to me to understand that not sharing a leading in Meeting for Worship could be a selfish act. The homey image of a lamp placed in a room so that everyone there benefits from its light, the reminder that we look for the expression of the Divine in ourselves as we do in others, suggests to me that as Jesus taught us about God’s call to man, we teach as well. We teach in many ways, big and grand as well as small and mundane. Nor, can we know what who will be touched or will be our teacher.

One of the members of the delegation to the World Conference describes the Quaker tradition she was raised in and how her experiences as an adult have exposed her to other Quaker traditions. So, one of her desires for her time in Kenya with Friends from all over the world is learn more, “It is fascinating to me that we all have the same roots and yet have ended up in different place.”

By holding ourselves in the Light we are led to greater openness. We find that acceptance of others easier. The Light can only illuminate, shine a bright lamp on, our oneness with each other. If there is that of God in everyone, then it follows that God or the Light shines in me. I speak to that of God in me. If being opened to the truth is good, can’t it be even better when we find ways, conscious or unconscious, prepared or spontaneous, to share this measure of our Light.

Cut Guns Budget To Fund More Treatment for Mental Health & Addiction

Would we allow hospital emergency rooms to refuse care to someone suffering their upteenth cardiac episode? Would we insist that a diabetic serve time in jail if their lack of self-care resulted in a car accident? What if the cost of treatment and incarceration resulted in their losing everything so that they ended up on the streets? We wouldn't allow that to happen. Yet, we do this every day to the alcoholic, the drug addict, and the individual with other mental illnesses.

"The level of Americans' prejudice and discrimination toward people with serious mental illness or substance abuse problems didn't change over 10 years, a new study has found." Here's a link to the entire article, http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/643146.html.

That's the nearly 10 years I've been away from the alcohol, tobacco and other drug policy arena. A couple weeks ago, circumstances came together to show me just how true the study's findings are. I thought surely intelligent, educated people would generally understand by now that alcoholism and drug addiction are brain dysfunctions - they barely understand that it's an inheritable disease.

It's this prejudice and discrimination that keeps people from getting the help and support they need to recover and rejoin society, to live healthy lives. It contributes to the dark shame and secrecy that binds families to the suffering and drama. It's keeps us in ignorance about an inheritable disease - if cancer runs in your family don't you learn more about it and take steps to maintain your help?

So, when I received this email today from Friends Committee on National Legislation - that's a Quaker lobbying organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. - its advocacy work "connects historic Quaker testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity, and truth with peace and social justice issues which the United States government is or should be addressing." They are urging us to make sure our congresspeople have signed onto a letter to the Deficit Commission urging them to include cuts to the military budget when figuring out how to reduce the budget deficit.

To find out more, follow this link - http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=4020&issue_id=18

Well, I say cut! cut! cut! away at the military's overstuffed budget. More money should go to prevention and treatment (and raising public knowledge about) of these awful diseases.

We need to help people learn to live, not learning them to die!

I can't tell you if God exists

I don't know how to answer the question, does God exist?, but I do know this...

God is a loaded term - my shorthand for a transcendent force for good, that exists in every living thing, in our planet and through the cosmos.

There is that of God in every child, woman, and man.

I have been wondering if my experience of God, inner experience of this transcendence, Light, can be communicated to others. My God is all shapes and beings and none. I heard others tell of a God who acts with benevolence to some and with vengence to others - mine does not act in that way. God works from within and through each of us, and thus acting together the experience and power of this God exceeds the experience and power of one person.

I do know God is Love, because when I experience or observe acts of kindness and love in others and myself, they seem holy to me. Meanwhile I don't have that holy experience when I experience or observe others (or myself) behaving cruelly, selfishly, hatefully. So I don't believe in a God who supports retribution, oppression, and the domination of others.

Recently, I read this excerpt from the writings of an early Quaker, Isaac Penington, and it articulated how I experience the moving of the Light, of that transcendent force with-In and with-Out:

“What is the nature of the seed of God, or the seed of the kingdom?...4. It is of a seasoning, leavening, sanctifying nature. It is like salt, it is like leaven. It seasons and leavens with life. It seasons and leavens with righteousness. It seasons and leavens with the image of God. So soon as ever it springs in the heart, it begins to leaven it; and if it be not snubbed, or grieved, or hurt, or quenched (for it is of a most sensible, tender nature), it will go on leavening more and more wit he the nature of truth, into the likeness of the God of truth (Mark ix. 50; Luke xiii. 21; Col. iv.6)” From the writings of an early Quaker, Isaac Penington (1617-1679).

I may not experience any more mercy or good fortune in this life, but in deepening my relationship with God, my experience of bad and good fortune or sorrow and joy is leavened as the yeast working in bread dough lifts it up, gives it resilience, fosters its inner strength, and makes it tasty!