tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post3450228782976455783..comments2024-01-31T15:10:55.111+00:00Comments on Transition Quaker: Embodied SpiritualityCraig Barnetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16201061939693242954noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-4798708057655810912017-01-27T14:48:56.999+00:002017-01-27T14:48:56.999+00:00Fox's "living, reverent frame" while...Fox's "living, reverent frame" while in prayer manifested the one thing needful: "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" (Mt. 6:22). <br /><br />The passage continues: "But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" (23)Pathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04915369728649066397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-23377943749544932612017-01-27T02:11:12.123+00:002017-01-27T02:11:12.123+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17603111366551577588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-31969629353900473972017-01-20T22:46:26.404+00:002017-01-20T22:46:26.404+00:00I have often experienced the spirit in a physical ...I have often experienced the spirit in a physical sense, in meeting for worship, on my own or in the company of a few. It usually is accompanied by the sense of experiencing profound truth, and for me this is usually as I try to fit words to it. Though words can never be fully adequate it is as if the mind / reason is learning from the indescribable.<br /><br />Perhaps the most common such experience for Quakers is that which accompanies the need to stand and speak in meeting. For me it may start in the heart or the gut, for example, then it becomes more intense and starts to spread - to the whole trunk, head and limbs until the legs seem to stand of their own accord. (Would it be right to speak in meeting without being physically 'moved' to do so, I wonder? Not for me, anyway)<br /><br />Another Penington quote I love and which emphasises the importance of the inward physical experience of the life is this one; “My meaning is, they have a notion of Christ to be the rock, a notion of him to be the foundation-stone; but never come livingly to feel him the rock, to feel him the foundation-stone, inwardly laid in their hearts, and themselves made living stones in him, and build upon him, the main and fundamental stone. Where is this to be felt but within?” Isaac Penington (from 'The Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Mystery, and in the Outward (1675)Madeleine Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-75589556813314411162017-01-20T17:45:57.093+00:002017-01-20T17:45:57.093+00:00It's something I've often reflected on tha...It's something I've often reflected on that earlier generations of Friends weren't sitting quietly in the midst of lives where they had to sit still indoors a lot. Walking miles to Meeting, working in various ways with the body -- when they sat down for Meeting it had a different significance in the midst of physically active lives than today where many Friends work in offices all the working day and drive from place to place.Alice Y.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16267449289432878102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-91446508344509818472017-01-20T13:52:40.936+00:002017-01-20T13:52:40.936+00:00This sounds a great idea, hope it works out for yo...This sounds a great idea, hope it works out for your Meeting.Craig Barnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16201061939693242954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-30357491331843435582017-01-20T13:52:00.816+00:002017-01-20T13:52:00.816+00:00Thanks Richard, for these very helpful contributio...Thanks Richard, for these very helpful contributions. I will look out for the Pendle Hill pamphlet, and I love the Penington quote.Craig Barnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16201061939693242954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-15508208930224025532017-01-20T13:49:00.810+00:002017-01-20T13:49:00.810+00:00Indeed. It is a curious fact that in Western (and,...Indeed. It is a curious fact that in Western (and, I think, in Eastern) philosophy perception has usually been considered a 'mental' activity, in deliberate opposition to the physical. Clearly, though, it is also possible to understand perception as embodied; ie as our mode of contact with the rest of the physical world.Craig Barnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16201061939693242954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-13116018100404865412017-01-20T09:00:25.451+00:002017-01-20T09:00:25.451+00:00An experiment. I wish to keep this simple and ligh...An experiment. I wish to keep this simple and light. I shall ask to propose to Reading Local Meeting the offer of a relaxation quarter of an hour before Sunday and Wednesday lunchtime Meetings for Worship. Just for those who feel interested, we shall do, outside in the garden or in another room – if it's raining – a few simple breathing and relaxation movements, then join the rest of the group at the normal time. Beth Allen, a few years ago, suggested we experiment a bit more. This is what Transition Quaker is all about. I'll let you know how it goes! richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15010958055731749099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-43301038722549047642017-01-20T08:43:19.407+00:002017-01-20T08:43:19.407+00:00Whoosh ! What can we do on reading an article like...Whoosh ! What can we do on reading an article like this ? Our culture is taking us all into a more imbalanced lifestyle. Information overload takes us and keeps us up in the head. We do not give importance to the body. Quakers rightly value the role of both our feeling and our thinking. « Come to meeting for worship with heart and mind prepared. » says Advice 9. We tend to leave out a vital ally. Our bodies are the only part of us always in the present moment. We can be more open to moments of presence if we simply sense our physical self as it is. The Pendle Hill pamphlet 205 « The Sound of Silence » by Carol Murphy is one of the rare Quaker publications about bringing your body to worship. <br /><br />We have two networks in British Quakerism which promote balance: the John Macmurray Fellowship and Quaker Voluntary Action. John Macmurray valued thinking but put it in relation to action: “All meaningful thought leads to action and all meaningful action to friendship.” The QVA model has something important to offer, the practice of working and sharing together, and can bring Friends together offering a model for Meetings that develops this balance. Both are struggling to survive. In May 2015 and May 2016, QVA arranged two weekends on “Heart, Head and Hands”. Neither took place. Perhaps they were timed too closely to BYM. <br /><br />We all know the sense of aliveness when we find this balance.<br />George Fox said “ All things were new: and all creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter.” For « that of God » Penington uses the term « the Measure of Life ». He wrote : « And from this Measure of Life the capacity increases, the senses grow stronger : it sees more, feels more, tastes more, hears more, smells more. Now when the senses are grown up to strength,...doubtings and disputes in the mind fly away and the soul lives in the certain demonstration and fresh sense and power of life. » Keiser & Moore p. 181 In this Christmas edition of The Friend, Rex Ambler wrote of a two hour Meeting for Worship: “Everyone agreed that after an hour things begin to get clear, feelings are better focused, life becomes simpler. I suggested that our bodies might play a part in this.”<br /><br />So what can we do.? This is already too long. I shall come back later.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15010958055731749099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-83676620837593919152017-01-19T21:29:07.544+00:002017-01-19T21:29:07.544+00:00Yes, I experience a flourishing of spirituality in...Yes, I experience a flourishing of spirituality in all things that I do in daily life ... in my work, in cleaning the house, in talking with other people. However, the appearance of the inshining Light in my conscious and conscience as sufficient and complete in itself has discovered to me I am come out of a way of being that gains meaning, purpose, and identity in relation to those activities. The inshining experience has discovered to me a way of life or being wherein meaning, purpose, and idenitity are complete in the inshining experience itself without regard to or for any outward forms and activities or communities. The Life itself is sufficient in itself. To live the Life in outward activities and for the Life to discover to me an independency from those outward things regarding meaning, purpose, and identity is to come out of the shadows of heavenly things and into the thing itself ...kfsaylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14180375154787300539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4497531321890746707.post-90872861277990602162017-01-19T21:08:08.487+00:002017-01-19T21:08:08.487+00:00An endnote from my recently published paper on &qu...An endnote from my recently published paper on "Ann Branson and the Eclipse of Oracular Ministry in Nineteenth Century Quakerism" *Quaker History*, Fall 2016, Vol.105 #2, 44-69: "Citing Quakers as a case in point, in *Ancient Judaism*, Weber asserts the communal nature of Christian prophecy: 'The very community, the gathering of the brethren was especially productive of these sacred psychic states [among early Christians, Anabaptists, Quakers, 'American Negro churches']. 'The spirit was 'poured out' to the community when the Gospel was preached.'"Bill Rushbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00579099372065932809noreply@blogger.com