December 2011
27 posts
“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
— Isaiah 49:16
“What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.”
—Sylvia Plath (via therabbithearted)
“One of life’s hardest lessons is that there is no justification for expecting that our neighbour is to traverse precisely the same path as that which we ourselves have followed… The difficulty a man has in grasping this truth is increased in proportion as his own experience has been vivid and clearly defined. One who has been lifted out of the horrible pit, has had his feet set upon a rock, and a new song put in to his mouth, finds it hard to believe that another who has arrived quietly and without crisis, with no strong consciousness of guilt and no corresponding ecstasy of deliverance, can really be a disciple at all.”
— William Littleboy, 1916. In ‘Quaker Faith and Practice: Individual Commitment, 10.26.’
“I recall a family weekend, when the children, about twenty four of them, aged three and upwards, had their own session in parallel to the adults. On the first evening, after the getting-to-know-you games, we sat down on the carpet to worship. We lit some candles on the hearth, turned off the lights, asked two children to be elders, and were still. The meeting went on for over quarter of an hour, and was very deep. Then the two elders shook hands, but the silence continued. After another five minutes I started a conversation, but no one responded. When the children did speak, it was slowly, thoughtfully, with long spaces between. This was when I realised that children do minister… That meeting lasted until someone entered the room and interrupted us - about forty minutes.”
— Anne Hosking, 1984. In ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’, 2.76.
“‘Friends, meet together and know one another in that which is eternal, which was before the world was.’”
— George Fox, 1657.
I’ve been thinking Quakerly things since this afternoon’s Meeting at Occupy London. As a result, I am going to spam you, dear dashboard, with Quaker quotes. Woo!
