I’m posting a new query, which is adapted from Storycatcher by Christina Baldwin.

How do you see our meeting? This doesn’t have to be long, in fact, describing it by way of a metaphor would be wonderful. (For me Klamath Falls Friends is like an apple because…). If this is awkward, then plain prose is welcome.

The second part of this is, What makes you proud of our meeting?

Just like Ken’s storytelling class, let us honor what others have written, without judging. Only when we all participate can our whole story be told.

I look forward to what you have to say!

Karen O.

By Charlotte Condia
THE GOD OF PEACE

May grace and Peace be yours in ABUNDANCE. God BRINGS the BLESSINGS of Peace to all nations and all people. Do His will, and you will be COMPLETE in everything good.

DEPART in Peace for a harvest of righteousness is sown for those who make Peace. God gives us an EVERLASTING Peace for the EARTH which can be ENJOYED. Peace flows as a river from the Rock and FOUNDATION of Life.

GOD, the HEAVENLY Teacher of Peace, creates us in His IMAGE, and fills us with all JOY. We seek his everlasting  KINGDOM which is above all strife.

God, the Father of peace, fills our hearts with LOVE, LIFE and MERCY.
NO Peace is chaos; Peace is ORDER.

God gave us His Son, the King of PEACE, the PRINCE of Life.  Such a PEACE the world cannot take away.

Peace is sometimes QUIET, sometimes jubilant. It RESTORES AND RECONCILES all things and is SAFETY and SANCTUARY.

TRUTH is peaceable.

God gives us Peace, love and UNITY. He is not a God of VENGEANCE but One who fills our hearts with WISDOM. The name of the Eternal eXalted God is Peace.

GOD’S PLAN FOR THE WAY TO LIVE A PEACEFUL LIFE.

George Fox believes that God, who loves us with an unlimited love, has a plan for each of us to live peacefully in a violent world.

1. We are created in the image of God so we can be like Him peaceful, loving and good.

2. Christ lives within us as the Light and we are enlightened by Him; Christ the King, the       Lamb, is the sovereign ruler of the universe

3. God is our Father. We are created in His image and He lives within us as the Light so we are members of His family. This makes everyone equal. Men and women of every religion, skin color and ethnicity participate in this equality.

4. We can witness too, and “answer the peace and goodness in all persons.”

5. We live in God’s peaceful Kingdom on earth; we will live in God’s heavenly Kingdom for eternity.

CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

God creates us in His image so we can be like Him peaceful, loving and good; we are in the Image of God in that we can be pure, holy, and righteous. These are moral characteristics. What Fox is telling us is that we can live good moral lives. An image is a copy though for we certainly are not God. However, we are in God’s image in that we know right from wrong, good from evil. We are capable of loving others, of living a peaceful life.

CHRIST LIVES WITHIN US AS THE LIGHT
Christ lives within us as the Light and gives us knowledge and understanding.  Fox’s primary belief and the central belief of the Religious Society of Friends is that Christ Jesus said, “I am the way who doth enlighten every man that cometh into the world, and no man cometh to the Father but by me, every man having a light from Christ the way which leads to the Father.” Christ has many names but His true and best name is Christ the Light who has enlightened every man and woman who come into the world.

The true Light comes from God the Father and is glorified with the Father of Light. The Light enlightens every man and woman in the world but the Light is not of the world, being immortal and eternal. The Light gives knowledge of God by whom the world was made. Men and women do wrong things because they do not affirm their faith in the Light.

The Light lives within everyone, helps them, shows them what is right and wrong.  Everyone should stand still in Him who discovers all things and makes them readily seen and understood. All sinners must be brought to the Light, for the Light reconciles sinners to God and to one another. The Light destroys the devil, the author of darkness, who is out of the truth.

The Light is the healer. He is concerned for all hurting, weary, sick, sinful humans. He is the  binder up of the broken, restorer and seeker of the lost; he brings back those who are driven away. He is the Mediator between God and man, reconciles us to God, justifies us to God, breaks our bonds of iniquity and blots out our sin.

EQUALITY

God is our Father. We are created in His image and He lives within us as the Light so we are members of His family. This makes everyone equal. Men and women of every religion, skin color and ethnicity participate in this equality. In Letter 360 written in 1679 Fox gives a concise, clear statement of his position on genuine equality for men and women. There are no gender barriers to getting to know and love God. “God pours forth his spirit upon all flesh.” We are all sons and daughters of God. There may be great ethnic diversity and religious experience but there are no arbitrary intermediaries to cut women off from God, or men either.
Equality does not mean some sort of unisex to Fox. Men are men; women are women.  Women and men, wife and husband, are like Eve and Adam before they fell. Help- meet in righteousness, made in the Image and likeness of God.  Help-meets is an expression used in the King James version of the Bible. A modern translation of the Hebrew might be colleague, allies, co worker. This is not a relationship of a superior and an inferior being but help-meets, husband and wife, sharing, helping each other.

In a world in which people behave as if they are created in God’s image, there would be genuine equality for all. Everyone would be free to do God’s will in their lives; they would be creative and live up to the image of God within them.

ANSWER THE GOD WITHIN EACH PERSON.

We can witness too, and “answer the peace and goodness in all persons.”  Answering means finding the God or the Good within every person; the truth and goodness within one person speaks to the truth and goodness in the other person. We can understand others, have empathy with them. We can witness too, and answer the peace and goodness in everyone. Friends first job in behaving toward others is to answer that of God in them and to witness to the life of God in themselves. Even captives have the responsibility of answering that of God in others. All persons deserve this respect and courtesy. Using inclusive, universal language Fox tells us to answer that of God, the good in all, in our words and lives in everyone. In other words, we must answer that which is equal, just and true in ourselves and in every other man and woman.
Fox also believes that each of us has authority from God to know His Power which shall never be shaken nor changed.  We should answer the witness of God in everyone through this authority. We can also understand the power and authority of darkness through the God of Power. To make this all work God gives us the gift of an endless life, to live with Him forever.

Friends are to spread God’s blessed Truth abroad, and answer it in all people; they are to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one. Friends should answer the Light and Truth in every man and woman, especially those who are oppressed.

Fox believes that all the problem in the world can be solved if we answer and witness to the God and the Good within everyone. For healing comes when everyone is brought to the Light who answers the principle of God in all. All sinners must see the good in themselves and in others.

However if people do not believe in Christ the Light; if they are out of the Image of God, out of the life of God, out of the True Covenant, out of the True Church; if they are out of the doctrine of Christ which says love your enemies, there will be violence and war.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

We are to live in God’s kingdom now and with him for eternity. All Friends everywhere are to keep out of wars.  For those who pretend to fight with carnal weapons for Christ are deceived. His warriors only fight with spiritual weapons.  Friends are called to Christ’s peace. For his kingdom is not of this world, therefore his servants do not fight.

We are to seek the glorious Kingdom of God, which stands in righteousness and holiness. His kingdom has both “come” and is “coming” to those who give him first place in their lives and loyalties. It is “come;” present within each person who consciously tries to do what God wants them to do with their lives, and who give Christ first place in their lives and loyalties. The Kingdom is also “come” with Christ reigning over the world. The Kingdom “coming.” is the final stage of humanity. The petition: “Thy kingdom come” from the Lord’s prayer indicates that Christ thought of the Kingdom in terms of the future. Fox does too. This Kingdom is never to be destroyed. God’s goodness becomes the everyday standard for the universe. The Kingdom is not a human kingdom but spiritual and eternal. Christ, the conquering King of judgement becomes Christ the conquering Lamb who will conquer all evil whether individual or universal.

We must seek and enjoy the everlasting Kingdom of Peace in which we come to know peace and the end of war. In the Kingdom of Peace all people live in harmony and neighborliness.  Friends live in the Peaceable Kingdom of Christ Jesus. (The Peaceable Kingdom is the vision of all people living in harmony and neighborliness, seeking the good and welfare of all.) We are to live in and mind the kingdom of Christ the Prince of Peace and not meddle with the powers of the earth.  We are not of this unrighteous world but are heirs of an eternal kingdom where no corruptible thing enters. Our weapons are spiritual yet mighty. Through them the strongholds of the devil, the author of wars, fighting, murder, and plots, will be destroyed.

Wow! I just ran across this quote, and am putting it up here for your perusal and comments. –Karen O.

“The loud little handful – as usual – will shout for the war. The pulpit will – warily and cautiously – object… at first. The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ‘It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.’

Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men…

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
- Mark Twain

Here are some more queries for folks to think about and write about. They are from Faith’s meditation of June 15

1) What symptoms do I notice within myself when something needs to change in my life?

2) When those symptoms emerge do I project onto others their need to change, or do I prayerfully consider what needs to change in me?

3) Do I have the power to change what I am dissatisfied with in my life?

4) If so, will making a change harm or help me? Will it harm or help others?

5) Could my restlessness be God nudging me to make a needed change?

I want to get a some queries up for people to respond to. This set are from the sermon on June 8.

Karen O.

1) What might God be calling us as a meeting to do in other areas? Is there a project we are being called to that might be as exciting and impossible as feeding a multitude with 5 loaves of bread? Perhaps this could involve the property next door.

2) In what new direction am I personally being called to step out in faith and follow Christ my present teacher?

3) Am I hearing God call me/us to take a risk? What risk? If not, why not?

 

An Unprogrammed Conversation
by Bill Burke

God: Hey, nice to see you. I see that you aligned yourself with the light.

Me: Yeah, I usually sit at the end of the bench so I can rest my arm occasionally on the side but this morning that spot was taken.

God: Cool, it’s good to move around. It offers a different perspective.

Me: Yeah, this is the first time I sat in this particular spot and the light really has me focused. Sometimes my mind drifts, you know.

God: Yeah, I know what you mean but if you focus and listen, you’ll be fine.

Me: That’s what I try to tell myself. When I look at the stage, I can feel your presence. It’s like you’re in the middle speaking to us and we’re at your side following the spoken words.

God: Yeah, that is a nice visual, I like it. I notice that food is being collected for the food bank –macaroni and cheese and tuna fish. Yumm!!! If you want to have an incredible heavenly meal – just add peas

When you were thinking about standing up and sharing your visual interpretation of the scene before you, I was excited. But then you didn’t.

Me: I felt I needed more time.

God: It would have been alright but I must admit I really liked your proposal to recreate the scene at another time and write something. That was a great move and if I was giving out points, you would have gotten a bunch but you know me, my playing field is level.

By the way, how did you like my follow up?

Me: I thought it was so you.

God: I just couldn’t resist placing a pencil on your path home especially after you mentioned to a few people the previous week that you haven’t seen a pencil on the ground for a few months. I was sure that you would hear me laughing. Just a little reminder. Sometimes we all need them.

Me: Yeah, you’re right, I can’t argue with you. Anyway, you are always right.

God: Well, another hour has passed and it was really nice to have this conversation with you. Remember, I am always here 24/7, 365 – oh, this year is 366. Adjustments can be annoying sometimes.

By the way, the sticker you saw yesterday in that car window was right on the money. “God is having a good day”. I sure was and I hope you always have good days.

Later!!

My Own Prison by Shari Burke

I’ve been listening to a series of lectures by the late theologian John O’Donohue that have been collected in a CD series entitled “Wisdom from the Celtic World.” In these lectures, he touches on many themes, including those of suffering and the inner prison. His thoughts on these topics got me to thinking about how these issues affect our lives so profoundly, yet we do not want to think about them. We spend a great deal of time and energy trying to avoid them, but since we will all have to face suffering and our inner prisons at some times in our lives, our avoidance can leave us ill-prepared to deal with them.

It is often said that a central tenet of Buddhism is that “life is suffering.” Most Buddhist writers I have read say that this is an oversimplification. It is not that we will drag ourselves through life enduring constant suffering. Rather, we can find ourselves suffering needlessly due to our attachment to certain people, things, or outcomes that we have no control over. Furthermore, every life will include some forms of suffering and we will have to learn to deal with this. This Buddhist view fits in well with O’Donohue’s views about Celtic traditions.

The thing is, our suffering can be a great gift. None of us would consciously choose suffering, but I believe that we sometimes choose unconsciously either by clinging to outdated patterns of behavior, by allowing ourselves to act or become paralyzed by fear, or by making ourselves small. In these ways, we build our inner prisons brick by brick. We may not even be aware we’re doing it until one day we wake up and realize we feel trapped.

I once heard a story about how elephants in India are trained to become work animals. After the elephant is captured, it is chained by the leg to something sturdy. It tries to escape, but cannot. After some time has passed, a thick rope replaces the chain. The elephant doesn’t try quite so hard to escape now. The rope is replaced by a thinner one and later a thinner one still. Finally, a tendril from a lotus flower is placed around the leg. Once in awhile, the elephant thinks about leaving and moves her leg, but feels the tendril there and stops. At this point the only thing imprisoning the elephant is her belief in her own imprisonment. I don’t know whether this story is factually true in terms of the elephants, but I do know it is true for each of us.

We believe wholeheartedly in the prisons we build for ourselves. And we do a great job of prison building. After all, who knows our personal vulnerabilities better than ourselves? We trap ourselves with limiting ideas. I’m not smart enough. I could never do that. I don’t have enough money, time, training, experience, knowledge, confidence…. People just don’t do stuff like that. Who do I think I am anyway? If it’s not a struggle, it’s not worthwhile. What makes up the bricks that built the walls of your prison?

The point is, we get stuck. This leads to a certain amount of dissatisfaction, frustration, and unhappiness. We may end up busying ourselves in a flurry of activity either to avoid looking at our prison walls, or to knock them down. We can exhaust ourselves this way. The thing is, unless we dismantle the prison brick by brick, the same way we built it, we will remain stuck inside it. But this is truly hard labor and all too often, it’s a task we decide we don’t want to undertake. After all, even though it may feel limiting and confining inside my personal prison, it is mine. It’s cozy, somehow comforting, and quite familiar. Who knows what’s on the other side of these walls? No, I may not like it all of the time, but I know what it’s like here, so I think I’ll stay. And here is where the big suffering begins.

Sometimes we have to go through times of great suffering because it’s the only way God can get us to quiet down enough to listen to her. In my own life I have found it totally amazing to realize that the healing I needed came at the darkest moments. Would I have chosen to enter that dark and terrifying place? No way! But when I fell into the darkness. I let go of a great deal of the junk that led me to that place — stuff I did not need or even want, but carried around because I felt like I should or because of some misguided notion that I was helping someone else. I just never knew how to get rid of it all until I no longer had the strength to hang onto it anymore. Then letting go was pretty easy. Falling into suffering makes you so tired. I no longer had the energy to cling to my old ways of thinking. They fell away. And there it is — this kind of pain opens us places within us by scouring away the stuff we no longer need, but were afraid to let go of. When you are broken and utterly exhausted, you can only hang on to what you absolutely need for survival, and this creates open, fertile ground for the seeds of possibility to be planted.

We can only see this in hindsight, though. As John O’Donohue points out, when we’re in the midst of the suffering, we cannot analyze it, make sense of it, or be grateful for it. All of that can come later. No, while we’re in the darkness, our job is to experience it and keep walking through it. We have little energy left for anything else during such times.

What we may discover, though, as we begin to heal and see the newly planted seeds of possibility sprouting, is that we’ve removed a great many of the bricks that comprise or prison walls. Most likely the hole is big enough to catch a glimpse of what could be happening on the other side. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we can even squeeze through and find the courage to experience life on the outside.

Welcome to the new Klamath Falls Friends Monthly Meeting blog.

Current news: It’s party time! Come celebrate Sophia’s birthday with a potluck on Sunday March 9. Bring a main dish to share. The church will provide the birthday cake. Come prepared to share a “Sophia memory.”

See you there!