Idolatry

“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” (Exodus 3:2)

“.... they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? ….say …. I Am hath sent me unto you.” (Exodus 3:13,14)

“And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, ..... we wot not what is become of him.” (Exodus 32:32)

Relationships are hard work. Communities cannot be created, or be built, or grow. A community can only be lived. You have to look into the burning bush; you have to climb up the mountain. It takes time and effort. You have to sweat it out. You have to let yourself be knocked down, then you have to get up again. You have to be broken and stay broken.

Oh how much easier it is to migrate into one's own head, and create there an image that will comfort us and purport to show us the way. To let other people tell us the way instead of working it out for ourselves. To read all about it in books instead of telling our own story.

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them” (Exodus 20:4,5)

We might not bow down and worship golden calves, we might well keep our meeting houses free of distracting images. But if all we are doing in worship is contemplating the image in our heads, then it is still idolatry.

Land and Freedom in Zimbabwe

The latest post on Transition Quaker has some observations on the political situation in Zimbabwe, and especially the contested area of land reform. Zimbabwe is almost always viewed as a 'failed State', with a society and economy devastated by a corrupt dictatorship. My experience of living and working in Matabeleland has suggested the situation is more complex, and caused me to question the way that our media represents Zimbabwe and perhaps other 'pariah States' too. You can read the full article here.

Quakers and Worship

Quakers describe themselves as a 'Religious Society' and call the central act of their society a 'Meeting For Worship'. Yet, to hear Quakers talk about this you would think that Quakerism is a religion and we meet together to worship God. There is a world of difference between 'having a religion' and being 'religious', and this difference becomes very apparent when trying to work through the Quaker admonition that everything is sacred.

If one's actual practice in life – which may be different from what one says – is to 'have a religion' then it is impossible for everything to be sacred, because you will have other things besides a religion. What will happen is that everything will become secular. Before one knows it, the use of the terms 'religious' and 'worship' will become problematic and the call to remove these terms from what we say and write will grow ever stronger.

However, if you are 'religious' the whole world is seen in terms of personal relationships, and the secular – that which we do in the world – is superseded by the sacred – that sense of intimate relationship in the world. Worship is the symbolic expression of that relationship in all its fullness, for which the idea of God may or may not be helpful.

The choice is ours in all its starkness: are we an ethical society of individuals who do good works in the world, which we then contemplate in the silence, or are we a community that expresses itself in worship, entering into expectant waiting to discern the good works waiting for us to do.

A few thoughts on meditation sessions at Sheffield Friends Meeting House

Meditation is very much in vogue these days. The recent batch of meditation sessions at the Quaker Meeting House started on Thursday 24 November 2011. A few of us were sitting in the Meeting House library at about 8pm meditating on light. As I write this down, it sounds to me like a rather quaint thing to do -- and I guess it was. When we finished, a few of us said, 'That was good. Why don't we do this more often -- perhaps weekly -- perhaps on Sunday morning before meeting?' So we decided to run a few trial sessions. The first Sunday morning Experiment with Light meditation took place on Sunday 27 November 2011 and we have been meeting every Sunday since that date. 'What has all this meditation achieved?' you might ask. I can only answer for myself, and that is to say that I feel a lot more connected. Connected to the people I meditate with, connected to everyone I see on Sunday at the Meeting House, connected to the seat I sit on and connected to the thoughts and feelings that people share on Sundays. [To be continued].

Transition Quaker

Some observations on the food culture of Zimbabwe, and parallels with some of the local food movements here in the UK, are on my new blog 'Transition Quaker'. The aim of the blog is to explore some of the current movements towards building a sustainable and life-enhancing society from a Quaker perspective. I hope it will also develop some of the themes in the essay I submitted to the Friends Quarterly competition in 2009 on the theme of 'The Future of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain'. I will also be posting miscellaneous topics here, taking advantage of having some extra time to think, while I shovel manure in the Moss Valley...

Friends' "Loyal Address" to "Her Majesty"

I don't know how many Friends have seen the text of the 'Loyal Address' presented to the Queen on our behalf last week as part of the Diamond Jubilee ceremonies. The full text, with an interesting range of comments is on Jez Smith's 'Nayler' blog here.

On the whole it strikes me as lacking the forthrightness that I would expect in an official statement on behalf of Friends. As one of the commentators on the Nayler blog (an American Friend) writes:

This message shows only the tiniest inkling of courage — of the real courage that many Friends demonstrate in other situations and which is, in a way, slightly betrayed here, or at least undersold. This address just speaks mutually congratulatory platitudes to power.

 I wonder what Sheffield Friends make of it?

Hlekweni - The Movie

This short (5 minute) video of Hlekweni was filmed in one day and finished just last week - complete with soundtrack by the trainees (available soon on CD....)