I had some Walgreens RRs that expired today so I had to force myself to make the great 1 mile trip down the road to my favorite drug store. I bought 2 Quaker Oatmeal Pancakes on sale for $5/2 – (2) $1/1 mc coupons, and got $2 RR back. I used $3 RR that I had and it was like getting them free. As a filler item I grabbed a Xmas coffee mug for $.69.

Spent $.75, Saved $6, Received $2 RR

When my eyes are closed I can pretend Any Thing I want. Technically Pretense and Imagination are different. Technicalities are for eagle scouts. I earned my badges from Rocky Mountain subsistence farmers in Canada. Deep down Americans think Canadians are more pure. Quakers and Dukaboors come close.

Technically I’m American. There are pieces of me Every Where. I’d Imagine I am close to the Eternal, too. Everybody Else thinks you need an imagination to pretend. I see people pretend every day and they have no imagination.

End Week 24. End week one four days solid training in PT. My metabolism has shifted. My legs will burn before my lungs cry for mercy. I look at a sandhill. Before my body says I don’t think so my mind says okay. I am exhausted different. With a reserve. I am getting Ready.

Yesterday five minutes versaclimber. 12/8/4 pull ups. Bff pain camped out in my jaw. Shoulder back to 80%. Exchanged jacket for snowshoes. Easier to wear extra shirts than swim in snow. An unrelenting week and I showed all four days.

Feeling courageous after stepping on the tail of a tiger is step one of Approach and Contemplation. Consistent routine. Noh drama. Imagine what could come next. Under the Blue Sky of Heaven it is enough to be Alive.

Most Christians haven’t heard of an Advent fast. The Orthodox keep it quite seriously, as they do all four of the major fasts. But Western Christians, even those raised in the traditional Roman church, have forgotten or never knew about the disciplines of Advent. While keeping a strict fast may only be possible when one is living a monastic life or in a fasting community, some discipline is a good practice in the seasons of preparation before the festivals.

For those of us whose lives overlap the world, we may not be able to be so strict without causing others discomfort or great inconvenience. Honestly, I don’t like cooking two sets of meals myself if a member of the household is not able to fast with us. I know I can’t starve myself on bread and salad for six weeks, either. So this year we have a modified discipline, because I am the only one in the house who is able to fast.

We have another, more practical discipline – a freezer full of meat that needed to be used before it was unusable. Now this is an odd kind of fasting, to eat beef in a fasting season. But it was the most sensible thing to do. Instead of buying fresh meat or even vegetarian foods through the month, our goal is to use up what we have before it is wasted. There are other foods in the pantry as well that we have bought but not used; it is time to clear that out and start over. I don’t want to realize some day that “uh-oh, that has gone way past its sell-by date!” or that a forgotten bag of flour is actually rancid. We have decided to be more mindful of what we have, and give thanks to God by utilizing it.

Some things have gone to the food bank for those who simply can’t keep frozen or fresh things – canned soups, pudding mixes, and so on, that are convenient for those with limited cooking facilities. Right now, we have time, power and appliances to cook almost everything from scratch. This saves money that can be better used to help others.

Our gifts to God, especially when used for the support of others, should be the first fruits, not the last fruits. When the prophet Amos has a vision of a basket of late summer fruit, the Lord tells him it is Israel, and it is not satisfactory. That is because it is the last fruits – the overripe, left behind produce no one really wanted. It is the sacrifice that a negligent people made to God. The people kept the best for themselves, and gave away what they did not want at all. This is no sacrifice.

Most financial advisors will tell their clients, “Pay yourself first,” meaning that you should set aside money in savings at the top of your budget. God tells Christians this: Give generously of your first fruits. Charity is not the last item on the budget; God puts it first. The Lord says, “What you have done for the least of these, you have done for me.” If it were Jesus standing in line at the food bank, or without the money for winter shoes, would you give him something you didn’t want? Wouldn’t you take him home for a beautiful holiday meal, hand him the new boots you were wearing? Would you hand him a stale tuna sandwich or roast a turkey for him? Would you see him walk away in your old gym shoes or your new leather dress shoes?

I have often regretted what I have bought, and I have never regretted what I have given away.

The ticket agent looked shyly up at me and asked if I was wearing lavender perfume.  In my rush to pull myself together and on a train for an appointment, I had not forgotten my daily ritual of spritzing on my own homemade aromatherapy fragrance, maybe three hours earlier.  I could not longer detect the fresh, calming envelope of flowers from the south of France around me, but, happily, the agent could, and shared her appreciation.

We then spoke a few minutes about her demanding job and need for a bit of peace and beauty in the midst of harried travellers, children at home and constant obligations.  She said that she had read that lavender is supposed to be a soothing balm in the midst of any storm.  However, she had tried  a few varieties from local drug stores without much success.

She might as well have said, ‘Niagra Falls’, because, slowly I turned’ step by step, inch by inch, etc. (if you watch old Abbott and Costello).  She had happened upon one of my (many) points of irritation.

By the way, if you want to skip this narrative and get straight to the recipe, it is at the bottom of this entry.

Aromatherapy uses food-grade essential oils to great and profound effect on mind, body and spirit.  What passes as aromatherapy, and I do not believe there is any stipulation as to what can or cannot be termed aromatherapy in retail stores, is most times, nothing of the sort.  If you purchase a bath or skin product, it may contain an essential oil, but when mixed with many other ingredients, it loses it efficacy as a healing aid.

True essential oils have the power to affect an immediate change of emotion, physical symptom and/or general mood.  Some are so powerful that they may not be put on the skin directly, or you will have blisters and burns.  Oregano and thyme are two that are very strong.  They also combat cold and flu viruses, so to apply them, massage a couple of drops, mixed with oil, such as olive or castor, into the soles of your feet.  Your body absorbs what it needs, but the thicker skin on the feet prevent too much from entering.  If you were to ingest these two oils by the mouth, you could damage inner organs, but the foot massage method seems safe for most (never use essential oils, except lavender and camomile on babies – and even then, dilute with olive or borage oils)

Back to my ticket agent.  I was not angry at her, but at the companies that sell inferior products using a popular catch-phrase.  Not only are they taking your money without providing you the service for which you are paying, but customers who hope to alleviate manageable levels of depression, anxiety and other disorders without prescription drugs, may reject aromatherapy altogether as a hoax, when they have not tried the real thing at all.

No one can be beautiful and happy if they are depressed, anxious, frightened, etc.  So by adding a daily self-massage of the following recipe you accomplish a few things: the much needed, and deserved, pampering; the satisfying, if momentary, luxury of pure fragrance; the powerful while subtle influence of specific oils for specific symptoms; the lingering delightful surprise to yourself and others around you during the day, of flashes of these combined flowers and plants.

Aromatherapy will be effective even if you do not particularly like the smell of combined oils, but it is preferable to find a mix you do like.  Also, while one oil can help, there seems to be a synergy when a few are combined.  You can overdo this as well, so it may be best to try to keep blends to about three oils.

Here is a basic recipe that works for pretty much everyone; its influence grows with time and use.  Find the ingredients at a health food store that you trust.  Check the brands and go online to read reviews.  Observe that real essential oils have varying prices; some are rare and very costly, others more commonplace, but not necessarily less effective.  Use the testers in stores to make sure there is no unpleasant notes.  Some lavenders (there are many) are sweet, others have a sour afternote.  They may all be effective, but some are more pleasant than others.

Carrier oils should be pure and oder-less.  Expensive ones, such as borage, almond and avocado have the additional benefit of being wonderful for the skin.  They take a bit longer than store lotions to sink in, but once they do they are nourishing.

In 2 ounces of carrier oil mix:

• 50 drops of lavender oil (or till you like the fragrance)
• 20 drops of clary sage
• 20 drops rosewood

Lavender is all-purpose: it calms, energizes, soothes, relaxes, and uplifts the mood.  Clary sage is balancing, especially for women who may be under undo stress: it creates a sense of euphoria in anyone.  It is almost miraculous in its ability to lift spirits.  Rosewood has a rich, luxurious fragrance that is a mix of sweetness and exhilarating freshness: it gives the sense of security and rejuvenation.

I have seen very good quality oils like these for under twenty dollars each, in 1 ounce bottles.  Since you use only drops at a time, this can go quite far.

If your family holidays test your capacity for goodwill and cheer, a daily dose of this recipe will keep you looking fresh and beautifully calm.  That kind of inner happiness is contagious and might herald in a revival of the peace of Christmas Past.

My mother and father, Katie Funk Wiebe and Walter Wiebe, 1947

My red-haired grandmother, Anna Janzen Funk, left school after the third grade to help the family survive the Russian Revolution. During World War II, my mother, Katie Funk Wiebe, declined a scholarship to study physics and enrolled in secretarial school, partly because my grandfather knew that a physicist would support the war effort, something against the family’s pacificistic beliefs, but also because that would enable her to quickly support herself. But both my grandmother and my mother were enthusiastic life-long learners. Their context was as Ukrainian, Mennonite immigrants to northern Saskatchewan, Canada, living in close-knit small farming communities.  And that’s the socio-cultural context into which I was born, and everything I have learned in my life is meaningful within that very specific matrix of people, geography, culture, cosmology, and theology.

Every shred of meaning that I cherish is inter-subjective.

How are values, beliefs and thinking manifested? Gerry Stahl describes shared meaning as an emergent property of discourse and interaction. It is NOT  “just some kind of statistical average of individual mental meanings, an agreement among pre-existing opinions, or an overlap of internal representations. . . It is not necessarily reducible to opinions or understandings of individuals.” Socially shared meaning is made visible in the interactions of agents belonging the group. In other words, watch my behavior and conversations with my family, my co-workers at Orbitz Worldwide, and with my friends at Quaker meeting, Shalom Mountain Retreat and Study Center, Reba Place Fellowship,  and Evanston Home Educators.

In my interactions in those venues, plenty of shared meaning is emerging all the time.

Social learning: my nephew's tool acquisition activities, with two cousins and a mom

Some may question all this noösphere stuff and argue against the existence of any such woo-woo thing as a “group mind”.  You may have more of a “black box” approach, thinking that human learning is personal, kind of mysterious, and that’s it.

“Given that we have for millennia become used to taking learning and thinking as activities of individual minds, it is hard to conceive of them as primarily group activities,” says Gerry Stahl, of of the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University.

For a long time I’ve seen everything, everyone, as interconnected and interdependent. That is indubitably a by-product of:

• studying Tielhard de Chardin at Tabor College and Marshall McLuhan at the J-School at the University of Kansas
• going over the top with the psychedelic mushrooms and cactus in my twenties
• a lifetime of meditation
• being a Canadian Mennonite and a Quaker
• being a member of the Benjamin Barber fan club
• too many hours on Facebook
• other socio-cultural factors yet to be analyzed

So for me, social learning is not a question of ontology, but rather of methodology. I am interested in learning the how interdependent cognition works. In other words, exactly what processes are involved in developing shared meaning amongst multiple individuals?  What are the various agents, and what are their possible interactions? What are the artifacts of their interactions?

As a designer of experiences for learning, I want to know what’s in my toolbox. In upcoming posts, I plan to explore those topics, of agents and their interactions in social learning.

Stahl, G. (2005). Group cognition in computer-assisted collaborative Learning. In Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, April 2005, Vol. 21 Issue 2, p79-90.

IS THERE A FIG TREE WITH FRUIT AROUND?

So today my wife and I are going to do something that is going to seem quite strange to many of you. We are going to visit a QUAKER MEETING HOUSE here in Smithtown NY. Now before you get all LOONEY and think “I knew it, JACOB is getting involved in a CULT!”

Well… say’s the Pot to the Kettle! (insert smiley face) First of all, I’m not a fan of any organized religion, but I am a huge fan of learning about them and meeting new people who want to know God. And after the research I did on the QUAKER FAITH you’ll find, it ain’t too bad… But don’t worry about my eternal soul people, I don’t believe I will be joining any new religion in the near or distant future… But for those who be judging I’ll have you know, the Quaker seems to be a peace loving, compassionate, caring, Christ seeking believer, so settle down you Silly Goose Head!”

Paul says it is good to be everything for everyman! This is why for years I have studied various faiths.

You’ll find I have a bunch of holy books I quote from on this blog. I try to hold back, as I don’t want to cause another to stumble… But how else do we meet people where they are at and learn from them, if we do not venture out and see if there be more.

Regardless, there is a reason for everything, even this post today. Which really has very little to do with the QUAKERS and has everything to do with People who hurt us and how this may very well be God’s will!

But I digress, I was led to the QUAKER faith, and it fascinated me. So I studied as much as I could. For no other reason than I just had to find out how they cornered the market on hot breakfast cereal!

BUT SERIOUSLY, I came across their faith quite by ACCIDENT (what I would think was by accident)… But what lately I have learned is Divine Intervention… Which means pretty much EVERYTHING that happens in life, is orchestrated by God.

Amos 4:13
He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth— the LORD God Almighty is his name.

Sometimes even the MEAT-HEAD things we do, God is inspiring IN US. Because it is out these very knucklehead moves that the LORD OF HOSTS brings us closer to the TRUTH.

SIDE NOTE: Ever consider what a HOST is? When you HOST someone, YOU are putting them up in your HOUSE, or BUSINESS, or INTERNET SITE. If you are a Parasite You LIVE off your HOST.

Consider this, we are the HOST that GOD lives IN, THROUGH, BY AND FOR. He is the LORD of HOSTS (us) — we are HIS HOST – We are his TEMPLE, He is our LORD. He is at the WHEEL steering people.

So, even when we do something so dumb, like BREAKING OUR KNECK, something I did when I was eighteen… It was GOD that inspired my action to get me to do thus! Because this BROKEN neck BROUGHT me closer to my destiny, which was to be a writer, author extraordinaire… (anyone buy my novel today? hint, hint, hint — www.jacobisrael.org )

So, if I didn’t do what I did I wouldn’t be here writing to you all… You see, even our meat-head actions are GODS BEAUTIFULLY ORCHESTRATED PERFECT WILL for our lives. Bringing us CLOSER to our DESTINY and to our PURPOSE. Closer to Him! Remember…

Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Oh I know what you’re thinking, God ONLY takes care of the steps of a Righteous man. Well, let me tell you something. God is in control of us all. Good, Bad, and Bob Barker TOO!

Check out Joseph, not Mary’s Squeeze, but the one who got the funky many colored coat! NOW, just look at how foolish Joseph was when he spoke to his brothers after his awesome dream.

He must have sounded sooooo arrogant after telling his brothers about his dream, how they would all bow down before him. And that got his brother soooooo angry, that they wanted him dead, or at least they were going to PANTS HIM for it!

Genesis 37 6-8 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: 7For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. 8And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.

Just think of how COCKY Joseph sounded to them, when he was alll like… “Listen to me my brothers, you and my Father will bow down before me! Yes, I am the greatest, I totally ROCK! I will rule over you! HA! HA! HA! And did I mention Reuben, you have bad breath and back hair! Simeon I am better looking than you! And Judah you are a punk and I can totally take you out in WII!… I AM JOSEPH HEAR MY ROAR!”

I mean, what older brothers wouldn’t take Joseph and dunk his head in the toilet a couple of times? That’s an older brother’s job, isn’t it? To humble the younger?

Well, that is why the CARNAL MAN, ADAM, IS HERE PEOPLE! You see, these stories are all ALLEGORIES, for us to learn from. Whatever is without is most definately from within.

THE ELDER (carnal nature) is here to HUMBLE THE YOUNGER. This is why Jacob was running scared most of his life. His older, scary, hairy, brother Esau!

The good news is, in the END the ELDER (carnal nature) will serve the YOUNGER (Christ)

These are PICTURES of the TWO NATURES at war WITHIN us. And each of these BROTHERS of JOSEPH are individual pictures as well. Here I will give you a brief history of the 1st Born and 2nd Born –

The HEBREW TRADITION stated that the 1st born NATURAL SON inherits all the birthright and possesions of the FATHER, this is why the BLESSING OF THE FATHER is so important… BUT RIDDLE ME THIS BATMAN? When it comes to the KINGDOM OF GOD, the FIRSTBORN is NEVER THE ONE WHO INHERITS, we always see the 1ST is cast off, for the 2nd!

WHY?

Because, this is an allegory. The NEW WINE is not prefered by the natural man, but the OLD WINE… The 1st MAN is NATURAL not spiritual and this is what NATURAL MAN WANTS but not GOD… this is why we see a trend in scripture. THE 1ST BORN is almost always what I call a DEATH DEALER, someone who brings death or kills, whereas you’ll see the 2ND BORN is always, ALWAYS a SHEPHARD! Sound like anyone we know?

That’s right, the Big Kahuna! CHRIST!

So the 1st Born is the (Killer, ignorant, carnal, first nature of man) and the 2ND Born seems to be the (Enlightened Christ, Shepherd Nature revealed after in man). We see the 1st born and 2nd Born again and again in so many stories in the bible, but because I’m lasy and my finger cramp, Im only going to list a few.

1st Born ADAM (brings death) —- 2nd Adam CHRIST (Shepard- BRINGS LIFE)
1st CANE (death) —- 2nd ABEL (Shepard – pleases God)
1st ISHMAEL (Hunter/slave/death/cast off) —– 2nd ISAAC (Shepard – Life)
1st ESAU (Hunter/Killer) —- 2nd JACOB (ME! LOL … Shepard – Life)

Getting the idea here? These are all wonderful word pictures.

Our first worldly nature is formed out of the DUST OF OUR EXPERIENCE.

Now for those of you thinking about your literal older brother or younger sister, STOP! These are PARABLES, they are symbols… these are NATURES IN YOU at work and WAR! This really has NOTHING to do with being LITERALLY BORN OF FLESH AT ALL!

John 1:13
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Two NATURES, two BROTHERS at WAR – 1st born and 2ND born.

Genesis 25:23
And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

The WOMB is where the CARNAL MAN and CHRIST are birthed from. The 1st born or 2nd! And you see, here we have BOTH inside fighting for control. But no worries, in the END, Christ overcomes the world, so will we.

1 John 5:4
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

This CARNAL MAN is a tough NUT to crack. ESPECIALLY if you were raised in my house growing up. But I assure you…

1 John 4:4
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

In any event, I PROMISE I will get to the whole reason for my journey into the heart of the QUAKER FAITH … But first I want to show you how GOD is in control of EVEN OUR MEAT-HEAD ENEMIES, for our, AND THEIR, advancement into the kingdom.

So, Joseph’s brother’s took sibling hazing a bit far by wanting him dead, But Joseph was sounding a bit cocky, you have to admit! However, this was ALL really just a SYMBOL of how CHRIST IN US is abused by our CARNAL NATURE and how the CHRIST WITHIN is made subject to this VANITY (OUR NONSENCE) for a time. Until the SOULISH MAN, realizes there is a FAMINE in the land, and humbly returns to the BROTHER (Christ) within, begging for help. This is a picture of how we all fall and return again.

But let us just FOR A MOMENT (how I hate to do this) look at the story of Joseph in literary terms for now.

Well, in this next little story in Genesis we learn how God WAS WORKING ALL the angles in Joseph’s life! He was behind it all.

You would think the DEVIL would be behind the scenes getting Joseph’s brothers to act so horribly, but YOU’D BE WRONG! SO SUCK IT UP PILGRIMS, YOU’VE BEEN SERVED!

As we continue to read here, we will learn, it is GOD, that provokes the Jacob boys to such EVIL action… Hey don’t take my word for it… Check it out PEEPS! — This week, I decided to show the world how “down” I am!

After all JOSEPH endured, he understood, his BROTHERS were doing GOD’S WORK! And I hope after this paper you will understand the same.
It really shouldn’t be hard after all, I mean it is written there in black and white in Gen 45. But we know those RELIGIOUS FOLK, using the bible as a BAT but never as a “book” written by the inspiration of God, so we can read, and allow the Holy Spirit to inspire REVELATION within for us all!

You see, Joseph didn’t blame those who abused him, accused him, used him, and flibbity floosed him! He didn’t even get angry with his brothers. He understood they had no power to do anything BUT what God MADE them do. They weren’t acting by their own evil hand. GOD DID THIS TO JOSEPH!

“WHAT JACOB? How dare you say that? God doesn’t get people to do bad things?” Some will say.

ZIP IT YOU! … Jacob says right back at you! (what are you going to do, shut the computer off tough guy/girl…. ooooh I’m scared! Just kidding. I loves ya and wants to hugs ya! (insert smiley face with arms extended for hug)

Well for those who say, God doesn’t make people do bad things… I say… REALLY? What about Hardening Pharoah’s heart? Hhhhm? And there is that little thing called the Crusifiction?

Didn’t Jesus say to Judas… “Go do what you MUST do.” Do you think JUDAS had a choice?” – Jesus was pretty clear, he HAD to be betrayed, which means one man HAD TO BE A BETRAYER!

BY THE WAY: This is also a picture of how our CARNAL NATURE betrays our TRUE NATURE which is CHRIST! This is all the PLAN OF GOD from the beginning. This is why it is not EVIL for God to bring EVIL in the land, people! So settle down. So long as this EVIL brings about the GOOD. — Oh and EVIL is not (listening to a Marilyn Manson Album Backwards – EVIL is ERROR) just so you know!

But I digress:
You would think MURDERING AN INNOCENT MAN (Jesus) would be an EVIL act, RIGHT? However, few “Christians” would say that doing that was EVIL… AND fewer still would say, GOD WAS NOT IN CONTROL!

Because we ALL AGREE, God sent his son into the world to SAVE THE WORLD, so ALL COULD BELIEVE AND I REPEAT so ALL, not some, COULD BE SAVED! God’s hand WAS MOST DEFINATLY behind this EVIL OF THIS SCENE, righhhhhht?
But is it really Evil? If the end result, is SALVATION FOR ALL? And YES I MEAN ALLLLLLL!

Because in the end, it SAVED THE WORLD (meaning ALL!)

Phil 2:10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So JUST like JESUS, we learn that Joseph had to suffer as well. And GOD was provoking his brothers and all the tormentors in his life to do so. We learn this in Genesis 45. God was behind Joseph being thrown in the EMPTY DRY/BARREN WELL… (which is a picture of humanity barren soul/ignorance – no truth), then sold him into slavery (bondage of the flesh/sin) then PRISON.

In the end however, JOSEPH held tight, and he RULED ALL OF EGYPT (A picture of how the YOUNGER brother CHRIST rules over mankind’s SOUL the Older).

And what is good for one, is good for ALL! Meaning, the servant is NOT ABOVE THE MASTER! If God sends mean grumpy tormentors into the lives of those guys, guess what? All these jerk pants that are pestering us, are doing God’s will as well!

DARN IT! That means I have to forgive my EVIL MOTHER IN LAW! — Well, Im still in prayer over that one “church” and other individuals in my family, that have brought the SMACKETH DOWN on my heart and soul over the years… YEAH, BUT, I’M NOT BITTER OR ANYTHING (insert sarcastic look on smiley face) — (do they have those?) anyways…

For those still having a hard time grasping that the evil doers in your life, may be doing God’s will TO BETTER YOU AND SAVE YOU…

Well, check this out NAY SAYERS! When Joseph’s BROTHERS came to Joseph and expected to be put to death for all the evil they had done to him. Joseph said…

“YOU DID NOT DO THIS TO ME… It was GOD!”

Genesis 45
“I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! 5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. 7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. [a]

After all the evil and all the lies and all the treachery, Joseph says to these Jerks, “Don’t be upset for doing what you did to me, you DID IT TO ME SO I COULD SAVE YOU AND THE WORLD… GOD SENT ME HERE AHEAD OF YOU!… And by the way Reuben and Simeon, I’m still better looking!”

His brothers must have been like… “SAY WHAT, WILLIS?”

But seriously, the most heinous of crimes and God’s hand was behind it all… NEED MORE PROOF? Well, look to the next line. Watch what Joseph says next,

8 “So then, it was not YOU who sent me here, but GOD.

It wasn’t his brothers it was GOD! If only we could get this through our thick heads.

Think about how much more peace we would have. When hard times come, we would not see it through the eyes of sorrow, or grief. We would step back and say, this is happening because it is so a great day of deliverance can come.

Okay, my point with all this is, today I am going to a QUAKER MEETING PLACE… Sounds a bit nutty? Not that QUAKERS are nutty, but how random that is… RIGHT?

Well, not for me. I look at life as the Captain of a ship look at the signs of the sky. When the signs tell me turn left, I am curious to see what will be found down that left turn.

Matthew 16:3
And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

There was a time, years ago, I had a wonderful revelation on the sands of a the sea shore, and no there was no Shelly selling Sea Shells there.

It was the last time I went looking for a man made “church”… I was HUNGRY (spiritually hungry) I mean. Like Jesus was the morning he left BETHANY, which IRONICALL means (House of MISERY)

Like Jesus, I had just left the HOUSE OF MISERY as well, called DIVORCE… I really wanted to be FED spiritually in a church and find a fellowship of believers, as I had been so disappointed in the past with the many congregations I had found and walked out of.

So I had gotten up that morning, and prayed GOD let me find one, I am so very hungry for your WORD (TRUTH). I am going to intercut the passage I read and finally understood at that beach after my “fruitless” search that day.

18Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.

Ironically, here we see Jesus RETURNING to Bethany (House of Misery) to be fed. The very place he left, that made him Hungry to begin with.

I suppose it was foolish of me to think that the very thing that I had left, would somehow miraculously change and be able to bring me life, but I was STARVING for DEEPER INSIGHT into the things of God! I should have considered the words IN-SIGHT which is not spellled OUT-SIGHT… but as you all know, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

So, there I was driving on the Boston Post Road in my 12 year Old Jeep Wrangler which kicks Major But! When I saw this huge Church…

I came up to it, went it, sat and listened, fell asleep, got up, left, and walk out hungrier than before. I found NOTHING in that “CHURCH” that would nourish me… and I said in my heart… THIS PLACE WILL NEVER PRODUCE ANY FRUIT FOR ME! I knew if would NOT produce FRUIT for anyone ever again. As I walked away that FIG TREE was cursed in my eyes and I knew it would never be a source of life to any who entered its doors. NOW CHECK OUT THE J-MAN’S account.

19And when he saw a fig tree in the way he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.

I, like Jesus, was just looking for some SPIRITUAL FOOD… For those of you who thought Jesus was looking at a literal FIG TREE think again, he was looking at ISRAEL! He saw that MAN’S WAYS were bankrupt. Jesus CURSED MAN’S WAYS, as many of us do, because we know that it will bear NO FRUIT FOR US…

You see the FIG TREE is not just MAN MADE RELIGION, but it is MAN’S THINKING and MAN’S WAYS, which are far beneath God’s ways. And when we begin to understand that God in control of ALL THINGS and we let go of all the fairy tales we have been sold over the years from their salesmen of faith and we go to God WITHIN TO BE BROKEN and SET FREE, we too will see as the disciples saw.

20And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!

The instant we understand man can not offer us entrance into the things of God, we will quickly stop looking for answers there. As I did. I then drove to the beach, grabbed my handy dandy bible. And read, and within minutes I understood the parable of the fig tree, and I was FULL!

You would think with all the intelligent people that go to some of the knucklehead “miracle healers” and “RELIGIOUS LEADERS” out there that they would see through the smoke and mirrors and be disgusted at the work that is being done in the land at the hand of the so called miracle man. (I’m a poet and I DID KNOW IT!)

But even these chooch bags have their place. So settle down everyone, God has a point and a purpose for them as well, and we must love our inbred brothers and sisters TOO. THE FIG TREE that has no fruit has its place for the moment. And so do the LIARS. Who do you think is inspiring the lying?

1 Kings 22: 23 Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

That’s right Ya’ll… It just may be GOD PUTTING THE LIES IN THEIR MOUTHS! So, Don’t be hating! Why? You ask… WELL, the lies just keep getting STUPIDER, God knows one day, we all are going to WAKE UP ALREADY! He is doing this, to deliver us!

Who do you think created that FATHER OF LIES to begin with? GOD, that’s who. There is a great work being done in the land today. This is cause for us all to rejoice.

I know we are all going through some hard and difficult times, if you’re anything like me you’re probably regretting half the things you say and twice of the things you write! LOL… But seriously, there is a work being done within us, a humbling process is begun. And yes we may loose our patience, and yes we may cry and we may whine and complain, but THAT IS ALL PART OF THE PLAN!

John 9:2
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

You want to know whose fault it is that we were BORN TO BE SUCH IGNORANT MEATHEADS? Well, it wasn’t OUR fault… AS MOST religious teachers would have you to believe, as if God someone is an incompetant creator, who bumbled around up there in Heaven and Man messed everything up… NO, A SEED MUST DIE TO PRODUCE MANY OTHER SEEDS! DEATH WAS ALWAYS SO WE WOULD KNOW LIFE!

Romans 8:20
For the creature was made subject to vanity, NOT WILLINGLY, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

You see, we didn’t WILL THIS, God did. So, we need to stop judging everyone, stop being so hard on ourselves, start trusting that EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALLRIGHT, THAT GOD IS IN CONTROL!
You see we were BORN BLIND (Ignorant of God’s truth) So when we can SEE, GOD would be GLORIFIED!

3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

So, today my wife and I are going to visit our “FRIENDS” at the local QUAKER meeting house. I have already brushed up my Old English and broke out the only two stereotypes I know of to try and poke fun at our ignorance at this very cool faith. But if you want to get a bit more familiar, or want to try and get a cool hat like the QUAKER OATS GUY… check out this link below.

http://www.quaker.org/

While in this chatroom yesterday I met an enlightened chap. Who I surprisingly found out was Quaker. For the next couple of hours I consumed all I could about the faith, which is very neat. Coincidently, their views are very close to mine. They don’t judge others, they believe in the CHRIST WITHIN, and see this in other religions as well, and believe in a UNIVERSAL CHRIST in all people, not just some. They don’t condemn, they don’t have a hierarchy, there are no Pastors, leaders, etc, they don’t vote, etc, etc, they were one of the first faith’s if not the FIRST FAITH to recognize the EQUALITY of ALL MANKIND, man, woman, black, white, yellow, green, blue, purple, and striped.

They don’t have typical “church” they have meetings once a week Where everyone gathers and sits in silence to wait upon God, then people SHARE WITH EACH OTHER as they feel led, pray for each other, AND OFFER EACH OTHER MAPLE SYRUP HOT BREAKFAST CEREAL TO EACH OTHER! Isn’t that awesome?

Now this seemed like my cup of tea, even though I can’t stand tea! Unless it is BRISK BABY! So I told my sweet, sweet, Danielle about it, and she was like… YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND, YOU NUT BAG! No, she was like, COOL AND ADVENTURE, and she’s been on Youtube all morning checking it out.

Now, are we going to become QUAKERS? Highly unlikely as I like my Sunday’s to my family, Im selfish that way! But, I pay attention to the signs, the chatroom, led to my research of the religion, led to my wife and I snuggling and talking and (other things) and then this article this morning, and now a cool adventure waits… will it be akward? Possibly. Will it be weird? I’m sure of it. But will it be fruitful? We’ll see… That, is what I am hoping for… FRUIT! Because, I am hungry again people, and perhaps it is time for me to start looking for fruit in the land today, because the SIGNS OF THE TIMES are saying, THE FRUIT IS BEGINNING TO SPROUT in the hearts of some TREES. The Times they are a Changing. I’m here to shake up the ground and I hope you’re digging it!

PEACE OUT PEEPS! Love you all,
Jacob!

I’ve been thinking about Anglican Christmas traditions. I wish we had some better ones, or could get back some of the old ones. We have become a very cultural church, and follow the latest trend a little too closely. Some so-called traditions I would like to see dropped:

1. Christmas trees EVERYWHERE. The Christmas tree did not appear in England until Queen Victoria got married, and was brought in as a German custom by Prince Albert. That’s  all right, but the Victorian tree was a wee thing with a few baubles and some candles stuck on it, and usually sat on a tabletop in the parlour. It was not for public display. The Lutheran legend is that Martin Luther brought home a small evergreen one Christmas eve, and put candles on it to show his children how the trees looked at night with the stars shining through them, a kind of representation in a Nordic way of the night of the Nativity, with the star over Bethlehem, and the angels glowing in the night sky. Well, this was pretty impressive for sixteenth century children who must have had better imaginations than modern children. And that version of why we have Christmas trees is much nicer and sweeter than the sacrifice to Wotan one.

So why do we have to have Christmas trees – massive Douglas firs or the plastic equivalent – everywhere we turn from American Thanksgiving to Epiphany? Because the wasteful large tree has become a status symbol, covered with lots of expensive designer ornaments.

And please, keep the tree out of the church!

2. Expensive parties from November 30 through New Year’s Eve.

Advertising would have us believe that the whole month of December is about parties: glittery clothes, lots of food and drink, decorating the house like Versailles on the Sun King’s birthday. We are reminded and cajoled to shop for the perfect little dress, get our hair dyed, cut and ornamented, paint our faces like courtesans, and wear high heels in the winter. Spend money, look glamorous (although we can be pretty frumpy the other eleven months) and pretend that we live amongst the glitterati and rock stars.

Come on, now. So few of us really aspire to that lifestyle that these holiday ads are nothing but 30-second romance novels. It isn’t going to happen. We don’t live in a world where we get invited to dozens of parties, because most of our families and friends are striving to just get to work and pay the bills. But we buy into it anyway, and indulge in clothes we might wear once, in food and drink no one really needed, and we try to pretend for just a little while that the world is not what it is. This is unhealthy and leads to a huge emotional drop when January 2 comes, and we have loads of laundry to do, a busted bank account, nothing but gumdrops and cheap champagne in the pantry, and a reality of grizzling children and hung-over spouses. And there’s no black-uniformed maid to swoop down, straighten up the mess and set us on our feet. The glmaour was just that – fake stardust and lies. The root of the word glamour is illusion. It is not about financial and social success; it is about being deceived and literally led astray by the dark spirits.

3. Christmas Cards. Considering the amount of waste that goes into sending cards, including trees, money and your time, why are you doing this? Even recycled paper cards are using up a resource that could go elsewhere. Hand-make and hand-exchange a few cards with close friends and family. The children can help with this, or you can utilize your innate artistic skills. It will be more satisfying and take no more time to produce twenty hand-made cards than to address, sign and send 100 general printed greetings. I used to dread the Christmas card exchange, and the resulting flood of return mail. I dropped out of the whole thing when I started seminary. With papers due, I was not going to spend hours addressing envelopes and dutifully writing little progress reports to people I hadn’t seen in years.

That’s a brief list. There may be more…

We watched a program last night called “Hoarders.” It is about the intervention offered people with – what to call it? – possession disorders? Ownership obsessions? Of course, it was pretty awful for these poor people. They have completely ruined their lives, their relationships, and their finances by hoarding. Some buy things they don’t need and stash them in their houses and apartments. Others drag home trash finds, ostensibly to fix up and resell or use. Some just keep everything, mostly food container trash, that is normally thrown away. The rooms in their dwellings become filled to overflowing, and they have to navigate by narrow pathways through boxes and piles. Of course it’s unsanitary. Of course it’s ugly. Of course it’s even dangerous. But they keep doing it unless they get help. Many refuse the intervention and therapy; they don’t want to get well.

Maybe it is because I had a sheltered childhood or because I grew up in a poor community, but I don’t remember any hoarders from my young years. There would be a hushed word among the adults sometimes about someone having to go to the nursing home because they weren’t able to care for themselves, that they hadn’t cleaned or taken out trash, but it was attributed, I think, to old age and infirmity.

I realize that I have known many hoarders in recent years. Some were extreme – piles of moldering clothes and furniture, broken appliances, derelict cars full of junk and garbage. Some were more subtle – packed closets and spare rooms, tables covered with packaged food, stationery, hardware, but always an excuse as to why it was there and how long it would stay. I mean situations beyond the stack of books, the newspapers on the way to recycling, or the art supplies on the work table. That’s just a sign of a busy life. This goes beyond the string-saving habits of our depression-era grandparents – how many of us have found their kitchen drawers full of bread bags and aluminum foil, good enough to re-use? That’s just moderate hoarding. I think there has been a huge surge in major, out-of-control hoarding, just as there has been an upswing in compulsive shopping.

This is more than a displacement disorder, a psychological aberration. It is, I believe, an indication of a pervasive spiritual illness in our culture. Owning is emphasized; status is more important than relationship. We are what we have. Instead of seeking friendships and stable family situations, we are encouraged to buy, to surround ourselves with the fruits of the consumer culture, sterile and even dead. (You can’t plant a toaster and get a toast tree.) Instead of personality we have veneers of sophistication, and when someone senses that their veneer is inadequate, they seek to build it thicker with acquisitions. Clothes. Make-up. Jewelry. Furniture. Cars. Electronics. When a person is so left behind in acquiring status and sophistication that they feel their relationships are terribly inadequate, then they may develop an acquisitions disorder, turning to accumulation of possessions to compensate – “I am nothing, so I must have everything.” They literally build a thicker wall against the outside world that is so threatening.

Many people suffer this to some degree. It may get very focussed – buying only designer label clothes, for instance, or an obsession with collecting a category of item. These people are already overidentifying with objects, transferring their personalities to things. They lack essential relationships and in this, they lack trust of others. Even God can become a possession to them, as they acquire religious objects, Bibles, spiritual artifacts of many descriptions. They are too frightened to have a true, trusting relationship with their Saviour, so they sometimes try to own Him in small pieces. They will often fall for a prosperity preacher, expecting that God will provide more acquisitions as a reward for faithfulness.

Our culture does not emphasize generosity and true charity. The commonality of goods is refuted by most of the mainline denominations. Tithing is over-emphasized, as if ten percent is all that God could possibly expect of us. The ekonomia of the house of God is that we provide from our own substance for those in need, not just for the heating bill and the rector’s salary. It will take more than ten percent to make the world equitable. It will take everything.  We have to stop being hoarders.

The Lord left us the keys to the Kingdom. We don’t use them, though. We are locked out by lack of love, lack of warm charity, lack of relationship, lack of shalom, that peace which is the peace and wholeness of God.

It isn’t perfect, but it’s fun: This church produced the video below; the story is told here and here. HT: Liturgy NZ

And I discovered video below via Martin Kelley’s Convergent Friends Ning network (Ning networks are awesome!); Jon Watts is a spoken word artist and multipreneur; his music reminds me of Eminem or maybe Aesop Rock, except that he’s a Quaker rapping about the Inner Light illuminating the world’s darkness. He’s also created a wicked-cool George Fox Friend Speaks My Mind t-shirt that could totally go head-to-head with the John Calvin Is My Homeboy shirt – if only he’d make it in sizes that men with more girth could wear. Anyway, this video is fun; many Christians will balk at its chorus line, but I think it’s great for continuing discussion about the tension Dallas Willard names in The Divine Conspiracy between traditional and progressive Christians, the former of whom worship Jesus for what he does, the latter of whom follow him for the example he sets. Taken as a koan, imagine this song as singing one half of this ‘battle rap’ and live into the tension.

I love days at home! The yummy kitchen smells, fun-loving jabs and warm, cozy feeling of being around family is the best.

I also got to enjoy one of my favorite snacks, thanks to a quick trip my mom took to the grocery store for Honeycrisp apples!

Apples and Peanut Butter

An oldie but a goodie.

Dinner was a “clean out the freezer” dinner since we’re off to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in the morning to spend the holiday with my grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins.

We had a pizza buffet featuring a Kashi Caribbean Carnival pizza and a tuscan chicken pizza.

Kashi Caribbean Pizza

Tuscan Chicken Pizza

I definitely preferred the Tuscan chicken pizza. I like my pizza to taste like pizza and the Kashi Caribbean pizza was a little too exotic for me.

Dessert

While grocery shopping last week, Ryan and I noticed the Christmas cookie dough on display and I asked him what his favorite kind of cookie dough was. He said oatmeal raisin and I think I’d have to agree. The mix of the oats, cinnamon and sugary dough is heaven.

Tonight I made homemade oatmeal raisin cookies using the traditional recipe found on the inside lid of Quaker oatmeal.

Traditional Recipe

Dough!

I made half of the recipe (and used whole wheat flour in place of white… healthy, right? ). We were supposed to have 24 cookies, but somehow with a house of five people, only 12 actually made it into the oven.

This house is filled with cookie dough monsters.

The 12 Survivors

Surprisingly I didn’t even eat a cookie! I think I was overloaded on dough.

Now we’re all hangin’ out, watching So You Think You Can Dance and packing up for our early flight tomorrow. We’re leaving for the airport before 5 a.m. Yikes! :\

Next time I post I’ll be doing so from Pennsylvania… in the freezin’ cold! Brrrr. I hope it snows!

Giveaway

Don’t forget to enter my Trio Bar giveaway!

Last Sunday was Stir-up Sunday, when the traditional collect is “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is the last Sunday before Advent, almost the end of the church year.

Stir-Up Sunday is the beginning of the week when we also stir up the Christmas puddings and cakes, those traditional dense fruit-laden sugar, egg and butter bombs so beloved of the British people. The rest of the world does not understand fruitcake and plum pudding, but no true Brit, no son or daughter of British roots, would want to see Christmas pass without the rum soaked and flaming pud carried into the darkened dining room, nor see the New Year rung in without a few slices of brandy flavoured cake.

My last fruitcake of the week is in the oven now, slowly amalgamating into a delectable mass. It will be cooled overnight, wrapped in brandy-saturated cheesecloth, wrapped airtight, and stowed on the top shelf of the refrigerator until the festivities.

It is a lot of work, and it takes a strong arm to fold together the densest fruitcakes. Although we no longer have to candy the fruit, chop it fine, and grind the suet and nuts by hand, it stil takes a while to get a good steamed pudding or fruitcake assembled. We started with a long-distance trip to Bulk Barn to get the ingredients by the pound (or kilo, here.) Then there is the marshalling of pudding bowls, fruitcake pans, steamers and cooling racks, the hunting down of cheesecloth in the store, and the debate over the liquor. (Dark rum or brandy?) All the mysterious and exotic ingredients are laid out along with familiar sugar, butter and eggs.

The plum pudding must be stirred by everyone in the house, and I assembled it on Sunday afternoon. The stirring was enjoyed by the two-year-old, who got to sit on the kitchen counter with a wooden spoon. She had haunted the kitchen while preparation was underway, until I gave her a wooden bowl, a plastic spoon, and a dozen raisins to stir herself. She then showed off her work, stirring raisins around and around, and finally ate the raisins. She was enchanted with being allowed to do big girl work with the real bowl, though. It is her first plum pudding.

Honouring this tradition seemed to be vital to our starting the Nativity season this year. Perhaps it is Nicholas’s stroke and the thought that he almost didn’t see this season; perhaps it is a need to feel rooted in our heritage again, building a little sanctuary of memory and history away from a fast-changing world. Tradition roots us in the year itself, both the natural year of seasons and crops, work and rest as well as in the liturgical year of feasts and fasts, saints’ days and commemorations. “Here we are again,” can be a comforting thought, a home-place found each year.

So we are carefully picking up some traditions stowed away while we sojourned, antique treasures inherited from parents and great-grandparents. At the same time, we are dropping some recent traditions that are counter-productive to our spriritual life.

Christmas shopping is one of them. It was easy for me this year – we have absolutely no money. My gifts will all be prayers this year. I will ask the Lord to bestow His blessings on each of us, according to our needs. I refuse to speak gently of some of the horrors of consumer Christmas – Black Friday shopping (Canadians don’t have this) and Boxing Day sales (Americans don’t have this.) Greed and status-seeking are so far from the message of the Incarnation that it is truly horrible to contemplate this filth in the Season of Light. Please don’t be tempted by “bargains.” You simply do not need that stuff anyway.

Our Advent discipline this year is not fasting. This household is ill-equipped to fast this time; I do not want to set myself apart from the people I nourish daily. Meals are a little eucharist for us here, and we need to continue to share the common loaf and cup. After some thought, I proposed that our discipline would be using our food resources better; specifically, using up the surplus in the pantry and freezer. Generosity put some of that food there, and it would be in gratitude that we prepare and eat it. Rather than buy more, we will use what we have, even if on first glance it is not very appealing. But I have time to cook, read recipes and prepare good food from basic components; that is my gift to the house this season.

Perhaps others are in the same position. Are there goods in your house that need to be lovingly consumed before they spoil? Do you have a hoard or stash of something that you should share? If you do, will it be for the daily nourishment of your family, or in a big party for friends? Or do you need to move the surplus on to those in need this winter, donating to a food bank? Be extravagant in your hospitalityand generosity.

If your surplus is not in the pantry, do you have goods that are not being used – small appliances, clothes, furniture, books,maybe even a stack of firewood you won’t burn this year. Can these be donated to a charity to be given to a family without resources, or to be sold? Even better, have a sale of your own, in the garage or barn, or list the items on craigslist or kijiji, whichever serves your area. Donate the proceeds.

Preparing our loving hearts for Advent and the Festival of the Incarnation (Christmas, nativity) is of greater importance than preparing our homes by filling them with purchased junk.

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:19)

Done on 36 ct ivory linen using BeWooded silk by HDF.

” Let us be silent that we may heat the whispers of the gods.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“See how nature-trees, flowers, grass-grows in silence; see the stars, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
Mother Teresa

“In stillness there is fullness, in fullness there is nothingness, in nothingness there are all things.”
Quaker saying

Today – in Quaker Meeting, I was sitting in silence, reflecting, and I decided to put out silently into the space and ask what am I now do – how am I to be in the world now?  For those readers who are not familiar with Quakers, this from Friends House sums up Quaker practice very well. ‘Quakers share a way of life rather than a set of beliefs.  We seek to experience God directly, within ourselves and in our relationships with others and the world around us.  These direct encounters with the Divine are where Quakers find meaning and purpose.’

For me,  meeting is often a very peaceful and meditative place, it can be simply restful. Sometimes I do not have much success at conquering the brain ‘chatter’. And once in a while -  it is an extremely profround experience and I leave feeling yes, I have had an encounter with the Divine.

Today, I went into meeting and I had an overwhelming urge to silently put this question out – what is it I am to do now – how can I be now in the world?  Throughout the hour, this question was present in my mind – sometimes fading as my brain chatter chattered away – sometimes gaining in strength.  And towards the end of the meeting, I had this overwhelming feeling of just knowing – and the answer was ‘I must always come from my core, no matter what I do, no matter whom I’m with.’

Although I had ‘heard’ this message before – today, I REALLY heard and felt it – heard the voice of my own inner teacher/guide.  Coming from the core means being integral in everything I do, means being centered and whole while being compassionate and kind to myself and loving ‘even my imperfections’ (Parker Palmer).

One thing I’ve started to really notice is that when there is something that I really need to know – I’ll  get several notices/messages/reminders from different sources – usually coming very soon after one another.

For example, last week, I was assisting on a workshop where the workshop facilitator mentioned that she had been a dancer and that they were taught that in everything they do they must ‘come from their core’.   This was meant in a phyical sense – to come from the core of the body. The week before, I had been speaking to my coach about – about getting  more in touch and developing a stronger relationship with my core.  As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, developing a better mind-body connection is an on-going ‘project’ for me and I’ve been looking/exploring different ways to do this including Alexander Technique.

What has been reinforced for me this week is that when I open up to listen to what wants to be spoken, I can hear it.

I am currently reading “Twelve Quakers and Faith”. I like it and want to read more in the series.

Apparently it is Pamphlet 8, makes it sound like some arcane government document from the 1950’s.  Pamphlet is good, pamphlet means short, it is only 36 pages long.  This means it was cheap (£2.50 plus £1 postatage from the Quaker bookshop) and it is easy to read if you have kids running around.

Having said it is short and easy to read is perhaps doing it a disservice. Many of the ideas take time to digest and I rather think the point is to read and consider each point of view rather than race to the end like an express train.

I read it in a oner and raced to the end like an express train. Oh well.

When reading about other peoples personal experiences, I find I am always comparing them to mine, do I agree with their views? Is their world viewpoint the same as mine?  Do they use language I like or does it turn me off? I’m not necessarily sure this is a good thing, but it is what I do.

Personally I find too much mention of God, Jesus and long quotes from the bible just don’t do it for me. I turn off. I feel like I am being preached at.

So as always I found myself comparing my views to those in the book and unusually, I found myself agreeing with  “1″.

“so much of my belief was cultural as much as theological; implicit in it was church architecture, music and literature.”

This is true for me, I was brought up in the Church of Scotland. I love church music, the architecture. When I first heard of Quakers, I dismissed them out of hand as there was “no music”.

I now realise that I can enjoy religious music in all it’s forms but this does not have to be an integral part of meeting for worship. Anyway the whole Quaker idea is that your whole life speaks, not just the bit you do in church, so I can still enjoy religious music.  All this is a wordy way of saying is that my early belief was as much cultural as it was religious.

It was a great relief to become a Quaker and not have to say things like “he descended into hell…”

I agree. How can you recite the Apostles Creed if you don’t believe in it? Surely that is the worst form of hypocrisy? I have never taken Communion as I do not believe I am eating the body of Christ. I also fail to see how doing so would make me a better person.

I was a regular attender at a meeting in England. One week, a lady explained how she had been at a Church of England church. They were having communion and she had not taken part. She had been encouraged to go forward to the altar for a blessing. Again she had refused. I felt such relief when I heard this.  Here was a woman who I admired and seemed to share my same uneasiness at taking part in communion. Maybe my views aren’t so heretical after all.

In meeting, not all vocal ministry is directed specifically at me. So when someone speaks and it doesn’t hold any meaning for me, I remember the relief I felt when, one sunday the ministry did speak to me and I hope that someone else in the meeting is gaining the same benefit from the ministry that had no meaning for me. For me, that is the essence of how a Quaker meeting works.

Anyway, I have enjoyed reading this booklet and I will probably consider some of the other views in more depth. After all, how else do you learn?

Science not Art

http://www.gulbenkian.org.uk/publications/arts/science-not-art

signs and humors – The poetry of medicine

http://www.gulbenkian.org.uk/publications/arts/signs-and-humours

More of the twelve quakers series

http://www.quakerquest.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=29

This poem haunts me, maybe haunt is not the right word, one phrase in particular sticks in my mind;

I never thought that life could get this small

It is from a poem called “Chemotherapy” by Julia Darling. It ends saying

I’m not unhappy. I have learnt to drift

and sip. The smallest things are gifts.

You can read more about her work in this article in the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/aug/05/health.poetry

I like the description

My joints are like rusty cranes

My spine is frozen

So I’m thinking of becoming a Quaker.

Well at least, I’m praying about becoming a Quaker and waiting for the voice of God to speak in a way that He is seemingly inclined to do to Quakers. I’m totally opposed normally to ‘putting fleeces out’ but I have asked God to let me meet a ‘Friend’ if this is a path I should lead. As yet, I’ve held of sending an email to all my colleagues, asking for all their Quaker anecdotes, in the hope that one of them will suddenly ‘out’ themselves over a breaktime scone.

In many ways this whole experience has let me see how incredibly alien churches are. I have read the Northern Ireland Quaker website too many times, but in reality, the thought of just turning up on a Sunday morning, where people  do -who knows what – is currently much too daunting (hence my need for answered prayer.) 

I have ordered some of their books and am going to explore by myself for a while. What I like about their doctrinal basis is their admission that  ”words are not up to the job.”  Here you can browse the page that gives me tingles, and I’m talking a full physiological response. My heart aches with the resonance, I love there is a group of people out there who think like me and have all found each other and have already written the books I have wanted to read for years. 

I have been floundering in a quagmire of doubts; doubts about the big stuff and I have slipped far from my evangelical, reformed, fundamentalist beginnings -dislocating my hips and smashing my face in the process. What fascinates me the most is that there is still room for faith, redemption and hope even when my faith in the infallibility of one book is seemingly gone forever. 

Tomorrow morning, I will get up and go to my Presbyterian service. I’ll be quiet, leaving the singing and swaying to others. I’ll pray, hope and have faith that there is a better way. (for me at least)

Cessez donc de vous turlupiner, l’heure est à la révélation. Voici donc la réponse à ce teasing qui vous à si longtemps empêché de trouver le sommeil…  

L’huissier arrive, me donne l’enveloppe, petit suspense, roulement de tambour, goutte de sueur … L’annonceur de cette sublimissime campagne ( aussi fictive soit elle ) est : 

Quaker Oat.

Cette campagne à été réaliser pour répondre à la problematique de communication suivante : 

Comment créer le reflexe Quaker en matière de céréales anti cholestérol sur la cible plus de 45 ans, alors que la notoriété est faible et la concurrence rude sur ce marché ?

I am a bit discouraged about drssing plain these days. My clothes are wearing out, I have no funds, and no sewing machine with me! It may be weeks yet before I can retrieve my stuff, including the mighty Pfaff, from New Brunswick. (Hoping it’s still there, and hasn’t been discarded from storage! It was’t a formal arrangement, nor very secure.) I am patching and mending as much as I can – sweaters, dresses, aprons. I did pick up a shirt and shoes for Nicholas at a rummage sale, and night clothes for myself, but suitable plain clothes? No. Although some of the donations in their 80s high style might make anyone look dowdy…

While we have shelter and food, I simply have no cash at all. Outside of looking like a hard winter until I am employed or the disability pensions starts, I don’t have many options. Few communities run a clothing bank anymore, preferring the rummage sale or Salvation Army donation route. That just doesn’t help people who have NOTHING.

Are we making too many assumptions these days about what people can manage? Are too many falling through the cracks? Even one is too many.

Am I going to have to give up Plain just so I can cover myself in a suitable way? I pray it won’t come to that. But sensible, modest clothes, used or free, are very hard to come by, in a country where everything is disposable.

A postcard from Pendle Hill "Just outside the Beltway"

I sold the boat, this much is true
I quit the Rachel Corrie office too

I bit the bullet, changed my life

My blessings are so many, rife

I’m chilling out in Philly now
Peaceful like a just-milked cow

The city’s warm, it’s late Sobember
A time to visit, love, remember

With little plan but some paper cuts
A show downtown, I love to putz

Life starts coming when I stop and let it
And so far I do not regret it

http://www.joeboruchow.com

As an ordained Anglican, I am under so much headship that I feel top-heavy. I am married, so I am under my husband’s headship; I am ordained, so I am under my bishop’s headship; I am a Christian, so I am under Christ’s headship. I need the long hair and the cap just to steady the load!

Why am I willing to do this? It is the way Christ called us to follow, so I do it, even if the world doesn’t like it, thinks I’m crazy, and calls me oppressed. It is the way of humility, and we cannot reach God through pride, so it is the way I must go. It is a relief to be able to bow with grace in this, to know that I am loved and protected, to know that my efforts in family and Church are appreciated and useful.

Authority is natural; it derives from our relationship to God, and our right relationships to each other. Proper authority, granted by God and taught us in scripture, leads to right relationship. Right relationship is a relationship of mutual respect, mutual love, and mutual self-sacrifice. Authority is not abusive or manipulative. It is an attitude of openness that comes from respect and trust.

Abuse in the form of authority is always destructive. Its end does not justify its means. Our only goal is the love of God, and the hope of salvation, the on-going creation and the promise of redemption. Headship authority sometimes is used to hide sin; this is so perverted as to be satanic. There is no redemption, no salvation, no act of creation in abuse and pride.

One of the most puzzling aspects of headship theology is its hierarchy, until we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord; Caesar (the world) is not. (A phrase from Bishop N.T. Wright; see his Surprised by Hope.) We are all under His headship, husbands and bishops included, and if they act without Him, then they have violated His headship as well as their own. All action, all relationship, must be seen in the context of the gospel light of Christ.

Because the two become one flesh in marriage, my headship under my husband supersedes that of my bishop. If my husband’s authority is reasonable and supportable in Christ, then his authority will prevail with me if it opposes the headship of the bishop. Has this happened? Yes, and to this day remains unresolved. The relationship is still not healed; my husband, too, is under the bishop’s authority as a priest, but again, Christ’s headship supersedes any earthly authority. Anglicans believe that only God is infallible; all men will fail in perfect knowledge. Bishops therefore may be disobeyed if their orders are not supported by tradition, reason and scripture. (This is reverse order of authority. Scripture comes first, reason next, and tradition last. Tradition can never take precedence over scripture, and we acknowledge that reason may be man’s wisdom but not God’s. Scripture is therefore of the greatest authority.) However, the disobedience may lead to discipline, and that is under due authority even if the bishop is wrong.

This is but a brief sketch for those looking for some basis to what I do. It could be a full book at some point, if I should ever have the time and anyone was interested.

This random person walking the other direction said to me ‘I’ll pray for the Lord to heal you!’

I said, “Well, He made my genetic disorder, so I think I’m stuck this way.”

http://www.rheumatoidarthritisguy.com/2009/05/on-becoming-visible/

LOL!  This was in the comments section and really made me laugh!  I think that’s why I like quakers, you can be a quaker without having to go round and “inflict” your faith on all and sundry. I’d be so insulted if someone called out to me in the street.  Evangelicalism is not for me.