Tuesday, June 4, 2013

September 19, 2004



September 19, 2004

The gift of life is the gift of choices.  Moment by moment, consciously or not, we are making choices – such as whether to keep sitting here. 
    The most satisfying stewardship of the gift of life consists of making choices informed by wholesome values and perspective. 
    Is my perspective that my life is one of service, with restoration by rest and recreation?  Or do I look on my life as one of whim and play, interrupted by labor?

January 11, 2004



January 11, 2004 

Scientists tell us that we use only a small portion of our brains' capacity, about one tenth of it.  What is this capacity?  How can we access it?  What does it mean?
    Today I think that this untapped capacity is our potential in store, individually and as a species, for greater wisdom, accomplishment and love.  It is the key to being the most effective cells in the body of Life we can be.  It is, for example, the key to understanding miracles, which are well described as simply the operation of nature beyond our ken.
    We will not, by definition, access this capacity through our routine activities.  I believe we can access this capacity, by degrees, through prayer, through seeking God -- which very much includes seeking that of God in each other -- and through embracing new ways of looking at Life, even new ways of living.
    To me, this reservoir of cerebral capacity means that we have barely begun to know our powers.  It means we have the rest of our lives to explore and expand our boundaries, to the service of others and to our own joy in learning.

June 22, 2003



June 22, 2003

Yearning.  Let us accept yearning, even welcome it.  Yearning is real and can help keep us aware, humble, and grateful.  Yearning and how we respond to it reveal our needs and values.  Yearning can bring us together and move us to help each other.  And in yearning we may even experience God’s yearning for connection with us.

Fulfillment.  Let us also welcome wholesome fulfillment of our yearnings, for it brings joy and refreshment and strengthens hope.

Pointless yearning and extravagant fulfillment are both rejections of grace.  Let us live in balance between yearning and fulfillment, and in gratitude for what we have.

March 2, 2003



March 2, 2003

God's gift of life may last a very long time.
Yet all that is sure is this moment.
To show my gladness and gratitude for the gift of each moment, I try simply to smile.

December 29, 2002



December 29, 2002

Life in each of its moments: what an amazing and miraculous gift!

The choices presented by Life, including our choices of attitudes, beliefs and actions: what a constant and important -- even daunting -- responsibility!

The companionship and guidance of the Spirit of God: what a relief, comfort, and source of strength!

November 10, 2002


November 10, 2002

Dear God, to our little minds, these times* seem extraordinarily perilous and uncertain.
We do not ask that you make life easy.
We just ask that, as we strive to represent You and the best of humanity, You guide us, with love.


* Including prospect of war with Iraq.

Monday, June 3, 2013

August 25, 2002


August 25, 2002

Some things can be fixed.  Some things cannot.

We have often heard “bearing one’s cross” used to mean laboring and suffering in pursuit of – even because of -- one’s mission.  That phrase is surely a euphemism, compared to what followed Jesus’s bearing of his cross: the agony of the crucifixion.  On the other hand, while modesty is most proper in comparing our experience to that of Jesus Christ -- while His unimaginably ghastly suffering on the cross is beyond us – we see clearly and painfully that some human losses cannot be fixed.  The loss of one’s limbs*, the immolation of thousands last September 11, the suffocation of hundreds in containers-become-ovens in the Afghan desert, the starvation of a child anywhere.

Physical losses cannot always be fixed.  But we can always do our best to end the losses, to eliminate their causes, and to comfort those who are suffering.  For the human spirit can always be fixed.



* New London Friends Meeting co-clerk Jean Mitchell had had her second leg amputated August 19, 2002.