Zoom has brought me places I have never been but can it bring me to Equality?
Visiting Quaker meetings in Canberra (Australia), Birmingham (UK), Pendle Hill (USA) and Limerick ( Ireland)
Whenever did I conceive that I could be in Canberra (Australia), Pendle Hill (USA) America, Birmingham ( England) and Limerick (Ireland) all inside 12 hours? Not until zoom came along. It feels like such an opportunity in a time that may never be repeated that I am making the most of it.
Did I conceive that I could be in silence for 2 and 1/2 hours? As I shared with friends in Ben Lomond it took 43 years to get me to a place whereby I could be with silence for an hour. Well come to think of it I had been with silence but not with others in a fixed place and time. Silence itself, the invisibility of it, the everywhereness of it has become an understanding of God.
Zooming is telling me that I am not only drawn to silence but connection with others and at this time with others around the globe. I want to experience ‘that of God’ in others wherever in the world. Would I have known that in Australia it is Reconciliation Week?
Acknowledging the pain of the past and the present and attempting to heal.
Would I have known of the death of George Floyd if I hadn’t joined the morning meeting at Pendle Hill?
I heard the silence and heard out of the silence, pain of not knowing what to do and what to do. I recognised the divisions that exist between us people as I acknowledged the divisons that historically and presently exist within me.
In Limerick, in the evening I recounted my experience and shared how in the hearing of these stories of division and reconciliation it reminded me that the causes of the troubles that plighted the North of Ireland are replicated across the world within their contexts. And yet with every division, there is a need to work for reconciliation and keep working at it.
Not only is there is a need for reconciliation there is a need to know the way, the truth, the life. Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life amongst many others. For those who look for the way in Jesus be prepared to be tested to your core. Every way you want to feel about something he will almost always say, “Forgive”, “Repent”, “Surrender”, “Die to yourself”.
Do not become that you rage against but be transformed by the very thing that tries to kill you and may indeed kill you.
Occasionally he may say something that surprises which seems an exception like when he kicked over the tables in the temples. I am not sure whether he hit anyone with a whip ( was there a whip in the story?) but he certainly did not seem to care for the damage to their tables.
To one he may say one thing and something else to another hence you have to hear him for yourself.
Best day,
g
