The Power of Healing Prayer

Posted on April 10, 2020 by friendmarcelle

We all have the capacity to be channels of powerful, divine, healing love.  The more we practice this, the more we are likely to experience that power flowing through us to a world in need.

As a child I said prayers, alone in my bed.  For a while I believed that if I said the same prayer each night, in the same words, my prayer would be granted.  Before I went to sleep I asked for long, happy, healthy lives for all my family members. 

In the following decades, family members faced various health and emotional challenges, some of us bigger challenges than others, but on the whole we were mostly healthy and happy.  In my mid-fifties, I found myself silently saying to God,  “Thank you, you have answered those prayers.”  Then I realized I had inner knowing that something was about to change.  Soon, my father was diagnosed with an illness that resulted in his death several years later.

Although I had a belief, early, in the effectiveness of prayer, it wasn’t until well into my adult life that I had began to actually feel the healing power of prayer.  Several times, I felt other’s prayers helping to release me from fear or painful emotional states, or giving me energy and courage in difficult circumstances.  And sometimes, while praying for others, I could feel strong energy moving through my hands (whether that person was nearby or far away.)  In a few cases, it seemed that physical healings experienced by me or by others were connected to prayer.

One autumn morning, during an overnight retreat with my small deeply-bonded Quaker community, we were called upon to pray for the beloved friend of one of our members, a woman who was scheduled to have an invasive surgery to remove a large tumor in her head.  Our prayers for this distant person were heart-felt.  After a period of silence and spoken words, a huge gust of wind circled the building, sending a swirl of golden leaves past the windows.  The prayer was finished. We felt that something had happened, but we didn’t know what.  Later we learned that during that same morning, in a distant city, that woman had felt something change inside her.  She didn’t know what.  Nor had she known we would be praying for her.  A couple days later, however, when she returned to the cancer center to be measured for her head surgery, they could no longer find any sign of the tumor.  She remained cancer-free for a couple more years.

In the Scriptures and probably in every culture, we can find many accounts of mysterious and miraculous healings.  At the same time, we probably all know people who have intensely prayed for a physical healing for themselves or others who did not experience the kind of healing they wanted; we may have experienced this ourselves.  Many people have told me that in childhood they prayed for a dying grandparent or another loved one, who died nonetheless.  This left them doubting the existence of God. 

There are a multitude of ways to conceive of the Eternal Being and also innumerable ways to pray.  There are many different beliefs about the power prayer can have–or doesn’t have.  Opening ourselves to be channels of divine healing requires humility.  Although we may have strong ideas about what we want to happen, and these ideas may be good, we must let the mysterious power of God come through us without being able to know or control exactly what form healing might take.  Even though so much about healing prayer is out of our control, the power is real.  We are all invited to be channels of divine healing for others and for the world.   If we open up to do so, much healing can happen–emotional, spiritual, physical, social, environmental–especially when we unite in doing this collectively.  Society itself and human culture can undergo profound transformation and healing as more people join together in praying for collective wholeness and well-being, not only for ourselves but for the planet.

In this time when people everywhere are experiencing fear, loss, illness, sadness, overwhelm, and disruption of their lives, I pray that more and more of us will turn to God and open ourselves to become channels of the divine healing Love that wants to reach, teach, guide, and heal us now.

Nothing can stop the silent flight of prayers

Pendle Hill pamphlet #382, Holding One Another in the Light by Marcelle Martin, can be ordered HERE.

Holding One Another pamphlet cover a

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Posted in All of Life is Sacred, Facing Life with Faith, Living in a Time of Pandemic, Quaker Faith Today, Radical Christianity, spiritual practices, Stories that Heal | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Beginning Our Self-Isolation

Posted on March 21, 2020 by friendmarcelle

Early in the first week in isolation, Terry and I felt shaken, both by the changes that were going on so quickly, inside our house and in the world, and by new pressures on our marriage.

As a couple, we began our self-isolation (or self-quarantine) on Friday evening, March 13, 2020. For weeks we had been following the news about the spread of the new coronavirus in other countries, and the first reports from the USA. Our government was pooh-poohing the danger. At first Terry was, too. After all, thousands of people die every year from the flu. Surely the news reports were sensationalism, he thought. But I, at least, was getting enough information to stock up on some extra food supplies, mostly bags of dried beans.

In the second week of March, however, in written news, we started seeing detailed analyses of how the virus had spread in other countries and projections of what rate it would soon be spreading in ours, the severity of the crisis depending upon whether or not we took serious measures to control the spread. Some sources urged us to help “flatten the curve. By reducing the rate at which the virus spread, we could lessen the severity of the burden on our health care system.

Terry, now taking the danger more seriously than I, urged me to cancel my trip to California. I prayed about it and still felt drawn to go. But three nights in a row, in the middle of the night, I found myself awake and anxious. 

On Wednesday, March 11 the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, saying that the coronavirus epidemic would reach all countries on the globe. The president of our country and his aides were still minimizing the danger, but by Thursday, March 12, some big organizations in the US had decided that stringent measures were necessary. Terry explained to me that if the National Basketball Association had suspended its season and the NCAA basketball tournament was canceled, that meant the danger of mass contagion must be great, since multi-million-dollar businesses would not stop their revenues for anything less than a severe threat. In the Philadelphia area, reports of possible exposure by staff or students at certain schools led to the first school closures. Online we found more information and detailed analysis. Two nearby workshops I was scheduled to facilitate during the second half of March were postponed. I canceled my trip to California.

By Thursday night, March 12, we had read enough to be convinced that it was time for isolation, both to protect ourselves (we are both over 60) and to protect others in case we had already caught the virus (which we couldn’t know because the incubation period without symptoms can be long.) We decided it would be okay to one last time attend our regularly scheduled, sparsely attended Meeting for Prayer and Healing, held at local Chester Meeting.  Maintaining large distances between us and refraining from hugs or the laying on of hands, we found ourselves drawn into a deep silence, in prayer. I took a long lingering look at my friends that night as we left the meetinghouse, wondering when we would meet together in person again, and if we would all be together then. 

After we got home, we decided we’d do some last outside errands the next day, and then begin our self-isolation.  However, many others had also become convinced that same day of the seriousness of the crisis. By 8 am the next morning, stores were running out of cleaning supplies and toilet paper. Terry called me from the parking lot of the nearest large grocery store. He said the lot was jammed with cars and he didn’t have time to shop because he was expected to help out at the home of his best friend, who is ill.

Going online immediately to order cleaning supplies and food, I discovered that even online most disinfectants were sold out, and many types of food were scarce, too. After hours spent that Friday morning shopping online, I stepped out into the sunshine to walk to the pharmacy. The birds were chirping; I heard them more clearly than usual. The world seemed different, but I realized that it was not the world, but I, who had changed dramatically. I had taken in a new understanding of reality; understanding that a pandemic was unfolding that would have serious, painful consequences for our society and for many communities, families, and individuals, including people I know and love.

At our small local pharmacy, there were only a few customers. I waited as they filled my prescription, and meanwhile I bought two small bottles of 70& alcohol (the limit), one small bottle of hand sanitizer, and some sugar-free cough drops. (All of these items had been “Out of Stock” when I tried to order them online that morning). I paid with a credit card and was not eager to touch the plastic pen used by every customer who signed the key pad. I felt awkward and embarrassed as I wrapped the pen in a tissue before signing my name. After leaving the pharmacy, I looked in the windows of the grocery store nearby and decided not to stand in line with the crowds of people congregating with full shopping carts.

Terry spent most of the day with his friend, knowing it would be the last time they’d be together in person for a while. By the time he was ready to attempt another grocery run, he had heard that there were empty shelves in the nearby stores. So he drove out beyond the suburbs until he found a store that still had food (though no toilet paper, bleach, or alcohol wipes).

After Terry and I both arrived home, we showed each other the supplies we’d gathered, pleased with ourselves. Then we began a new, more vigorous round of wiping doorknobs, counters, faucet handles, etc. Terry’s mother had raised her sons to clean very thoroughly, including mopping floors in a certain way. I was brought up by a father who taught us emergency-preparedness. During my elementary and middle school years my father was worried about nuclear bombs, and I’d taken a workshop with the Girl Scouts on creating a family emergency shelter. Terry and I both think the other person is a bit obsessive about the particular areas in which we were trained as children, but on Friday the 13th these were helpful and complementary skills as we began our isolation for a period of time whose duration is unknown.

That first evening, we felt competent. We watched a movie and ate popcorn.

The next morning, however, we quarreled about something minor. That made us realize we were more affected by the pressures of our new situation than we had realized. This was sobering. After all, we had only just begun.

Beginning Our Self-Isolation: What happened as you learned about the pandemic and contemplated ways your life would need to change? What has that experience been like?

© 2020 Marcelle Martin

Do you have a sewing machine? Here’s a way to help out, making DIY masks, helpful for seniors or others until the supply of medical masks becomes adequate.  Some suggest putting a washable cloth mask over a medical mask, if you have one, because the cloth mask can be washed.  These masks need to be washed and kept dry.  There’s a link to research studies of which fabrics make the best filters and are most breathable. https://www.drstreicher.com/dr-streicher-blog/2020/3/a-surgeon-sewing-a-surgical-mask

For Information About Upcoming Online Webinars and Courses with Marcelle Martin, click HERE.

A Guide to Faithfulness Groups explains what faithfulness is and how it can be cultivated by small groups that practice ways to listen inwardly together for divine guidance, a practice that holds great potential for supporting individuals of any faith in allowing the work of the Spirit to become manifest through them and their communities.

Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers, who were inwardly guided by God to work and witness for radical changes in their society. Focusing on ten elements of the spiritual journey, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life, designed to be a resource for both individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences. It describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. Our Life is Love has been reviewed by Marty Grundy in Friends Journal, by Carole Spencer in Quaker Religious Thought, and by Stuart Masters on A Quaker Stew.

Both books are available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website for Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey.)

Posted in Facing Life with Faith, Living in a Time of Pandemic | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Creating Loving Community by Supporting Faithfulness

Posted on February 8, 2020 by friendmarcelle

When I prayed about my Pendle Hill lecture in advance–held it in the Light and listened inwardly for God’s guidance–two strong messages came to me.  The first was to let the event BE what it was talking about.  This meant that I needed to invite my community to support my faithfulness.  It meant letting myself be vulnerable and admitting to many people that I was in need of their help.

So, I did.  I spoke with my faithfulness group, and they helped draw out more about my growing edges in faithfulness.  I enlisted my husband’s help several times as I prepared. He invited me to reflect on my intentions and consider how best to help the group experience what I would be talking about.  I invited a member of my meeting’s oversight committee for my ministry to serve as my elder during the talk; she sat near me and held me and the gathering in the Light.  Eight days beforehand, I stood up at Swarthmore Meeting during the time for prayer requests, and said I was in the “high anxiety” stage before the lecture.  I asked my faith community to hold me in the Light.  Afterward, I was deeply moved that numerous people let me know they would do so.  Several offered encouragement and reassurance; some spoke of their own experience preparing for a talk.  One member of my meeting told me that when the college students she teaches are nervous about giving a talk, she tells them, “Someone may benefit from what you have to say.”  Her words spoke to my heart and reminded me that I didn’t need to strive for some ideal of an inspired speaker.  I needed, instead, to think about offering something that might be helpful to those listening.

Seeking to be as open as possible to the spiritual support of my community, I also sent numerous emails asking Friends to hold me in the Light.  I even posted messages on Facebook asking for prayers.  I received many supportive messages in response, from all over the country and even beyond.  On the day of the talk, I felt an intensity of spiritual power present that wanted to move through me and reach out to others.  I was heartened by the presence of those who attended in person; I know many came out in order to show support.

In this photo people are raising their hands when I asked who had experienced “holy ground” while participating in a clearness committee. Photo by Swarthmore Meeting member Lois Sellers.

The second strong piece of instruction I received when I prayed about the lecture beforehand was to let God’s love flow through my heart.  Each time I came back to this during moments of listening for divine guidance, I was more aware of the reality of a powerful compassionate divine love for humanity–something so much larger than myself– a sacred reality upholding our human one.  I sensed God’s desire to guide and help us in the complex and troubling times in which we live.  The climate changes we human beings have set in motion by widespread burning of fossil fuels (and through many other behaviors) threaten the future of all species on this planet, including ours.  And yet, in this time of increasing climate-related catastrophes and  social break-downs, possibilities exist for a new, more sustainable and Spirit-led way of life to emerge among us.  By encouraging one another to listen attentively for our calls and leadings, planted within us by the Spirit, and by helping each other clear away any inner or outer obstacles to faithfulness, we can create loving communities able to make a difference and show new possibilities in our time.

I talked about skills we can use to help each other notice the subtle movements of the Spirit within us and pay closer attention to the divine truth alive in our hearts.  I described the benefits of clearness committees to help each other discern true Spirit-led calls and leadings to action.  I told about some difficult challenges I faced in a clearness process, and why that challenge was so helpful.  And I explained why getting clear about how God is prompting us to action is just the beginning, since we need ongoing discernment as a call or leading unfolds.  Here is the videorecording of the talk, now on YouTube:

As I prepared for the talk, my mind wanted to pin down what I would say in advance.  However, I’ve learned that when I read a  text out loud, I’m less able to convey the message the Spirit wants to give.  Reading is one remove from fresh inspiration, and my voice and my connection with those present are more dull when I’m reading.  So I write notes, instead, as reminders of the topics I could speak about, if so inspired in the moment.  When actually speaking, some things come that I hadn’t planned, and others fall away.  I had more notes for what to talk about than time to speak.  I’m left wondering how and when I will share the second part of the talk; perhaps in future writing.

I’m heartened to learn that in addition to those who came to hear the lecture in person, a large number were watching the livestream.  Some members of Lake Forest Meeting (IL), Roanoke Meeting (VA) and Brooklyn Meeting (NY) even gathered in groups to watch the livestream together and talk about it.  I’ve heard about some who decided to start faithfulness groups in their meetings, or to reflect more on what kinds of small groups could best support the spiritual vitality among them.

There is a gap between the message and guidance I sensed that God wants to communicate with us, and what I was able to convey during my talk. There is a whole lot more divine love and healing directed at the Quaker community and at humanity everywhere than I or others are receiving and transmitting now. My ego swings between the temptation to grandiosity and an unhealthy delight in attacking all my efforts. The critic inside me finds much to critique, but that inner voice is not the one that can best help me to sense to what extent I was faithful and how and where I held back, and why. The support of loving friends can assist me to explore this, with the intention of all of us continuing to grow in our ability to cooperate with the divine love and wisdom that wants to shape our lives.

In my preparation for the talk, I sensed a message or teaching that needs to come to and through all of us, in loving conversation with one another and in mutual receptive listening. We need the faithful ministry of all the members of our community, near and far, and of those beyond our community also. Our cooperative growth in faithfulness, as we struggle to open up together to the divine Light, is the work of the Spirit within and among us.

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the newest Pendle Hill pamphlet, by Emily Provance, Spiritual Gifts, Beloved Community, and Covenant. Here is the synopsis, from the Pendle Hill website:

“God speaks to all people and gives us all spiritual gifts – and yet these gifts are not all the same. We are organizers, pray-ers, workers, carers, innovators, provocateurs, and healers. Why? Because we’re made to fit together like puzzle pieces, as we name, affirm, and nurture spiritual gifts and ministries. In the author’s view, this fitting together is at the heart of what it means to be a covenant people, a people given to the care of one another and charged with building the kingdom of God on Earth. It’s easy to settle for less than covenant; it’s scary to stretch for the wholeness of God’s promise. We, collectively, face a choice of who to be.”

Collectively, in loving, faithful community, may we help each other birth the new way of being human in this world that we are laboring to allow to come to birth in our time, the birth described in Romans 8:14 as “the revealing of the children of God.”  When we learn to live together and to make full use of the spiritual gifts offered to us, in loving community, we will help liberate creation from the terrible bondage it is suffering now.

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God . . . because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the Children of God. (Romans 8:14–19, 21 RSV)

© 2020 Marcelle Martin

For information and videos about faithfulness groups, go HERE.

For information and videos about clearness committees, go HERE.

A Guide to Faithfulness Groups explains what faithfulness is and how it can be cultivated by small groups that practice ways to listen inwardly together for divine guidance, a practice that holds great potential for supporting individuals of any faith in allowing the work of the Spirit to become manifest through them and their communities.

Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers, who were inwardly guided by God to work and witness for radical changes in their society. Focusing on ten elements of the spiritual journey, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life, designed to be a resource for both individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences. It describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. Our Life is Love has been reviewed by Marty Grundy in Friends Journal, by Carole Spencer in Quaker Religious Thought, and by Stuart Masters on A Quaker Stew.

Both books are available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website for Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey.)

To order multiple copies of either book, postage free, contact us.

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

For information about upcoming courses and workshops with Marcelle, go to Teaching and Upcoming Workshops.

After the lecture, with a Spirit-filled Swarthmore College student.

Posted in Facing Life with Faith, Following a Leading, Quaker Faith Today, Radical Christianity, spiritual practices | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Gift of Deeper Listening

Posted on January 8, 2020 by friendmarcelle

The best gifts can’t be wrapped.

Being lovingly present with another person in a way that helps them attend more deeply to themselves and to the presence of God with them is a better gift than any material object.  Certain conversations are luminous in my memory, times when another person’s or a group’s listening and gentle questions have helped me express truth that I had been concealing even from myself.  I treasure the moments when others have helped me listen to hidden aspects of myself that I might otherwise have neglected, or encouraged me to pay attention to grace I’ve experienced or to fleeting guidance that has lighted my way on the path of faithfulness.

We can learn skills that help us listen to other people in a way that allows them to access and express the truth in their hearts.  First of all, we learn to quiet our own minds as we listen to another.  It’s natural for an inner commentary to take place when we hear someone speak, but we don’t have to give attention to that commentary.  We can let it go and learn to listen without judgment, analysis, or opinions.  We can be quietly present in a way that allows the sacredness of the other person and of the moment to fill our attention.  We can learn to listen not only to the words they say but also to the way in which they speak, the tone of voice, to their joy or sadness, their fear or enthusiasm.  We can pay attention to the language of their body, such as the arms folded over the chest, the constriction in the throat, or the radiance that comes when people are speaking their deepest truth.  We can attend, also, to the silent presence of what more wants to be said.

When someone shares their pains or challenges, most of us are quick to offer suggestions or opinions.  At times these can be helpful, especially when solicited, but a deeper kind of listening can help someone tune in to their own inner knowing and to divine guidance.  In the long run, helping another person to attend to the trustworthy source of wisdom within is far more helpful than suggestions, however wise.

Offering questions can be an important part of deep listening, if the questions are simple and their purpose is to help the speaker explore their inner knowing more fully.  Some questions ask for factual information.  Other questions invite the speaker to engage in intellectual reflection or analysis.  These questions have their uses, but another kind of question is designed to help someone pay attention to the movement of the Spirit within them, or to the work of God in their lives, minds, and hearts.  Our culture generally does not encourage us to pay attention inwardly, and most of us miss the subtle movements and and whispered guidance of the divine voice within.  A question that helps evoke our awareness and draw our attention to the presence of the divine is a great gift, along with our loving willingness to be with another person as they explore this.

Asking evoking questions requires self-discipline on the part of the listener, the discipline not to insert our own opinions or stories, the discipline of really being present for the sake of the other person’s discovery of their truth.  The one who offers the question must also be listening inwardly, as we search for the simple query that can invite our friend into deeper exploration and expression.

What seems to most help or hinder your attentiveness to God?

What images or phrases or scripture passages seem to be sources of guidance at this time?

In which situations do you feel you are most authentic and faithful to what you were most truly made to be?

If we pay attention carefully as the speaker tells us about their inner and spiritual experiences, we may notice that when they say something tears come, or a radiant smile.  At such moments the best way to help the speaker explore more deeply is simply to ask them to say more about where the tears or smile are coming from.   Or if they have described a moment of grace, we can invite them to return to that and say more about it.  When we help another person look more deeply–in a feeling rather than analytical way–at how God has been at work in them and in their life, or if we help them go back to a moment of grace and savor it, they may notice more about how the Spirit is with them, guiding, teaching, healing, or loving them.  This may unlock hidden insights or truths waiting to be brought into awareness and expressed.

What do you experience when you pray about what God is asking of you?

In this new 8 1/2-minute video by Rachel Guaraldi, several Friends speak about our experience of using evoking questions to help another person listen inwardly to the wisdom and divine guidance that is available there.

Evoking questions can be used in spiritual friendships, clearness committees, faithfulness groups, spiritual direction, and any situation in which there is an intention to help another person explore more deeply their experience and awareness of God and the divine presence.  It is a priceless gift, more valuable that diamonds, rubies, computers, cars, or anything material.

How is the Spirit working within you? What are you learning?

© 2020 Marcelle Martin

Marcelle’s new book A Guide to Faithfulness Groups explains what faithfulness is and how it can be cultivated by small groups that practice ways to listen inwardly together for divine guidance, a practice that holds great potential for supporting individuals of any faith in allowing the work of the Spirit to become manifest through them and their communities.

Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers, who were inwardly guided by God to work and witness for radical changes in their society. Focusing on ten elements of the spiritual journey, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life, designed to be a resource for both individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences. It describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. Our Life is Love has been reviewed by Marty Grundy in Friends Journal, by Carole Spencer in Quaker Religious Thought, and by Stuart Masters on A Quaker Stew.

Both books are available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website for Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey.)  To order multiple copies of either book, postage free, contact us.

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

Posted in All of Life is Sacred, Contemplative spirituality, Facing Life with Faith, Following a Leading, Mysticism, Quaker Faith Today, spiritual practices | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Moses Of Her People

Posted on December 7, 2019 by friendmarcelle

“Harriet,” the first feature-length film about liberator and abolitionist leader Harriet Tubman, emphasizes the prophetic nature of her extraordinary gifts.

In school I learned only a few brief facts about Harriet Tubman: she escaped from slavery and then, bravely, went back repeatedly to lead others to freedom.  “Harriet” dramatizes the life of a remarkable woman guided by God, called the Moses of her people.

The movie does not show her childhood.  She was born enslaved on the eastern shore of Maryland.  Starting around age six, along with siblings, she was hired out to work as a servant on other plantations.  By age 13, she was working in the fields.  One day, she stepped between an overseer and an escaping slave.  A two-pound metal weight hurled toward the one who was fleeing hit her in the forehead..   The resulting injury was nearly fatal.  Young Minty (as she was called then) survived, but ever afterwards had narcoleptic spells, falling suddenly into a sleep-like state, in which she often had visions and heard the voice of God.

The movie begins with her falling into one of these spells and seeing a traumatic scene from her past that haunts her: two sisters being carted away for sale “down South.”  Her memories and the guidance that comes in visions are central to her story; so is her prayer life.  For dramatic purposes, the screenwriter highlights her relationship with Gideon, the son of the plantation owner.  As a child, he had been sickly, and Minty had prayed for his health.  In return, the boy had asked his father to keep Minty when he sold her sisters.  When Minty and her husband, a free man, seek to enforce a will in which her mother, she, and her siblings had been granted freedom, the slavemaster is enraged and warns his son against having a “favorite slave.”  When the man dies suddenly, Gideon swears to sell Minty. Those sold South never return, so she decides to escape.

In a moving scene, from the edge of the plantation, the young woman sings a good-bye song, her way of letting her family know she is leaving.   In secret, the locations and names of some people involved in the Underground Railroad are revealed to her.   With courage, persistence, and divine guidance, she manages to outrun and outwit pursuing dogs, trackers, and the slavemaster’s son.

It was 1849 when she escaped to freedom, walking 100 miles, through Delaware and then into the free state of Pennsylvania.  In Philadelphia she found the office of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.  From there she was taken to a boarding house and helped to find a job as a servant.

It was quite remarkable that she emancipated herself with so little help from others, but that is not the reason that the freedom name she claimed, Harriet Tubman, is widely known today.  She was not content to live free in Philadelphia while family members remained in bondage.  Against the advice of others, Harriet went back to the plantation where she had been enslaved.   She made numerous extremely perilous trips down south and led 70 enslaved people to freedom.  Following divine guidance, she eluded capture again and again, in spite of increasing notoriety and a higher and higher price put on her head.  Often dressing as a man, she became known as the Moses of her people.  None of those she led out of slavery were captured.  During the Civil War she served as a scout and spy for the Union.  As we see in the finale of the movie, she commanded black Union soldiers on the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina, which freed 730 slaves.  Harriet Tubman was the first woman to lead a U.S. military operation.

“Harriet” is visually very beautiful.  The moment when she crosses the border into Pennsylvania–the moment of entering a free state–is filmed at sunrise, with golden sunlight streaming onto her face and upon the fields and hills around her.  Much of the movie was filmed outdoors, in woods and fields, along rivers, on bridges, under sunny and starry skies.  The elegant period costumes worn by the free people who work for abolition and participate in the Underground Railroad are beautiful, in contrast to the ragged clothing worn by enslaved people.  But however they are clothed, whether free or enslaved, the beauty of all the black people in this film shines clearly.  The movie highlights their strength, determination, courage, and love for each other.  We see scarred backs and faces, mere hints at the horrors of slavery and at the twisted psyches of those who enslave others.  Considering the subject, the violence shown is limited.  The movie has a PG-13 rating. The most violent scene is the beating to death of a free black woman who had given assistance to Harriet.

The director, Kosi Lemmons, a woman, co-authored the screenplay with Gregory Allen Howard.  In shaping the drama of the film, they made the choice to emphasize the prophetic nature of Harriet Tubman’s call.  “God don’t mean people to own people,” Tubman says in a climactic scene when she and Gideon, son on her former slavemaster, meet each other face to face in the woods, after years of his furious pursuit.  She is like Moses not only because she led enslaved people to freedom, but also because God speaks to her and guides her in a remarkable, direct way.  Like a Biblical prophet, Tubman sees the future that is coming, the terrible Civil War fought by those trying to preserve the evil institution of slavery. She also sees the end of slavery and the freedom God intends for her people.

The portrait of Harriet as a prophet guided by God is not an invention of the screenwriters. A contemporary, Quaker Thomas Garrett, whose Wilmington, DE home was a station on the Underground Railroad, said of Tubman in 1868, “I never met with any person, of any color, who had more confidence in the voice of God, as spoken directly to her soul…and her faith in a Supreme Power truly was great.”

“Harriet” gives testimony to the courage and indomitable spirit of a gifted woman and of a beautiful people determined to be free.  It is also gives witness to the fact that God desires freedom and dignity for all and that the inward voice of God leads people on the path of liberation.  This movie recounts history, but it is a story for our time.

 

© 2019 Marcelle Martin

Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers, who were inwardly guided by God to work and witness for radical changes in their society. Focusing on ten elements of the spiritual journey, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life, designed to be a resource for both individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences. It describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. Our Life is Love has been reviewed by Marty Grundy in Friends Journal, by Carole Spencer in Quaker Religious Thought, and by Stuart Masters on A Quaker Stew.

A Guide to Faithfulness Groups explains what faithfulness is and how it can be cultivated by small groups that practice ways to listen inwardly together for divine guidance, a practice that holds great potential for supporting individuals of any faith in allowing the work of the Spirit to become manifest through them and their communities.

 

Both books are available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website for Our Life is Love.)

To order multiple copies of either book, postage free, contact us.

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

To read an overview of how early Friends experienced the powerful transformation that resulted from faithfully following the Light of Christ through this spiritual journey, see my 2013 blog post entitled The New Birth.

Posted in All of Life is Sacred, Facing Life with Faith, Following a Leading, Radical Christianity, Stories that Heal, Working for Peace and Justice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Something Grew Wild in Our Backyard

Posted on November 27, 2019 by friendmarcelle

Something wild and amazing happened in our backyard this summer.  Four little butternut squash plants, started from seeds stuck in a bit of dirt, grew wild at the back of our yard, beside the garage.  Surprised and amused at how they grew, we decided to let them spread, and see what happened.    

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We had bought our house from a woman who loved flowers and flowering bushes and trees.  The enchanting little back yard had been so inviting.  But Terry and I love to grow things we can eat.  So in our first spring in our new home, we planted some beans and tomatoes and basil between the rose and lilac bushes.   The squirrels ate the beans, the hot sun was too harsh for the tomatoes, and the basil didn’t grow large.  We discovered that tomatoes and basil grow much better in a little strip of dirt beside the driveway.  Last summer when two volunteer squash plants grew out of our backyard compost pile, I replanted them beside the driveway.  One withered, but the other sent runners in the narrow space between two garages and produced ten butternut squashes.  So this spring, I planted two seedlings on each side of the garage, and stuck four more in the little plot my husband prepared in the back of the yard, mixing dirt with compost and half a bag of peat moss left by the previous owner.

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Apparantly, the spot that was only mildly welcoming to tomatoes and basil was just right for the squash.  They grew.

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And grew.  The sight of it filled me with joy at the fertility, creativity, and intelligence of the earth, which knows how to spread out like this, when given the right conditions and a chance to do what it loves to do: create life and grow.

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At first, we moved the vines out of the way to mow the grass, and then set the vines back in place.  Then we stopped mowing under them, and let them just take over.

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Under the big green leaves, squash plants were growing.

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We had roses, tomatoes, and squash all mingled together.  But mostly squash!

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We began harvesting, cooking butternut squash soup, which we love, and giving them away.

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Before the first hard frost came, we finally cleared the vines off the yard and harvested the last remaining squashes.

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From the four plants beside the driveway and the four in the backyard, we harvested 74 butternut squashes this year.  We’re delighted and thankful.  We’ll have butternut squash soup all winter.  We hope you enjoyed seeing the bit of wildness that grew in our yard this summer.  Perhaps it will give you ideas for next spring.

Happy Thanksgiving!

@ 2019 Marcelle Martin

At this Thanksgiving, I’m also thankful for the publication of my new book, A Guide to Faithfulness Groups, which explains what faithfulness is and how it can be cultivated by a community that practices ways to listen inwardly together for divine guidance.  The practice of faithfulness groups supports individuals of any faith to allow the work of the Spirit to become manifest through them and their communities.

In the 25-minute video, An Introduction to Faithfulness Groups, seven Friends speak about Faithfulness Groups and their potential for renewing spiritual vitality.

A one-day workshop, Faithfulness Groups: A Deeper Awareness, was video-recorded in November 2019 and is available to watch for free. More details can be found at: https://releasingministry.org/releasing-ministry-alliance-opps

Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers. Focusing on ten elements, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life in this world, in our time. The book was designed to be a resource for both individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences. It describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all.   Our Life is Love has been reviewed by Marty Grundy in Friends Journal, by Carole Spencer in Quaker Religious Thought, and by Stuart Masters on A Quaker Stew.

Both Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey  and A Guide to Faithfulness Groups are available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website for Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey.)

To order multiple copies of either book, postage free, contact us.

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

 

Posted in All of Life is Sacred, environmental activism, Stories that Heal | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

An Introduction to Faithfulness Groups

Posted on October 21, 2019 by friendmarcelle

Participating in an ongoing faithfulness group has provided crucial accompaniment in my spiritual journey. This practice can be of great value to anyone seeking to follow God’s guidance in their lives, anyone wanting to live according to their deepest purpose, or seeking to be true to the evolutionary impulse that is collectively leading humanity into the way of Love and Truth. What is required?  A group of about 4 to 6 people able to meet together for two hours every month or so, people who are willing to listen to each other on deep spiritual levels and help one another better notice the call and inner guidance of the Spirit.  Faithfulness groups are appropriate for people seeking to be faithful in their daily lives, and also for those following a call or leading of any kind, whether to education; serving those in need; the work of peace and justice; sustainability, deep ecology, and addressing climate change; witnessing for a new way of life, nurturing community, or encouraging faith.

A few years ago I recognized a call to share this practice as widely as possible.  Now Inner Light Books has published a book that introduces practices for helping one another notice the sometimes humble ways the Spirit makes itself known to each of us. These practices can be of great use in spiritual friendships, spiritual journey groups, clearness committees, and faithfulness groups.  A Guide to Faithfulness Groups explains what faithfulness is and how it can be cultivated by a community that practices ways to listen inwardly together for divine guidance. Above all, this book shows the potential that the practice of faithfulness groups holds for supporting individuals of any faith to allow the work of the Spirit to become manifest through them and their communities.

In this 25-minute video, An Introduction to Faithfulness Groups, seven Friends (including me) speak about Faithfulness Groups and their potential for renewing spiritual vitality.

A video of a sample faithfulness group session, recorded at a Nov 23, 2019 workshop is available on my web page about Faithfulness Groups.

@ 2019 Marcelle Martin

Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers, who turned to the Light of Christ within and allowed it to be their guide. Many Friends today use different language, but are still called to make the same journey. In our time people seeking deeper access to the profound teachings of Christianity want more than just beliefs, they want direct experience. Focusing on ten elements of the spiritual journey, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life in this world, in our time. The book was designed to be a resource for both individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences. It describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all.   Our Life is Love has been reviewed by Marty Grundy in Friends Journal, by Carole Spencer in Quaker Religious Thought, and by Stuart Masters on A Quaker Stew.

Both Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey  and A Guide to Faithfulness Groups are available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website for Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey.)

To order multiple copies of either book, postage free, contact us.

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

 

Posted in Facing Life with Faith, Following a Leading, Quaker Faith Today, Radical Christianity, spiritual practices | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Choose Life: the Global Climate Strike

Posted on September 26, 2019 by friendmarcelle

When I arrived at the Sept 20, 2019 Global Climate Strike, my first sight of the crowd lifted my spirits in a way I hadn’t expected.  All the images of the planet, most on handmade signs, made me realize that a planetary consciousness is emerging now on a greater scale, especially among the younger generations, an awareness of our oneness with planet Earth and with all the peoples who live here.

I was heartened by the sight of so many schoolchildren, including those who had initiated the event at Philadelphia’s City Hall.    

I was pleased to see young people recruiting others into their movement to heal the planet and slow climate change.

It was sobering to listen to 16-year old Sabirah Mahmud, a local high school student who helped organize the event. Her family comes from Bangladesh, a low-lying country experiencing catastrophic flooding due to the rise in sea levels. From the stage in front of City Hall, she told about family members who have died because of toxic pollution. I was glad to see people listening, and learning about what’s happening in a distant place.  Although some areas are harder hit right now, climate change is a global event. Because the changes disproportionately affect the poor, addressing climate change is an issue of justice.   Conflicts will escalate as resources like arable land and clean water become more limited; addressing climate change is essential to peace on the planet.

I’ve known about global warming for decades. Many years ago I watched a documentary with other members of my Quaker meeting which explained that climate change would be slow until the oceans and forests were saturated and could no longer absorb more greenhouse gasses.

At that point, there would be a rapid rise in these gasses in the atmosphere. Temperatures, which had been rising very slowly, would suddenly rise more rapidly. Then the polar caps would melt. After the glaciers completely dissolve, the rise in temperatures will accelerate even faster.

I have long known that unless we stopped pouring greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, the destabilization of the climate would reach a tipping point when catastrophic events would happen. Nonetheless, it all seemed distant. Modest commitments like the Paris Climate Agreement seemed hopeful. Mostly, however, I was lulled by the pervasive denial in our culture. As a society we rarely talk about climate change. The steps we‘ve taken to curb our emissions have been important, but minor in terms of what is really needed to address the problem. It’s not only those who benefit financially from continuing to pour carbon and methane into the air who are denying what the scientists have been predicting. Whether or not we believe the scientists, almost all of us have been denying what’s happening in a functional way, in terms of how we are living our lives and the causes to which we contribute our time, attention, and resources.

 The news that’s been coming out in the past several years has been really shocking.

Record-breaking temperatures all over the globe, year after year for the past decade. Massive forest fires, more furious hurricanes, catastrophic floods, rising oceans. Now scientists are telling us that things are worse than they had predicted. They hadn’t accounted for everything that would happen, such as how much carbon would be released into the air as the arctic permafrost begins to melt. The raging forest fires are accelerating deforestation faster than expected, releasing enormous amounts of carbon that had been safely sequestered in the trees.

The existential anguish of the young people is warranted.

Their future will be dominated by increasingly catastrophic changes, not only in rising temperatures and extreme weather, but in the collapse of food supplies and the economy. The numbers of refugees will continue to rise, not only globally but also within our country, as flooding increases in coastal cities.  

There is still time to slow down the rate of these changes. There are still steps we can take to give our children and grandchildren a chance for healthy lives on a beautiful planet.

But in order to do so, our denial must end.

We must address the problem not only at the level of our own consumption and emissions; we must also expose and fight the corporations and businesses that want to keep making money off the destruction of the planet. Economic forces have co-opted our democracy, and addressing climate change requires addressing political corruption.

Even this will not be enough; we must address the problem at its root, which is our alienation from our true nature, both our earthly nature and our divine nature.

Humanity must recognize our true place in the natural world and learn again from the Earth how to live here in a sustainable way.

We also need to reconnect with our spiritual nature, with the Light of God that shines within each of us and which can guide us toward a hopeful future, if we pay attention. Our energy, our intelligence, our resources, our actions, and our prayers must focus on what is needed for us to come back into harmony and to sustain life on Earth. Just as the scientists have not foreseen all the ways that climate change would accelerate, they are also ignorant of some of the ways that we can rise to the challenge, with divine guidance.

I pray that our society, and societies all over the planet, will heed the plea of the children who came out for the Global Climate Strike. I pray that collectively we choose life.

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. … This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. —Deuteronomy 30:15, 19-20 (NIV)

Choose Life: Impressions from the Global Climate Strike: If you participated in the global climate strike or paid attention to news reports about it, what did you learn from it? What are your hopes and prayers? What are your intentions related to addressing the causes of climate change?

© 2019 Marcelle Martin

A Guide to Faithfulness Groups and Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey, both by Marcelle Martin, are available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. Both books are designed to help individuals and groups explore their spiritual experiences and actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. To order multiple books for a study group, postage free, contact us.

Participating in a faithfulness groups is a powerful practice that enables members to support each other in hearing how God is calling and guiding them, and in being faithful.  Attend a free webinar on Thursday evening, October 24 on Faithfulness Groups: An Introduction. 8-9 pm Eastern time. Sponsored by Releasing Ministry Alliance.

More Resources to connect with divine guidance:

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

Organizations Involved in Helping to Protect the Earth:

Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) is a grassroots, nonviolent action group including Quakers and others working together for a just and sustainable economy. Read one member’s award-winning memoir about how becoming active with EQAT gave her life new purpose, meaning, and energy: Renewable by Eileen Flanagan.

Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is a network of North American Friends (Quakers) and other like-minded people who are taking spirit-led action to address the ecological and social crises of the world.

Sunrise Movement   Sunrise is a movement of young people dedicated to stopping climate change and creating millions of good jobs in the process. They want to elect leaders that will stand up to special interests and make the health and well-being of people and the planet a priority.

 

350.org 350 is an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is a grassroots environmental organization to defend everyone’s right to a healthy world.


Posted in All of Life is Sacred, environmental activism, Facing Life with Faith, Quaker Faith Today, Working for Peace and Justice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Fighting for Life on this Planet: Two Movies

Posted on April 21, 2019 by friendmarcelle

In the face of global climate change, two essential tasks are to gain awareness of our dilemma and find the motivation to address it . Two recent movies highlight the forces and practices that are destabilizing our climate, and revealing people of courageous heart who are making it the business of their lives to fight to ensure the continuation of life on this planet. One is a documentary, the other a wonderful feature film.

Paris to Pittsburgh, a National Geographic documentary, starts with a quick series of photos and news reports starting in 1970 that warn of the impending dangers of climate change. As the decades pass, the warnings get increasingly dire, while global temperatures rise. The first few minutes of the film make evident the urgent importance of the global community working together to curb greenhouse gas emissions. However, attempts to come to a workable international agreement to keep the temperature rise below 2 degrees centigrade fail, until finally the Paris Climate Accord is signed in 2015. The film moves back and forth between dire and hopeful news. The hope engendered by the fragile agreement signed in Paris is quickly followed by footage of President Donald Trump making an announcement outside the White House that he is withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accord.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he says.

Next we see the mayor of Pittsburgh reacting passionately. Pittsburgh made its fortune burning coal and forging steel, but after that industry collapsed, the city began forging a new identity and honing technological skills needed in our time. The mayor explains that Pittsburgh is now a place of vibrant innovation, and it is committed to moving toward sustainability and living within the provisions of the Paris Climate Accord.

Some of the bad news documented in the film is worse than I had known. Changes in global temperatures and the rise of sea levels are already causing terrible impacts. The problem is global, but the documentary focuses on the United States. For example, streets in Miami are flooding regularly and beaches are losing ground as sea levels rise. The increasing flooding of coastal regions is not the biggest threat to Florida, however. Seawater contamination of fresh water sources of drinking will make many parts of it uninhabitable sooner than most people want to acknowledge. The city of Orlando, however, is looking squarely into the future, moving toward sustainable energy practices and considering how to respond to what will become a growing tide of climate refugees from southern Florida. The devastation of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria has already flooded Orlando with a large influx of refugees. Many other cities, like Pittsburgh and Orlando, are moving toward sustainability. The filmmakers show us a village in Puerto Rico that solarized its energy supply and now teaches others how to do the same.

In Iowa, a man’s home was twice inundated by massive floods that were labeled “once-in-a lifetime”. The film also shows how communities of Iowa farmers are discovering that solar power is the better way to obtain the energy needed to run their businesses. In California, we see brief footage of terrible forest fires, made more devastating by climate changes. Then the filmmakers show how that state and many cities are committed to reduce carbon emissions, using solar and wind energy that is increasingly competitive with burning fossil fuels.

Young people are interviewed who are taking jobs in renewable energy and who know that the future lies in solar and wind power. Yet fossil fuel companies and the politicians they support are still denying that climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions and they are continuing to throw dangerous carbon and methane into the atmosphere. Temperatures get hotter, glaciers melt, the sea rises, forest fires rage, hurricanes carry more water, and Midwestern farmland is deluged. The documentary shows the necessity to change our lifestyle in significant ways, very quickly. It leaves us hopeful, however, that this is possible, with awareness, motivation, and innovation.

Woman at War, a wonderful film from Iceland, tells the story of a 50-year old choir director named Hella, a single woman who has taken on a mission: she wants to keep big business from ruining the land and the climate. We learn from the nightly news that Iceland is conducting talks with China, which wants to bring bigger industry into the country. However. Hella wants to convince the Chinese that the power grid is not stable enough to warrant their investment. She’s strong and healthy. We watch her running across the tundra, then pulling a bow and arrow from her backpack. She attaches a metal cord to her bow and sends it flying over some enormous power lines, causing huge sparks and an electrical short.

When the film begins, Hella has only one confidant, a government official who clandestinely supports her. When they converse, they put their cell phones in a freezer, to prevent electronic eavesdropping. Her friend advises her that it is time to put out a public statement about why she is doing what she is doing. Hella devises a clever means of distributing a flyer across the city, a manifesto signed by “Mountain Woman” that people photograph with their phones and send across the internet. She hopes by her actions to raise the issue of climate change and the need to change. But the government puts a spin on the story, refusing to focus on the most crucial issue of our time; instead focusing on the violent “terrorist” who keeps causing shortages on the power lines. Hella knows that a bigger and more dangerous action is required now. The government, on its side, has accepted help offered by the United States and Israel. Now drones, helicopters, infrared censors, and more will be used to track down Mountain Woman.

While Hella is running from her pursuers, a three-piece band and a chorus of singers sometimes appear in the landscape, symbolizing an inner music or source of guidance and encouragement that only she can see and hear. Although the film addresses a very serious threat and is filled with action and chase scenes, it also has a lot of heart. It even has moments of humor. A hapless bystander, for example, keeps getting arrested in her place. Love and help arrive from unexpected sources.

The future is symbolized by an orphan girl in a flooding city. It has long been Hella’s dream to be a mother. Suddenly this becomes possible, but how can motherhood be compatible with her dangerous mission? Police forces are coming closer and closer to tracking her. But something miraculous happens: the hearts of others are moved by Hella’s sacrifices.

The spiritual dimension of Hella’s mission is an undercurrent of the film. There are some powerful shots of her practicing Tai Chi. In her living room, behind her, hang large photos of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. These heroes back her up as she breathes deeply and finds the center of inner power that enables her to put the fate of the world above her private interests. Her Tai Chi practice looks even more powerful when she does it outdoors. The land itself is a force. Several times, while running for safety and after arrest, we see Hella lying face down on the tundra, finding support. On another occasion, when she is in danger of freezing to death after crossing an icy river, a friend carries her to a hot springs. There she floats on the water, facing the sky. The camera pulls back and we see her embedded in the landscape. It is clear that she has unexpected allies, not only in certain people, but in nature itself.

Fighting for Life on this Planet: What helps you face the reality of climate change and our society’s role in causing it?

© 2019 Marcelle Martin

Resources to Get Involved in Helping to Protect the Earth

350.org       Sierra Club     Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT)   Old-Growth Forest Network

Resources for Spiritual Support

Find a Quaker Meeting: Quaker Finder      Shalem Institute      Contemplative Outreach

Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey, by Marcelle Martin, is available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available HERE.) The book was designed to be a resource for both individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences. It describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. To order multiple books for a study group, postage free, contact us.

Marcelle Martin is a core teacher in an upcoming 9-month program, Nurturing Faithfulness, to be held at Woolman Hill Retreat Center in Massachusetts and online. In this faith and leadership program participants become a community of practice to support each other in offering spiritual nurture and encouraging leadings, service, and faithful witness. August 2019 – May 2020. HERE is a link to a video in which past participants talk about the program:

Posted in All of Life is Sacred, environmental activism, Facing Life with Faith, Following a Leading, Stories that Heal | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

An Australian Quaker’s Transforming Encounter With Jesus

Posted on April 5, 2019 by friendmarcelle

David Johnson seems an unlikely person to write a book about the Gospel of John. He had a long career as a geology professor and co-authored a standard textbook on the geology of Australia. His book reveals that when he first felt drawn to read the gospels, he did not speak about it to others. Yet it’s clear from his writing that careful reading of the gospels, meditating on them, living with them, and learning to follow the teachings of Jesus, including the inward teachings, transformed Johnson’s life.  In 2007-2008, he spent eight months reading nothing but the Gospel of John, verse by verse.  In his book, Jesus, Christ and Servant of God: Meditations of the Gospel According to John, he shares what became clear to him through that time.

Johnson begins his chapter-by-chapter meditations on John’s gospel by describing the “eternal mystical vision” that we encounter in the first chapter. John 1:1 begins, “In the beginning was the Word” and continues by speaking of the Light that lights every person that comes into the world. Johnson recommends praying with these opening passages, and highlights the oneness of Word, God, Light, and Jesus: “The equivalence of Word and Light and Truth, all in Jesus, is found throughout John’s gospel. First, the Word, the breath of God, is the creator of all. Second, there is the divine Light that sustains life, and this Light is in all. Third, Jesus was the Word and Light as a physical reality while he was alive on earth. Western minds have trouble grasping the interrelationship of these three, that they are one—and more, that everything is simply a function of this divine creative energy that we can experience as the Light within or as the divinely spoken Word.” (10)

Drawing on passage after passage of words spoken by Jesus, and from his own spiritual experience as he turned to the living Christ guiding him from within, Johnson draws a map of the spiritual journey to which Jesus invites his followers. He reveals, as well, an emphasis in the words of Jesus that has been overlooked in mainstream Christianity, but which is very consistent with Quaker understanding and experience since the beginning of Quakerism in the seventeenth century.

During the secret nighttime visit of Nicodemus to Jesus, Jesus reveals that Nicodemus—and all of us—are called to a spiritual rebirth. The nature of this rebirth is beyond the capacity of our mind to fully understand, and requires a thorough change in ourselves that we all resist. This process involves a pruning of ourselves that can be painful, but is necessary if we are to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Johnson writes:

The change needed within us is more than we imagined. Here is the truth of the matter, which is shocking and hard to accept; this rebirth is nothing short of the dying of the ‘old man,’ the former self, with its reliance on one’s own strength and knowledge and qualification. … This will be difficult language for many, but the truth of it cannot be denied for it is the experience of the holiest people in history as well as the calling within us. If you are hearing this you are probably also hearing your own resistance, as I was. Consider the possibilities of complete humility and powerlessness in this matter, of letting go of that resistance, of praying for help in cutting it loose. For only in facing the inner death can we be brought to spiritual rebirth and the start of that regeneration, during which we must daily and resolutely maintain our fervent attentiveness to the Light within. (38-39)

In Johnson’s reading of the gospel of John, and in his experience, he finds the inward Light to be a reliable and always-available guide in this process of death of the old self and spiritual rebirth: “The mystery of God calls me, and the Light of Christ shows me my errors and the narrow path to follow. This Guide is not a bewildering set of regulations; it is the Light within, available to all, at all times.” (57)

Although clearly Christ-centered himself, Johnson’s writing is gently inclusive of those whose theology and religious language differs from his own, as illustrated in his words on abiding: “I understand abiding as a conscious wish and practice to be attentive to the Light within, whether each of us experiences that as the Holy Spirit, as the presence of Jesus, or as a turning to the unknowable God. The more we seek the divine presence, the more it is revealed to us. We live in it and it lives in us.” (143)

I expected this book to focus primarily on David Johnson’s personal experience living with the teachings of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John. Though his own journey clearly informs his insight into the meaning of the gospel, in the book he reflects primarily on the stories and teachings of the gospel itself. Rather than say a great deal about his own experiences, he sometimes includes passages from the experience of early Quakers to illustrate how the teachings of the gospel have been experienced by Friends, and occasionally he quotes others, including Thomas Merton.

In his commentary on the chapters of John’s gospel, Johnson notes the frequency with which John’s Jesus emphasized a distinction between himself and God, and how he indicated that he does only what God wants to do through him. Thus, Jesus emphasizes his role as servant of God. The first example Johnson points out is in John 4:34, when Jesus tells his disciples, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” In John 5:19, Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”

Johnson suggests that Jesus is providing a model for all of us to follow, if we will. To live that way requires us to surrender our own willfulness and to become receptive to the work of the Spirit in and through us:

Can I, can we, become like Jesus, seeking and depending on God’s guidance moment by moment, following so that we say and do just what God asks of us, completely faithful, with trust and courage and simplicity and vulnerability and love, just as Jesus did? To enable the first disciples to do this, to undertake such ministry, Jesus breaths on them, saying: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Jesus used the word “receive”. He does not say, I give you the Holy Spirit. The disciples, and each one of us, have to make a conscious decision to receive the gift. (170-171)

Jesus abides in God, and we, too, are invited to abide in God, with Jesus, in the Light of Christ. Johnson emphasizes that the heart of the matter is learning to love as Christ loves, and to let the love of God flow through us to others:

We are to love one another with no excuses so that our love may become more Christ-like. We find our love is the love of God made available to us. Jesus confirms this new covenant is to love one another that we may abide in him and he in us. The love of his being, the Eternal Christ, can then flow through us. (197)

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David Johnson will be leading a May 5-9 course at Pendle Hill Conference Center entitled John’s Gospel: Retreat and Refreshment. Because of grant funding supporting this offering, the course is considerably less expensive than most 5-day courses at Pendle Hill.  David Johnson is a Friend of great spiritual depth and this is a very special opportunity to spend time in the company of this Quaker from Australia.  Here’s the link for more information and to register: https://pendlehill.org/events/johns-gospel-refreshment-and-challenge/

Jesus, Christ and Servant of God: Meditations of the Gospel According to John, can be ordered from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback or ebook versions, as can Johnson’s earlier book, A Quaker Prayer Life.

© 2019 Marcelle Martin

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Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey, by Marcelle Martin, is available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website.) Designed to be a resource for individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences, the book describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. To order multiple books for a study group, postage free, contact us.

For information about other upcoming courses and workshops with Marcelle, go to Teaching and Upcoming Workshops.

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

Posted in Contemplative spirituality, Quaker Faith Today, Radical Christianity | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments