Friends Maia and Ken Tapp have created an awesome, prophetic work of art called The Prayer of the World. Maia is a gifted poet and writer, the author of several books. Many years ago, as she awakened more fully to her connection with God, she experienced inner leadings to visit particular places on Earth, places of wonder, places where wild creatures live. She felt called to listen to the divine Spirit that created the world and which is always communicating with humanity through nature. In these places, she has heard a loving voice urging human beings to join in the ongoing prayer of the world. It spoke to her in poetry, inviting us to recognize the sacred web of life and find our real place within this web.
I am not hidden I am splashing my color all over the earth and I call to you see me open your eyes I ask you to call back the rainbow– the colors the sounds the presences all form a web of life…
Maia’s words have been combined with amazing nature photographs by her husband, Ken Tapp, (and others), images that reveal the incredible beauty and variety of nature, its rhythms, its sacred dance of life, both in large landscapes and in minute details.
Photo by Ken Tapp
The Prayer of the World has been presented live in several different settings. I experienced it in the Barn at Pendle Hill and at the 2016 summer Friends General Conference Gathering, where a showing was sponsored by the Earthcare Working Group. Maia read out loud the words of the Prayer of the World and Ken Tapp’s images of the awesome splendor and the beautiful intricacy of the natural world were projected on a large screen. Ken Jacobsen, with his guitar and voice, provided music. More recently, it has been offered online.
Each time I’ve experienced the Prayer of the World, I’ve felt shaken out of a certain dull, habituated way of seeing this world to recognize God’s awesome handiwork. Each time it has been breathtaking to appreciate more clearly the wisdom and healing power present in Creation. The world is alive and calling to us in so many ways to wake up to the sacredness of our own nature and to our interconnection with Spirit and with all created things. In the words of the Rainbow Psalm,
All is connected in a living breathing web and I am the web the living pulse of energy that flows through all creation;
each pulse a prayer…
The message of the Prayer of the World for humanity is an urgent one, calling us to consciously find our rightful and healing place in the sacred web of life.
Prayer of the World: A Rainbow Psalm has now been published in book form. A December 2, 2021 online celebration of the publication of Prayer of the World: A Rainbow Psalm was recorded. (See below) It included a multi-media presentation and we heard Maia tell her story of how she heard the voice of the divine speaking through the world and how she and Ken traveled to the places where she experienced these sacred revelations.
Prayer of the World: Have you experienced moments when God communicated with you through your encounter with the natural world? Have you glimpsed the sacred nature of all things? How are you called to join the prayer of the world?
Author and spiritual teacher Terry Patten died early Saturday morning, Oct 30th. His passing is mourned by many who benefited from his comprehensive, integral vision of life and by those who were touched by the heart with which he gave himself to help humanity become more aware of the reality of our situation and the choices we can make to create a hopeful future. I became aware of him over a decade ago, when I signed up for one of my first online classes. It was a course he taught on Integral Spiritual Practice, in which he invited many perspectives on spirituality and offered practices to integrate body, mind, emotions, energy, and spirit. At that time the online part of the course was a website on which to share written reflections. We were emailed links to some videos in which he demonstrated his morning spiritual practice. The rest of the course was held via telephone conference calls, which were recorded. I found the integral framework he offered helpful. Since then I have read his blog posts and listened to recordings of some of his interviews with leaders in various fields and spiritual teachers from numerous traditions. I particularly valued his 2014 conversation with Cynthia Bourgeault. I appreciated his bright intelligence and his capacity to understand a wide range of theology and spiritual practice and ask insightful questions.
In the intervening years, Terry has put out many short videos, some to accompany other online offerings. I was touched by what, to me, was his evident effort to put his heart into whatever he shared, and not just his intellect. He seemed to be a person earnestly working to overcome the conditioning that prioritized intellect over other, more “feminine” or intuitive ways of knowing and relating. I recognized that struggle and earnest effort in myself.
Seven months ago Terry received a diagnosis of a rare, inoperable cancer. In those seven months he has shared openly with family, friends, students, and community members about his process of facing his dying and death. As a distant witness, I have been deeply moved by the process of inward transformation I have seen in him and the increase of a loving radiance and spiritual surrender.
From his various websites, as well as from talks he has given, I have gleaned the following information about his biography. Terry Patten grew up in an intentional community founded by members of The Church of the Brethren, a community that invited people “of all races and religions to live together with us as a witness for peace and brotherhood.” After college, he became a student of a radical and controversial American spiritual teacher, Adi Da, living in community with this teacher and other devotees, and playing a significant role in their publishing ventures. After fifteen years, he left that community, and in 1988 founded Tools for Exploration, a company which gathered cutting-edge technologies for expanding awareness. He helped create and produce biofeedback tools, “subtle energy” tools, and wrote books and articles on stress reduction, peak performance, and neurodevelopment. He helped to develop a heart-rate variability monitor for HeartMath Institute. He sold his company for a large profit in 1998. Then, drawing on his activist upbringing, he co-directed two grassroots environmental organizations. One of them, Old Growth Again, worked with investors to purchase degraded Redwood forests, restore them, and develop sustainable harvesting methods.
In 2004 he became a teacher and senior associate of Integral Institute, working with Ken Wilber and others to distill ancient and modern body, spirit, and mind practices into a contemporary transformational lifestyle called Integral Life Practice. He later co-wrote a book on the subject and served as a senior ILP trainer and coach. He earned a Masters degree in Consciousness Studies from John F. Kennedy University. In his thesis, he analyzed how higher levels of awareness can be fostered by Integral coaching.
In 2007 he took his integral framework into international diplomacy, traveling to Iran as part of a U.S.-based civilian diplomacy delegation. He wrote about the experience, hoping to catalyze a more Integral dialogue oriented toward mutual understanding.
That same year, Terry began interviewing many of the world’s leading thinkers and teachers, to engage “our critical evolutionary moment, exploring the perspectives and practices that can cultivate a life of greater awareness, growth, freedom, vitality, service, and ultimately, love.” He made available his recordings of these conversations and wrote about the insights he gained. From 2009-2011, he was part of the faculty of the Integral Executive Leadership program at Notre Dame, and also taught at Columbia University, San Francisco State, and John F. Kennedy University. He traveled widely, speaking at conferences and connecting leaders and institutions. He defined his work as, “helping conscious individuals and organizations navigate the transitions, transformations, and revolutions of this accelerating time on Planet Earth.”
His interest in multiple fields—from the economy and business to sustainability and the climate crisis, from spirituality and interpersonal relationships to national politics and international relations—and his deeply penetrating conversations with experts in all of these fields led him to a growing awareness of the multiple and interconnected dilemmas of our times and the catastrophic consequences to which they can lead. This led him into some “dark nights” of despair and deep self-examination. Out of this came his 2018 book A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries—A Guide to Inner Work for Holistic Change. His book was an attempt, first of all, to wake readers up—and society at large—from the “consensus trance” of our culture and from our denial of the fact that we are facing an immense existential threat to all life on earth. Outlining our dilemma was only the opening of the book. Then he wrote of how the pressures of our time are creating an evolutionary opportunity—and necessity—for humanity and of the need for “whole systems change.” This requires both inner and outer transformation, which are interdependent and equally essential to address the causes, complexity, and consequences of the problems we face.
After publishing the book, he created an online community also called A New Republic of the Heart. Creating a community was a response to his understanding that individual spiritual practices are not sufficient to help us face the demands of our times; communal practices are essential. It began as a year-long teaching experiment. Partnering with Integral coach Siobhan McClory in creating the program and community, Terry Patten served as the core teacher, encouraging and drawing out the co-leadership of participants. In a recent description of Terry, Siobhan said that he modeled “Turning to face what’s hardest to face in this world.” On his website for the course/community was their invitation:
“It’s Game Time on planet Earth. Our evolutionary crisis is forging a new kind of 21st-century hero—one who looks just like you. Who will you be in this time of great transition? Let’s answer evolution’s call. … We invite you to join us in building a global movement for whole-systems change through a revolution of love.”
Over many years, I have felt an affinity with Terry Patten’s work, in part because it reflected my own leadings to understand our global predicament while going deeply into exploring and teaching individual and communal spiritual practices, drawing upon and integrating the wisdom from many spiritual traditions. I was also drawn by the fact that he seemed to be speaking frankly and with nuanced understanding about our global predicament in a way that few public figures, including few spiritual teachers, have been doing. He was asking the questions that have been on my heart for decades, except he was engaging a wide scope and consulting with many thinkers, teachers, authors, and leaders to connect diverse perspectives and insights. He was comfortable both with integral spiritual practice and with prayer. He spoke not only of non-dual awareness, but also of God and the soul.
In January 2020, just a few months before the shutdown caused by the pandemic, I joined the online New Republic of the Heart community. I engaged in the practices and conversations, including weekly Zoom meetings with a partner and, for a couple months, bi-weekly practices with a small group (pod). When the pandemic was declared and countries around the world entered lock down and social isolation, I was glad to be part of a global online community in which we could engage in deep conversation about what was happening around the world and how it related to the other growing crises of our time. Later that year, horrific wildfires burned in the Pacific Northwest, including Northern California, where Terry lived. He was honest with the New Republic of the Heart community about how shaken he was by these wildfires, a clear sign of the progressing catastrophe of climate change. For days—or was it weeks?–he, like others in the Pacific Northwest—had to stay indoors because the smoke from the wildfires made the air outside dangerous to breathe. In a 2020 podcast conversation with Cynthia Bourgeault, they spoke with each other about facing their mortality. (His State of Emergence podcast recordings, in-depth conversations with leading thinkers, can be found at https://newrepublicoftheheart.org/podcast/)
At the end of 2020, I left the community with appreciation for the practices in which I had engaged and for the integration of heart and mind, passion and intellect that I saw Terry bringing to his teaching and public presence. The dyad (pair) practices in which I had engaged were so fruitful that my partner and I have continued to work with each other weekly—on Zoom, from opposite sides of the continent–for a year and a half now.
In spring of 2021, the usually athletic Terry Patten noticed struggles with his breathing when he went on a hike. In March, on his 70th birthday, he received the diagnosis of lung cancer. It was a rare form, about which little was known, but he was told it was inoperable and incurable. Although it probably started somewhere else in his body, its origin was untraceable. Deeply shaken, he hoped that he would have several more years to do the work he felt was still his to do. Yet he also chose not to deny his predicament, but to meet each moment as fully as he could, with as much grace as possible. He drew on more than fifty years of spiritual practice to be as awake as possible to all the dimensions of his situation and to the feelings, challenges, pain, and fear that he experienced. Facing his personal terminal diagnosis seemed to have parallels to the ways that he had been seeking to fully face the immense and catastrophic changes in motion on earth now. As he reminded us, we all must face our personal mortality, at the same time that we must also face the possible extinction of our species.
You wouldn’t think that doing so could ever be joyful, but Terry found that surrendering to the possibility of his life ending soon freed him to be more fully present and more loving. At the same time, he also pursued all the options that medical science offered him. When the first options failed, he tried experimental medical therapies, and when all of those failed, he found alternative treatments that were, at least, healing on a soul level.
Via a blog and recorded interviews, with the help of his ex-wife, Deborah Boyer, who was his companion in his medical journey, he shared his experience as fully as possible, not only with his loved ones and many friends, but with the larger community with which he was engaged. He even created a four-session online course, entitled “Brightening Every Darkness,” in which three fellow spiritual teachers, from different traditions, interviewed him to draw out the learning from his unfolding experience. At the end of the third session, Craig Hamilton led the gathered group into prayer for Terry. The fourth part, on October 23, was a Q&A session. The night before, an infection had sent Terry to the hospital, and so, with an oxygen tube helping him to breathe, he spoke from his hospital bed. Lucidly and lovingly, he responded for more than an hour to the questions posed by participants.
Terry was soon released from the hospital. However, his health condition took a sudden turn for the worse, and it became clear that he was in the final days of his life. Deborah wrote in a blog post that on Wednesday, with help, Terry got out of his bed and led his companions in a brief and joyful dance. He died on Saturday at 1:30 am, less than a week after the concluding Q&A session from his final online course.
He gave an inspiring example of the grace that can pour forth when we confront the reality of our situation and put ourselves entirely in the hands of God. In sharing his experience so fully, he helped others face the larger challenge of our time and encouraged us to surrender to the grace that can come through if we whole-heartedly face this together. He demonstrated a path of surrender to both reality and grace that can help all of us become more loving and luminous.
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 Journeydescribes 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.
When I was in my mid-twenties, my graduate school program was not meeting my great longing to understand the nature of reality. I began to seek inwardly. Yearning to know what life was about, I paid attention to my inner experience in a new way. I would not have said I was seeking God with all my heart, but increasingly the most important thing to me was the inward search. I spent hours alone, writing in my journal and walking the hilly streets of Amherst, MA, heading toward the edges of town where I had a good view of open fields during the day, and a wide, starry sky at night.
I was at that time feeling ripped apart by unsatisfactory romantic relationships, one that had ended because I could not share the fullness of myself with the man who cared for me, and another which I had thought held the hope of greater connection, but ended in my being rejected repeatedly. Opening my heart, I let myself feel the pain of these two relationships, and the love and longing that was real in both, but thwarted. Attending to my feelings uncovered earlier experiences of pain. It also revealed that I had learned some very hurtful patterns of self-rejection in the face of what I interpreted to be rejection from another. This and other insights about my inner psychology shook up my self-image and increased my longing to understand the purpose and meaning of life.
As I allowed myself to feel my pain and sadness more intensely, I simultaneously opened myself to unexpected joy. During one of my daily walks, delighted by sunshine and fresh grass, I rolled down a hillside. In personal letters, I began to express myself more authentically, in the process discovering that I had a deeper and wiser voice than I had known.
Living with ultimate questions, opening my heart, letting go of previous certainties, and giving up the hope of finding spiritual answers from other people—all these things help open the way for direct spiritual experience. My daily walks were important, as well. They helped free my mind from circular patterns of thinking and allowed it to become more quiet. I sensed myself as part of the natural world, a small part of a much larger reality. I found peace in that.
After reading all the books I could find in the local library about spiritual and mystical experience, and still needing more understanding, I began to pay attention to my dreams. Slowly I learned the language of image, metaphor, symbols, stories, and emotion, the medium in which dreams communicate truths about ourselves, our lives, and the world we live in. Some dreams conveyed luminous messages.
I glimpsed a greater context to life and consciousness than I had known. My housemate and I began to practice various forms of meditation together, and we found a meditation teacher. During that time I would not have said that I was praying, but my heart was becoming focused by my longing to understand the nature of reality. I wanted to know if my consciousness would continue after death; I needed to know if God was real. One night when I was walking home under the stars, my perception opened in an unexpected way, and suddenly I glimpsed the underlying, sacred wholeness of reality, and my place in it. I felt a divine light flowing through my body and knew more clearly than I had ever known anything that this power was great enough to heal any problem on Earth.
crop of Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com
Over the decades since that time, I have gradually been learning how to open to the Light, how to let it flow through me in the things I do, and how to help others do the same. I discovered that regular spiritual practices are essential for this growth—individual daily practices, including prayer, meditation, and walking in nature; weekly practices such as meeting for worship with my community; and less frequent practices such as meetings for prayer and healing, faithfulness groups, and silent retreats.
Many of my close friends and acquaintances are activists, living their faith through public service, witness, and various sorts of community organizing. Some of them subtly suggest that spiritual practices are an indulgence in a time of crisis. While I believe that outward action is crucial, I am also certain that spiritual practices, both individual and collective, are essential. Our outward conflicts and crises are expressions of our conflicted, fearful, and fractured inner state. Only if we are also addressing the inward root causes of our problems can our outward actions and witness be effective in bringing about the healing transformation so sorely needed in our time.
I want to connect as fully as I can to the divine wholeness of which I and everyone are an inseparable part, and I feel called to help others do the same. In many different ways I’ve been trying to do this, including through writing this blog.
Opening to Our Direct Connection with the Divine: What helps you open to deeper spiritual experience? What have you learned from such experiences?
When I was a teenager, I was inspired by Frances Moore Lappe’s book Diet for a Small Planet. I read it as part of my research for the high school debate team; that year the nation-wide topic was how to globally manage scarce world resources. My debate partner and I chose food as the scarce resource on which we wanted to focus. During my research, I learned that people were dying of famine in other parts of the world not because there was insufficient food to feed everybody, but because it was not distributed equitably. I learned that some people consume vastly more of the world’s resources than others do. Lappe showed that eating certain foods high on the food chain–including beef–uses many times more resources than eating foods lower on the food chain, such as poultry, fish, grains, vegetables, seeds, or fruits. Her book argued that a vegetarian can get all the protein they need. She advocated a meat-free diet in order to make more food available to hungry people around the world. It would also be better for our health, she maintained. When I became aware of how our food choices are also moral and spiritual issues, I decided to become a vegetarian as soon as I left home for college. As a student, I often had to defend my choice in the Swarthmore College dining hall; not eating meat was considered strange and extreme behavior by most of my fellow students.
Many decades later, my diet is still mostly vegetarian—in fact, mostly vegan–but not entirely., and I continue to be concerned about the inequitable use of resources around the planet. Today, like most of us who take science seriously, I am also deeply concerned that our unwise use of the world’s resources has led our small planet into an extreme climate crisis. Unless we change our ways, climate change will continue to accelerate catastrophically. For decades I’ve been hearing how the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change. I’ve thought of this mostly in terms of fuel for cars, homes, and businesses. Only recently, however, have a number of books and films clarified for me that the ways we eat and do agriculture are also significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
I’d like to tell you about a charming and informative book by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins, 2007). In her novels, Kingsolver integrates strong characters and good storytelling with a lot of scientific knowledge. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, subtitled A Year of Food Life, is not a novel, however, but a true account of her family’s efforts to live off only locally-grown food for a full calendar year. This didn’t seem possible in Tucson, Arizona, where they were living, so she, her husband, and two daughters moved to a family farm in Virginia. There they grew a huge garden and raised chickens and turkeys. To supplement their home-grown food sources, they bought locally-grown meats, flour, produce, and more.
For years before making the decision, Kingsolver was increasingly aware of how unsustainable the American way of eating has become. In the first chapter, in a section labeled “Oily Food,” she writes that 17% of our nation’s energy is used for agriculture, including the fuel needed to operate farm machinery plus the petroleum products used to make the fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Once the food is grown and processed, enormous amounts of fuel are then used to transport it long distances. She explains: “Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles. The amount of energy used to grow and then transport the food we eat is significantly greater than the energy we get from eating the food.” The book advocates strongly for small farmers and shows how they are disadvantaged by global industrial agriculture systems, which undercut prices, use insane amounts of fuel, and provide inferior and unsustainable food products.
Hard facts and ideas such as these are sprinkled throughout the book. These facts would make for difficult reading, except that the larger part of the book is full of family stories and rapturous descriptions of the food they prepared and the meals they created and ate together, as well as recipes for every month of the year, based on what foods are in season each month. I kept turning the pages because of the often-humorous accounts of the challenges, failures, and successes of growing and eating locally-grown food and raising poultry. Her third grade daughter, Lily, starts her own (eventually successful) business raising chickens for eggs and meat. Kingsolver takes on the more difficult task of raising turkeys. In our industrial food system, domestic turkeys don’t breed or brood–these tasks are done for them, mechanically–so their natural instincts have been diminished, and they imprint on humans rather than on a mother turkey. Accounts of Kingsolver trying to help her turkeys breed with each other are laugh-out-loud funny (especially when the first hen tries to seduce her husband). Once she gets the male and female turkeys to mate with each other, then she has to get the hens to brood on their fertilized eggs.
Kingsolver doesn’t insist that every family try the same experiment her family chooses; instead, she proposes that if “every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels.”
Perhaps the most sobering lines in the book, for me, are these, about the true cost of our current food system, including perishable food delicacies shipped from around the globe: [W]e get it at a price. Most of that is not measured in money, but in untallied debts that will be paid by our children in the currency of extinctions, economic unraveling, and global climate change. … Human manners are wildly inconsistent…but this one takes the cake: the manner in which we’re allowed to steal from future generations, while commanding them not to do that to us…. The conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners.” (66-67)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle made me think harder about my own food consumption and purchasing practices. For years my husband and I have been doing a little gardening in our backyard and next to our driveway, slowly becoming better acquainted with the earth and its bountiful gifts. (See my blog post about the summer we let the butternut squash take over the yard.) But we only grow a few vegetables, and I depend upon store-bought purchases, including weekly containers of organic greens. Feeling uneasy about the plastic boxes they come in and wanting to move toward a more sustainable lifestyle, this summer we’ve been growing more greens in our yard.
We also joined a local CSA (community-supported agriculture). Each week we’ve been picking up our designated selection of locally-grown organic fruits and vegetables, then eating what’s in season. Usually the cost is a bit higher than buying the same items at the grocery store, and sometimes we get items we wouldn’t choose, such as fennel and nectarines. (Both turned out to be tasty.) But we know that most of our money goes to the farmers, whereas when we buy the same items at the store, most of the money goes to the middlemen and to transportation costs, and only a small percent to the people who actually grow the food. Buying at a weekly farmer’s market is an alternative way to get locally grown produce and support farmers directly.
Like most people, I find it hard to face the facts of climate change and to take in the magnitude of the problem. Part of this paralysis is due to a feeling of overwhelm. The problems seem so large and systematic; how can we possibly learn–collectively–how to live in a very different way? We are like the turkeys bred in such a way that they barely remember essential survival skills. But our bodies evolved to live in harmony with nature. Kingsolver’s book helps me see that returning to older, healthier, and more equitable ways of living can be joyful and connect us with gifts we had forgotten are available in life. Although individual action is not enough to change the ways of the world, nothing will change if individuals and families don’t find the courage to begin doing things differently.
Eating for the Planet: has concern about the health of your body or the planet caused you to change your diet or habits to a way of eating that’s better for the planet?
In this ten week online course led by Marcelle Martin, we’ll experiment with numerous approaches to meditation, prayer, and presence. Through these experiments, we’ll seek to know more fully the nature of consciousness, our true self, and our connection to God. We’ll explore how mindfulness, awareness, and communion with the Divine affects not only our inner and outer lives, but radiates beyond us into the world. We will learn which spiritual practices are most suited to each of us at this time. We will also explore how to make spiritual practices a more integrated part of our daily lives. Our online class time will include brief presentations by Marcelle, experiencing different spiritual practices, sharing in pairs and groups, and class discussion. Most of all, it will involve experimenting with various forms of meditation, prayer, and presence. No particular beliefs in God or prayer are required, only a willingness to earnestly try different kinds of practices, notice what we experience, and listen respectfully to the experiences and beliefs shared by others.
Our basic text is Patricia Loring, Listening Spirituality, Volume I: Personal Spiritual Practices Among Friends (available from QuakerBooks). We will also discuss the Pendle Hill pamphlet Holding One Another in the Light, by Marcelle Martin.
The Exploring Spiritual Practices course fulfills a requirement to apply for the 2022-2023 Nurturing Faithfulness course, which will be offered at Woolman Hill Retreat Center and online starting in September 2022. There are other ways to fulfill that same requirement, including a weekend retreat, or other classes, programs of study, or equivalent experience of a variety of spiritual practices. For more information about the Nurturing Faithfulness program, go to: http://woolmanhill.org/upcomingprograms/nurturingfaithfulness/
TWO SECTIONS OF THE COURSE ARE OFFERED:
10:30 am to 12:30 pm Eastern (EDT) Time (13:30 to 17:30 pm London (BST) Time)
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Eastern (EDT) Time (4:00 to 6:00 pm Pacific (PDT) Time)
Intrigued? Go HERE to read details and register for Exploring Spiritual Practices.
Curious but not ready to commit just yet? Watch this 3-minute introductory video. Sign up here for a free introductory webinar where you can sample the course on September 7th.
This course is co-sponsored by New England Quakers in partnership with the Beacon Hill Friends House. It is open to people of diverse faiths.
When I’ve been invited to give a talk, teach a class, or facilitate a workshop or retreat, a powerful inner, creative, spiritual process is often set in motion. In many cases, the process surely begins long before the invitation arrives or the leading is discerned. I know from reading accounts by Friends in other times as well as from conversations with contemporaries that the spiritual process that brings forward a message or teaching from the Spirit has similar elements for many of us. It comes from beyond, takes form within, and finds expression through words, yes, but also much more.
A leading or invitation often compels my attention in a way that causes other things to drop to the background, at least when I’m not busy procrastinating out of fear of public speaking. During the months or weeks leading up to the event, I notice images and dreams that come, as well as outward events and information that seem to resonate with special meaning. Certain scripture passages or quotes, from early Friends or others, come with a kind of intensity. I listen for themes, for important ideas and questions, and for the stories I need to tell.
My tendency is to be shy and introverted. Afraid of being boring, I hate telling the same story to the same person twice. My preference is to receive the elements of a message, teaching, or class, and let them silently become organized within me, often with notes I write in my journal. I’ve learned not to write down a message, but only to make notes (often in the form of a slide or handout) and to trust that a fresh sharing of whatever I say will have more life for the listeners than something drafted in advance and read aloud. (Wanting to be a perfect speaker, I’ve tried reading my talks in the past, and discovered, to my disappointment, that they aren’t as engaging that way.) Without a script in my hand, I’m vulnerable to the possibility of forgetting what I have to say or not finding the right words. However, I’m also a lot more open to the fresh inspiration of the Spirit and able to spontaneously share more of the Life that often flows into and through me on such occasions.
In advance, elders or spiritual companions can be a big help in the process of drawing forth the teaching, ministry, or plan for the event. Before my recent Pendle Hill lecture entitled “Healing the Disconnect” I felt it was essential that I practice telling my stories to others in advance, even at the risk of boring them and embarrassing myself. Four people generously gave of their time for weeks in advance to hear the stories, ideas, concerns, questions, doubts, hesitations, and inspirations that I shared. Their interest drew forth more than I know and helped me find clarity about what Spirit was actually wanting to focus on. Some of their feedback shaped parts of the eventual talk.
A major integration of many elements of my life took place, including spiritual experiences and theology, all of it brought into focus by the pressing issue of how to respond to the realities of the climate crisis, and how to heal the inner and outer disconnects that leave humanity currently so feeble in curbing our destructive behavior. More came to me than could possibly fit into an evening talk, especially a talk that included a guided meditation and sharing in small groups. At the end of the evening, the questions asked by those present drew forth more.
The ways we engage with each other in bringing forward God’s teaching and ministry are essential: the questions we ask, the attention we give, the feedback that mirrors, encourages and helps us go deeper. As we enter this mutual process, we enter into divine love. It’s part of healing the disconnect that exists in all of us. I’m deeply grateful to those who helped me prepare for that talk.
Into the wee hours of the night after I gave the talk, I thought of many, many things I could have said that would have made my points and my answers to questions more complete. But, nonetheless, I had a peaceful sense that I had been faithful. I knew that what had been integrated inside me, in advance, was part of a larger integration and healing that is happening on a collective level and that it’s far larger than one evening’s consideration. It’s a work for all of us to do, and we all need help doing it.
The morning after the talk, my heart immediately went to those who had signed up, or would sign up, for the upcoming Pendle Hill online workshop/retreat I will be facilitating soon, in which I will have the opportunity to help others with the same work of deep inward listening, receptivity, integration, discernment, and expression.
That workshop starts in two days and there’s still room to join! Below is a link to the recording of the May 3rd talk, and also a link to register for the weekend, “Going Deeper Together.”
Healing the Disconnect:A Pendle Hill online evening with Marcelle Martin, May 3, 2021
(The link to the recording is below the description of the talk.)
The root of all of our social and planetary problems lies in our disconnection from our true nature, from the Earth, and from our divine source. We must learn to operate more from the heart and to become more sensitive to the divine Presence that wants to guide us toward re-connection and healing on every level. Each one of us has amazing capacities to help others become more whole and help move society toward a hopeful future. We all have a contribution to make to the healing that is so needed now. In this talk, using stories and short experiential practices, Marcelle Martin will share from her experiences about how we can help each other heal the disconnect that lies at the root of all our challenges. Link to view recording: https://youtu.be/tIa60epzxgo?t=197
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 Journeydescribes 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.
During my morning time of prayer and meditation, while listening for guidance, it came to me to make a recording of the guided meditation/prayer that I offered during some online workshops in 2020. It begins with attention to the body, breathing, and one’s connection to the Earth, followed by an invitation to relax each part of the body, toes to head. Then there is an invitation to visualize divine healing light flowing into the top of your head, like a gentle waterfall, lovingly releasing and removing anything you no longer need to carry inside you, and letting that flow into the earth, change form, and be transformed into something useful (like compost). Then you are invited to experience the divine light that shines within you, and allow it to radiate out from you as strongly as it wants to, shining brightly. The meditation concludes with a few minutes to pray for or hold in the light others for whom you care, and then the whole earth.
I recorded this meditation more than once. It’s still not visually or verbally perfect. One of the slides includes images of three people, all of them white (including the image of Jesus). If I were to redo this video, I would include more diverse images. Nonetheless, even with its limitations, I hope this guided meditation communicates in some measure the divine love and healing power that wants to reach through all of us into the world. I offer it as a gift.
I pray that it may it be a blessing to you, and that it may help you be a blessing to others. With love and gratitude for you,
About the images in the video: I took the photo of trees, ground, and sky at Woolman Hill Quaker retreat center in Deerfield, MA. Other photos used in the video were uploaded from Unsplash.com, and feature the work of Simon Rae, Denny Muller, Jon Tyson, and Rosie Fraser. The image of Jesus is a detail from the painting “Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler” by Carl Heinrich Bloch (19th century). I made the quilted wall hanging which hangs on the wall, the image of which is at the end of the video and on the About page of this blog.
Below is information about two books I’ve written about the spiritual life.
A Guide to Faithfulness Groupsexplains 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 Journeydescribes 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.
Fall 2021 online course with Marcelle Martin (now finished)
Exploring Spiritual Practices, a Fall 2021 online course co-sponsored by NEYM and Beacon Hill Friends House, Tuesdays starting Sept 7th
In this ten week online course led by Marcelle Martin, we’ll experiment with numerous approaches to meditation, prayer, and presence. Through these experiments, we’ll seek to know more fully the nature of consciousness, our true self, and our connection to God. We’ll explore how mindfulness, awareness, and communion with the Divine affects not only our inner and outer lives, but radiates beyond us into the world. We will learn which spiritual practices are most suited to each of us at this time. We will also explore how to make spiritual practices a more integrated part of our daily lives.
Our online class time will include brief presentations by Marcelle, experiencing different spiritual practices, sharing in pairs and groups, and class discussion. Most of all, it will involve experimenting with various forms of meditation, prayer, and presence. No particular beliefs in God or prayer are required, only a willingness to earnestly try different kinds of practices, notice what we experience, and listen respectfully to the experiences and beliefs shared by others.
Our basic text is Patricia Loring, Listening Spirituality, Volume I: Personal Spiritual Practices Among Friends (available in many meeting libraries and from QuakerBooks). We will also discuss the Pendle Hill pamphlet Holding One Another in the Light, by Marcelle Martin.
The Exploring Spiritual Practices course fulfills a requirement to apply for the 2022-2023 Nurturing Faithfulness course, which will be offered at Woolman Hill Retreat Center and online starting in September 2022. There are other ways to fulfill that same requirement, including a weekend retreat or other classes, programs of study, or equivalent experience of a variety of spiritual practices. For more information about the Nurturing Faithfulness program, go to: http://woolmanhill.org/upcomingprograms/nurturingfaithfulness/
Spiritual Practice Those who take the course are encouraged to make time for regular daily spiritual practice of twenty minutes or more. During this time, you might explore different practices each week. In addition, each person is encouraged to attend a meeting for worship each week (online or in person) and, as time allows, to visit other online or in-person opportunities for various kinds of spiritual practice.
Prayer Partners Course participants are encouraged to meet once a week outside of class with a small group or prayer partner (via telephone, Zoom, or in-person meetings arranged by you). This is a time to share with each other your experiences of trying out the forms of prayer taught in class, and a time to hold each other in the Light.
Reading Most weeks a chapter of the basic text will be given as homework to read in advance. For those with the time, ability, and desire to read more, supplemental texts will be suggested.
Basic Texts:
Loring, Patricia, Listening Spirituality, Vol I: Personal Spiritual Practices Among Friends.
Martin, Marcelle, Holding One Another in the Light, Pendle Hill pamphlet#385.
Journal Course participants are strongly encouraged to keep a journal. Queries are offered for reflection and journal writing during class and outside of class. The journal can be a good resource for your reflections at the end of the term.
Presentation During the final session,you will be invited to share a reflection about your experience and insights during the course. Some may choose an alternate way to share their reflections, such as artwork or short video.
Being Community to One Another The class will become a community in which we enter more deeply into relationship with the Divine through exploring meditation, prayer, and presence. Our ways of understanding and expressing what we experience will vary. We will support each other with deep, respectful listening, engaging in spiritual practices together, and holding one another in the Light.
Below is information about two books I’ve written about the spiritual life.
I recently read a moving, powerful bookthat combines the personal, spiritual, and political, to show how, in the life of author Valarie Kaur, they are one.
Kaur was raised in a faith that taught her to “see no stranger,” that is, to recognize and treat each person as part of oneself.She grew up in rural California, part of the third generation in her family to be a U.S. citizen. Yet from early childhood onward, she experienced painful discrimination against her dark skin, female body, and Sikh religion.
As a student at Stanford University she received a grant to record stories of survivors of the massacres that took place during the 1947 Great Partition that separated India and Pakistan.Before she could fly to India for her research, however, the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center towers took place in New York City on September 11, 2001. Almost immediately, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Arab, and South Asian Americans became victims of hate crimes by white Americans in the United States. On September 15, domestic terrorism affected Kaur in a deeply personal way when a dear family friend she called Uncle Balbir was shot outside the gas station he owned in Mesa, Arizona, while he was planting flowers.
Kaur changed her research project. She and a cousin with a video camera got in a car and traveled all over the country for months to visit communities where hate crimes had taken place. She interviewed the families, and with the video camera documented what had happened. She also grieved with each community.
She was back at Stanford while the United States prepared for war against Iraq, a war that the government justified using false claims. After months of futile anti-war activism, she participated with other Stanford students in a non-violent direct action on the streets of San Francisco on the morning the United States began raining down bombs on Baghdad. The action was designed to stop morning traffic, “to shut down business as usual” and protest the war. The night before the action, Kaur shifted her name from the group not willing to be arrested to the group willing to risk arrest, if necessary. She wrote, “I wanted to give everything I had to this moment, to give my all to the fight.” She was not prepared, however, when the police came to arrest the line of students blocking traffic and she ended up being the one with the microphone, the person who needed to explain both to the police and to the frustrated commuters the reason for the protest. In that moment Valerie Kaur found her public voice, and something amazing happened. Later she became a Yale-educated civil rights lawyer who worked with her filmmaker husband to let the world know about ongoing attacks against religious and ethnic groups in the United States and to tell the stories of those affected by hate crimes. In her 2018 TED talk she says, “stories can create the wonder that turns strangers into sisters and brothers.” Indeed, her moving stories taught me to respect and appreciate fellow citizens whose lives I had not understood before.
See No Stranger moves back and forward in Kaur’s life, weaving very personal strands with the stories of her religious faith, of communities affected by hate crimes, and of recent social and political events. She tells about confronting sexual and sexist abuse in her own life and family, and shares intimate accounts of finding the love of her life, addressing health problems, and giving birth to her children. She shows how the personal, spiritual, social, and political are all part of a single tapestry, and reveals how addressing the problems in our world requires attention in all areas of life, as well as respect for all persons. Drawing from her religion, her personal experience, and recent events, she suggests that the only way forward is revolutionary love; love for ourselves, others, and our opponents.
What does revolutionary love look when dealing with people who have perpetrated abuse and violence against oneself, one’s family, or one’s community? Kaur shows us what love requires and the steps in the process of reconciliation. She learned that battling bad systems is more effective in creating change than battling bad people, and that bad people have wounds that need, in one way or another, to be tended. Her story is a compelling illustration of what revolutionary love looks like and how to live it.
Valarie Kaur’sSee No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (One World: 2020, Hardcover, 416 pages)is available at half price from QuakerBooks athttps://quakerbooks.org/products/see-no-stranger. ISBN: 9780525509097,
Valerie Kaur’s TED talk: 3 lessons of revolutionary love in a time of rage
A Guide to Faithfulness Groupsexplains 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 Journeydescribes 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.
On the night of this year’s Presidential election, I joined three different online vigils with Friends. Four years ago, I had spent many difficult hours alone on election night before the results were clear. This time around, there were again uncertain and disconcerting early results, but because I joined other Friends in prayer and worship, I was much more aware of the presence of God– among us, in the nation, and in the world.
In the days leading up the 2016 election,the polls had predicted a victory for the Democratic candidate, for whom my husband and I had been canvassing door to door. But the polls turned out to be wrong. By the timemy husbandwent to bed that night, the results were making us uneasy. For the next several hours I sat alone on the sofa, my attention on the televised political commentators, switching channels to hear different interpretations of the election results that were coming in. By midnight the news was worse than alarming. The televised faces of the election workers at Hilary Clinton’s headquarters looked stunned and sad.
Wanting the company of my friends, I went to the computer to see what they were saying on Facebook. It was a little comforting to read messages from a few of them and know I was not alone at that hour. By two am, however, none of my friends were posting any more messages. Nonetheless, I could not go to bed until the outcome was clear. I waited another cold, lonely hour.
Then, from across the ocean, came an email from a Quaker friend, Rachel, in Scotland. Morning had already broken in her country. She was surprised by the news and reached out by email, wondering what was happening in my country. We sent emails back and forth, and I no longer felt alone with that night’s shocking news.
This year at our house, in the days running up to the 2020 election, my husband and I both had one or more difficult—or even heated—phone and Zoom conversations with family members who were voting a different way from us, due to their particular religious beliefs or differentideas of what is good for the country. Fortunately, love under-girded those conversations.
We had known that the early election results in 2020 would significantly favor the incumbent since members of his party had been encouraged to vote in person, while the majority of Democrats had chosen to vote through mail-in ballots because of the ongoing pandemic. The Republican-controlled state legislature in our state, Pennsylvania, had refused to allow early counting of the millions of mail-in ballots that had already been received. So we knew that the first election results would skew Republican. Even so, we were surprised by the margin. This was true in lots of other states, too.
On election day 2020, I was happy to learn that I could join other Quakers in worship throughout the day and coming night. My husband and I began with the Pendle Hill morning meeting for worship at 8:30 pm. Later, we participated in an online training to call voters whose mail-in ballots had been rejected for irregularities. We gave information about how they could cast a provisional ballot at their polling place. Several times during the day, wewalked into the park and checked the lines at our local polling place, happy to see manycars and glad there was no evidence of voter intimidation.
Terry and I ate a quiet dinner together before turning on the evening news for our first dose of election results. Early in the evening, I had assumed that I would alternate back and forth between televised coverage of election results and periods of worship and prayer with others. The results that came in on the 6:30 and 7 pm news were unsettling, and I was grateful for the opportunity to join others in worship and prayer. While most in my community are liberal, Quakers fall on different places in the political spectrum. There was almost no partisan speech during any of the online vigils I attended. Though many of us have a strong preference for one party, our prayers were for the country as a whole, for the health of democracy, and for the future of the world.
The 8:30 pm meeting for worship organized by Pendle Hill and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was a deeply settling experience. In the silence, I released my anxiety into God and felt blessed by the presence of the Spirit among us. When we introduced ourselves at the end, a couple from Canada assured us they were praying with us, which I found comforting. I next spent some time with those gathered in the vigil organized by New England Yearly Meeting, before joining Friends from Grass Valley Meeting in California for the final thirty minutes of their online meeting for worship. It felt very sweet to be united with Friends on the other side of the country, and I carried that sense of sweetness with me as I turned to the 11 pm evening news.
By then, Terry had gone to bed. I was alone on the sofa when I heard that Ohio had been called for the Republicans, and that Florida was likely to go that way, too. Advance polls had indicated these two big states would be close, but in both of them the Republicans had won a decisive majority. Furthermore, the early returns from many other states, including my own, were less favorable than expected, though there was still much counting to do. I hadn’t expected, at that hour, such uncertainty about how the election would go.
I was grateful I did not have to stay alone in front of the television listening to commentators giving bad news. Around midnight, for the second time that night, I joined the all-night vigil being held by Quakers in New England, now the only vigil I knew of that was still continuing. In advance, pairs of Friends had signed up to have “care” for each hour of the all-night vigil. Into the silence they generally offered a reading or prayer aloud. It wasn’t clear how many would join during the night, but the plan was that during any given hour there would always be at least two people present. At the top of each hour, the General Secretary of the Yearly Meeting, a lighted candle on his desk, introduced each new pair.
After an hour, I began to feel a craving to hear the latest poll results and the commentary of tv reporters, even though I knew by then that conclusive results would not be available for days to come. As I made internal movements to leave the room and go back to the tv, the words of a Taize chant came to my mind, a version of the words that Jesus spoke in the garden of Gethsemane as he was struggling in prayer to follow God’s will, even to the cross. He had brought his three closest disciples to the garden with him and asked them to “watch and pray,” i.e., to be in a prayer vigil with him as he faced God alone nearby, deeply afraid. Three times when he checked, he found them asleep and woke them up to pray with him.
“Stay with me, remain here with me. Watch and Pray. Watch and Pray.”
I began to sing aloud the words of the chant, even though my video remained muted. I felt that God, Jesus, or the inward Guide was telling me not to abandon the vigil, but to stay in prayer with others.
I stayed, but it was hard to do so.I felt deep anguish about the world, about so many terrible problems that had been exacerbated by the current administration rather than helpfully addressed: climate change, the pandemic, racism and xenophobia, foreign relations, sexism, national disunity, and more. Staying in prayer, with God, in the face of these large challenges and with suffering all over the world required me to keep my heart open and feel pain and vulnerability. I wanted to flee to the television commentary. I knew it would probably not offer any comfort at that late hour, but it would distract me from feeling my anxiety and the condition of the world.
“Stay with me, remain here with me. Watch and Pray. Watch and Pray.”
I remembered a painting I had seen at my mother’s house and in other places, an image of Jesus revealing his heart surrounded by a crown of thorns, a big loving heart acutely in touch with the pain of the world. He was inviting us to open our sacred hearts, as well, and join him in that place of deeply loving vulnerability.
Terry woke from sleep and joined the vigil, too. At two-thirty am, I felt very sleepy and went to bed still anxious for the future of the world, but knowing I was not alone. God was with all of us, in our suffering and in our hope. God had been at work in my heart that night, opening and clearing it out, so I could be more available to the Spirit in the time to come.
For days I checked the changing numbers as the counting of ballots continued in my state. The Democrats now held the majority, but the margin was still too close to call the state. On Saturday morning, November 7, I joined an extended meeting for worship (lasting from 10:15 am to noon) with Quakers in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, my spiritual community. Again I felt the power of being in worship and prayer with others, in spite of it being online rather than in person. Again I felt pulled deep within myself to the place where I was aware of the divine Presence with us, active in the world. It was calming, and my heart felt lighter. I knew that whoever won the election, the challenges ahead for our nation and for all nations will be very great, but I also could feel the divine accompaniment that was being poured out for all.
Friends offered several messages in vocal ministry. About twenty minutes before noon, someone reported she had just received a text message from her daughter asking, “Are you dancing in the streets?” It could only mean one thing. Indeed, the election results had been declared. As a state, Pennsylvania had voted for a change in our nation’s leadership. In the streets of Philadelphia, where the United States became a country centuries ago, there soon was dancing in the streets—and in many other places as well.
God is with those who voted for change, and also with those who voted against change, as well as with those who didn’t or couldn’t vote. Divine love is present unconditionally for all of us. We will need to rest in it, receive it, pass it on, and take heart from it as we collectively face the challenges that are still with us, and those to come. I’m happy for the prospect of times to join again with others in prayer and vigil—in the coming days, years, and decades. May we collectively become better and better able—and willing—to stay awake with God in love and anguish as we seek a healing way forward for all.
A Guide to Faithfulness Groupsexplains 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 Journeydescribes 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.
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.
A poem by Ken Jacobsen, a Quaker who lives in Wisconsin:
One Nation Under Love
it is good to remember
in this time of political stress,
we are all already citizens
of the country of Love,
in the democracy of Love,
one nation under Love,
the Love that was from the beginning;
and whoever we may choose in our elections,
Love has already chosen us,
to heal us, to make us a more perfect union,
to make us whole in our hearts,
and in our land.
kpj 10/29/20
Today, along with my fellow citizens of the country of Love–people all over the world—I am praying for a peaceful, fair, truthful outcome to yesterday’s election in the USA. Even more, I am praying that as a nation and as part of the planetary community of Love, we may honestly address the enormous challenges that face us all.
Recently I had the opportunity to interview an extraordinary Friend, Quaker hospice chaplain and traveling minister Carl Magruder. At the time of our interview, more than 500 wildfires were raging in the state of California, where he lives. He spoke of his experience of the start of the fires, and addressed the challenging nature of our era—a time of the Great Unraveling that precedes the Great Turning. He explained why he is a Quaker, described his calls and leadings, and shared his experience as a hospice chaplain. He told me about seeking support for his spiritual gifts and described the help he has received from Quaker elders and his anchor committee, offering the example of how he was supported while preparing and offering the 2020 FGC Gathering morning Bible Half Hours, with the theme of “Jesus as Trickster.” At the end of the interview, he spoke of his sense of oneness with the world. An EarthQuaker, he finds God in the world around him.
Carl wonders at the Jack Pine, whose cones only open and germinate in fire. Can Friends be a people of faith on fire? Surrender our fears to God and find new life and vitality?
The recordings of Carl Magruder’s morning Bible Half Hour sessions at the 2020 virtual Friends General Conference Gathering are available online at Carl Magruder Bible Half Hour Sessions FGC 2020
Carl will facilitate the first Sunday afternoon session of a monthly online Bible Series, entitled “Walking With the Bible” offered jointly by Woolman Hill Retreat Center and Beacon Hill Friends House. The first session is Sunday, October 4th, 4pm EDT, 1pm Pacific time. For more information, go to: https://bhfh.org/bible-series
Marcelle Martin's book, Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey, explores ten elements of the spiritual experience of Quakers. It is a great resource for study groups to explore these elements of spiritual experience in our own lives. See the Publication page for more information. * * * * * * * *
Marcelle is available to lead workshops and retreats and to give talks. See the Teaching and Upcoming Workshops page.
A Whole Heart 