From the Friends Journal

I came across a few saved pages of the February 2009 edition from Friends Journal - Quaker Thought and Life Today that I saved from my interview trip to Philadelphia, and when made a Sunday stop at the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia.

The cover caught my attention because of the picture of the sleepy cat and the poem, A Lesson:

My cat teaches me

the bliss

of a square of sunlight

on the floor.

- Christopher B. Fowler

Later in the Journal, Sally Campbell, now member of the Downtown Manhattan Friends Meeting, in her essay "Prayer that Works for Me" describes that she keeps a journal with her and scribes the the songs that come to her if she is "patient and listen them into being." Her most recent "gift song" at that time:

Stillness of stone

Flowing of water

Brightness of fire

Freedom of air

Let me be free

Flowing and bright

Let me be still.

And concludes her essay with: "I have become convinced the beneath the confusion and bustle of the world there is an amazing, subtle but real and loving force that is constantly wanting to work with us if only we let it. So, another of my songs says: 'Slow down, open your heart, rest in the Light, slow down.'"

Lastly, Phyllis Berentsen, member of the Milwaukee Friends Meeting (#2), in her essay "Joy of the Spirit" reaffirms her belief by stating: "I am a Friend - a convinced Friend. I grew up in another Christian church and came to the Quaker faith as an adult. I had friends who went to Friends meetings. I finally got curious and asked them if I could come too. Of course they encouraged me." At the age of 29, Phyllis felt a "magical happening" and a "spiritual centering that the group had created as they waited to experience God's presence." She uses affirmations to help enter into meditation and one that struck me was: "I am healing. God is healing my back and my knee. I will sleep soon. God is here with me."

Couldn't we all uses some healing?

Thanks for reading,

Alex