tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37721988610410131502024-02-05T02:28:19.674-08:00Catholic-QuakerRene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.comBlogger659125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-81274832501133455872020-12-10T06:20:00.000-08:002020-12-10T06:20:05.827-08:00Thankfully Embracing the Gift of Life<p> <span> I was out walking this morning and I found myself in a state of mind that I often dwell in, often find rolled out before me without really seeking it - I think it is a mystical state and the essence of it is multi-dimensional: I am floored - often to tears - by the beauty of it all - the blue sky, the birds I hear talking to each other in the trees above me, the twisted, sometimes dead branches of trees that tower over me and the colors of the leaves that have fallen from them - yellow splashed with red, pure red, pure yellow - the many shapes they have, the thought that they are dying in their beauty, and that I too am dying minute by minute, second by second and that someday I will not be in this miraculous space to see and relish the beauty and complexity all around me, and in me.</span></p><p><span><span> I do not seek these moments; I have not used any kind of meditation technique or taken it from the wisdom of any revered saint or guru. The immense "presence" of a love and life-power so deep and high and grand, a presence I have come to call God, is not something I have looked for quite honestly. It has been in me and around me my whole life. I do not look for something better after this life has gone. I seek to merely appreciate it and love it back as much as I can, so when I leave, I know I have lived it to the full. I am just thankful and need to express it.</span><br /></span></p>Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-66749781932203734242020-10-07T06:20:00.003-07:002020-10-07T06:20:57.308-07:00Trying to Rise from Blogger Fatigue<p> <span> We are so blessed in this modern era! We don't often acknowledge it, because that would mean we'd have to not try to talk all the time about how dire the problems we have are, or how we're heading for a national catastrophe because of our political divisions. The very fact that I have this little page to write out everything I am thinking about and publish it to a world-wide audience and not have to find a publisher or become famous in some way. But being able to proclaim my own ideas about everything and get it up on the world wide web instantaneously is miraculous. The fact that I haven't published anything since June of 2018 is also incredible. I just haven't had the self-discipline to write out my ideas; and it isn't that I haven't had ideas, but I just have been lazy and distracted.</span></p><p><span><span> One of the ideas that most invades my thinking day in and day out is how to talk about my faith in God and how I have been able to connect in my own way with the tradition, the Roman Catholic Church and all that was supposed to have "died" along with God back in the early 60s. When I read about the "Nones" that seem to be seen as the wave of the future, I wonder how they too will be returned. God will find a way!</span><br /></span></p><p><span><span>So how did I come to feel so confident that there is a "presence", "a force" that our human consciousness is rooted in and that our cultural fabric and language has been so good over the years at carrying this reality through history so every generation can find the words and images to deal with it and make part of their lives.</span></span></p><p><span><span>Like most children born since the end of World War II in America and may all children ever born into what society they happen to be in, I was handed the language and a culture that incorporated the idea that there was a God, but it wasn't imposed on me; it was kind of a distant thing - no regular church attendance demanded. And the key people in my life - my grandfather, father and mother - all denied any belief in this "being". Indeed my father and mother were hooked on Marxist ideology and the idea that religion was the "opiate of the masses." So how did it happen, that one night when I was nine years old, lying down to sleep for the first night in a new place where we had just moved, I felt an undeniable "presence" with a very firm "message" that I had to affirm/swear/promise that I would never lie again. The lying I had indulged in for more than a year with friends or people I was hoping might be my friends in a new town my grandfather and I had moved to when I was in 3rd grade must end. It was a life-transforming moment, the most intense of any such thing I've ever experienced, but it wasn't going to be the only time I would experience something that only the words "divine presence" can capture. There are, I think in everyone's lives, moments that are so deep and real and powerful that they really defy simple words or any words, but they are "Words" that guide us, comfort us and connect us to our existence. </span></span></p><p>l would call that moment when I was nine years old a "covenant experience" - I wouldn't have called it that then; I had no clue what a covenant was at that time in my life. But my trek into the biblical narrative, which would not start for quite a while was also rooted in a very early experience I had in that same room with one of the very first new friends I made in this new town. I had to have been around 10 and was in the 5th grade. I was chatting with this new friend about what book we would choose if we were stranded on a distant island and could have only one. I told her the Bible, since it had been so important over the generations with so many people. It didn't happen instantaneously, but a few years later, I asked my grandfather to get me one for my birthday, and he did - and it has been a mainstay of my intellectual life ever since. So thankful for these moments, which I don't think will ever slip away from my memory because they are rooted deeper in me than my memory. I'd love to know what "God moments" others have experienced if you would like to share. </p><p><span><span><br /></span></span></p>Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-27998263022824156582018-06-13T11:47:00.002-07:002018-06-13T13:28:52.784-07:00The Cultural Backdrop of the #MeToo Movement<div>
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It is never right for people to take advantage of young people who are clueless about sexual impulses of those around them or who are in some way dependent on them for care, coaching, teaching, mentoring. And it is terrible for people -- I guess usually men but not necessarily or .always men -- to use their status or power to prey on people to satisfy their sexual impulses. But I also am bothered by the ease with which some accusers have accused and upended people's careers or reputations without any kind of "due process" - and the consequences can be a lot more devastating for those accused than if they had been charged and convicted of a crime. There should be an avenue to let higher-ups know if anyone in your work environment is acting inappropriately, but sometimes there is no "higher up" and that's the problem.<br />
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However, there is a level of this very pervasive problem that I have really heard no discussion of and it bothers me. And it is a level that has to have an impact on everything related to the status and place of women in our culture. We have done a lot to break down barriers that impede women to achieving all they can achieve intellectually and just generally in their lives. But while there has been progress in a lot of ways, there is a backdrop that never seems to get any attention, and that is the culture of objectification or commodification that is prevalent in American culture when it comes to women - I am tempted to call it a "female commodification industry" - similar in some ways to the "military industrialization complex" President Eisenhower warned us about in the 50s.<br />
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I have been conscious of this for a long time now, and I have been too reluctant to speak out about it because it isn't something people want to hear. I don't think it is possible to achieve equal respect and treatment for women without resistance to this highly profitable and influential industry. I can find a few sites that complain about it, but it took time for me to find an article that provided some research information about the negative impact of this culture. But I found one - on the website "Frontiers in Psychology"[https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5344900/] - an article by Bhuvanesh Awasthi called "From Attire to Assault: Clothing, Objectification, and De-humanization -- A Possible Prelude to Sexual Violence?"<br />
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In the article, he writes that "new findings demonstrate cognitive processing of sexualized female bodies as object-like, a crucial aspect of dehumanized percept devoid of agency and personhood. Sexual violence is a consequence of a dehumanized perception of female bodies that aggressors acquire through their exposure and interpretation of objectified body images" (1).<br />
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Clothing and other methods of body decorative attire - make-up, jewelry and perfumes - all these things convey to those around us who and what we see as identity factors - almost everyone with any kind of special role in the social fabric communicate that functional identity through clothing - "doctors, nurses, soldiers, police and military men, postmen . . . advocates and judges, priests. . . the pope, politicians, comedians, actors (and other entertainers) are all identified . . . by their attire" (2).<br />
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He points out that according "to objectification theory (Frederickson and Roberts, 1997), female bodies are scrutinized and evaluated to a greater degree than male bodies, leading to sexual objectification of women" (4). Psychologists have found that when "women sexualize their appearance, they are at a far greater risk than men" (4).<br />
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I'm not trying to excuse men who molest, harass or take advantage of young girls or women of any age really, but the backdrop of cultural commodification of women plays a role in de-sensitizing men to the full humanity of their victims. And it is hard for me to see how women will ever be seen fully as equals until there is a very significant change in female beauty culture. I don't want us to over-react and suggest the kind of body covers that Muslim countries have. But if we want to be seen as truly worthy of respect, we need to de-commodify our bodies.<br />
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Here are some figures regarding the economics of the female commodification industry. Forbes magazine says that the beauty industry - skin care, hair, cosmetics, etc - is a $445 billion dollar industry. And that doesn't include the fashion industry, the Hollywood movie industry, the music industry. Just turn on the Grammy's or the Oscars or American Idol and you will be deluged with female stars that are wearing provocative and revealing clothing.<br />
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I don't want women to hide their beauty. But I would love to see some push back against the commodification industry that makes a fortune by creatively turning women and girls into "objects".</div>
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Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-10844121807671765882018-06-07T10:15:00.001-07:002018-06-13T13:27:34.130-07:00My #MeToo Story<div>
Among the issues that most draws my attention is the #MeToo movement, which has pretty much dominated the world of issues we discuss and debate and worry about. But there are so many levels in me that are touched by the issue, it is really hard to get involved in the conversation. On a very simple level, I could just say, "Add me to the list!!" I experienced inappropriate sexual approaches by men several times in my life: once when I was just about 12 years old and the next time when I was in high school. The earlier experience involved an older man who owned a small riding stable where he offered lessons and opportunities for people who knew how to ride to go for a ride on the tiny dirt circle he had or to take off and ride the NY aqueduct trail that ran nearby. Somehow I found this stable and learned that if I went there early on Saturday morning, I could clean stalls and groom horses and ride for free pretty much whenever I wanted to. This was back in the mid to late 50s in Westchester County, NY - back when it wasn't unheard of for kids around age 10 or 11 to ride their bikes three or four miles from where they lived to do things. I lived in a beautiful location in Irvington, NY and rode through Dobbs Ferry and Ardsley to get to the stable. The memories I have of this place are mostly positive, but there was a negative, unpleasant part that always has been part of the memory. From time to time, the owner of the stable would inappropriately approach me and kiss me unlike anyone one else kissed. He'd put his tongue into my mouth and I'm pretty sure I knew this was inappropriate. But I guess I also didn't think it appropriate for me to complain about it or to tell anyone else about it either. I survived it, and when I started to think back on the times I spent there, I realized in retrospect that it could have been a lot worse. There were not many people going to this tiny stable and there was I know at least one time when he invited me to the little shack he lived in and offered me some snack to eat and perhaps some tea. The bed he slept in was right next next to the table we sat at, and when I think of what might have happened there, it gives me pause. </div>
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Then there was the other experience, when I was in high school, going from my sophomore to junior year, I think. The high school English teacher I was to have in that junior year to study American literature decided to form a gymnastics team for girls at the school. It was one of the first girls gymnastic teams that wasn't on Long Island and I was interested, so joined. Now this English teacher was important to me in a number of ways. First of all, he was one of the best English teachers I ever had, and taught me a passion for literature that would lead me to major in it in college and later in graduate school. It led to my love of writing and my eventual career as a teacher - not only of English but of history as well. And I loved the gymnastics; it absolutely transformed my sense of self and was the one sport I was really good at. And I loved this teacher. Growing up in a broken family, living with a grandfather, uncle, aunt and cousin, he became an ersatz father for me in certain ways. I really cared about him. Did it bother me that he petted me inappropriately when we were alone in his car, driving to some facility where we did gymnastics when we were not at school?? Yes it did. Could it have been worse? Absolutely. In fact it was worse for a girl in the grade ahead of me. I didn't learn of this until many years later, but he did have sex with this girl when she was in college and it resulted in the birth of a child and total transformation of that girl's life. I consider myself fortunate, and I am in no way saying that the behavior of this man towards us and who knows how many others should be justified or excused. </div>
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Should these things happen to girls? No, of course not. But I am glad that none of this ever came to light in those tender times in my life. I survived them, and the lack of intervention and condemnation and publicity permitted me to put these times behind me, and move on with my life in a way I don't think would have been the same had it all been publicly known. And neither of these men was a monster. Has any girl ever grown up without experiencing things like this?? Maybe, but when my mind starts getting into all this, I find a few paths always turn up that don't seem to turn up when other people get into this landscape.</div>
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One is the thought that men and women - the human race - is, after all, part of the animal kingdom. I think that is just another, secular, way of saying that we live in the shadow of a "fall" from the idealized version of what we sometimes think we are as human beings. I never hear this come up when people talk about the sexual behavior of men. And I realize this is a little weird coming from someone who is deeply into religion. I didn't grow up with it though. The talk I heard growing up was that people were just a more advanced form of animal, but we were still impelled by animal instincts and reactions that had mostly to do with survival skills. If what Darwin taught was correct - big picture - then it shouldn't be a huge surprise that sometimes, in fact many times, our behaviors were rooted in some of these animal instincts or passions. So that men who pushed against traditional restraints on their instincts should not be a big shock or surprise, and maybe females too and their efforts to attract male attention and passion were part of the "problem." I'll get deeply into that another time. While I grew up in an environment that was largely negative about religion, I found the path of faith later in my life, a path that would become an essential one in my life, but even so it doesn't negate the truth that we are not just some meta-physical beings. We are rooted in animal instincts that underlie the higher attributes we have as children of God. We have constantly to strive to rein in instincts and passions that are part of that animal nature. We need guidance to see that and discipline to do it and patience to achieve it. And our culture does very little to assist us in these things. In fact, the dialogue that has surged around the #MeToo Movement seems to completely avoid the issue of how the "female-ing" process is saturated with culture of commodification and de-humanization of girls - cosmetics, body-revealing fashion, glamor generally. But more on that next time.</div>
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Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-41899860611114856752018-06-04T08:01:00.001-07:002018-06-04T08:01:15.303-07:00Feeling the "Call" to Write More About What's Going On in the WorldOh, the beauty of waking up to writing a brief commentary on the Scripture reading of the day! How simple and uncontroversial that was. It was hard work in a way; it required the discipline of getting up every day and posting my thoughts on the day's reading, but I'd taken notes on Scripture for years before I started putting them on my blog, and they were simple paraphrasings of the story line and thoughts I'd had for years. Now I have pretty much concluded that routine. When I wake up now and read and ponder spiritual and worldly matters, I still do have thoughts on the many issues of the times we are living through, but the commitment to putting my own thoughts out there for all to see and respond to, that fills me with a dread I have seldom felt. Why?? I'm scared that no one will understand why I think so differently from everyone else. I don't seem to fall into any political or intellectual "box" that would give me the comfort of seeing that I had some agreement and support from some group somewhere. I feel unconnected completely from an intellectual or spiritual community that shares my views. Still, after years of avoiding the matter and pushing it out of my day, I feel a sense of "calling" regarding the perspective I fall into, and the need to get it out of my head.<br />
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I am in my 70s now and know that I do not have all that much time left. So I will try to articulate what I am seeing and thinking about the events and ideas that we are living amongst in this 21st century. But before I start, I think it's important to say a few things about where the ideas I travel with are rooted - what the past is socially, politically and familialy (new word!) - for me. <b> What are the roots of the tree that I am in the world that cause the fruits in my mind to be so different? </b><br />
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I come from a broken but interesting family. I never actually lived with either of my parents but had a pretty close relationship with them and other offspring over the years. I either visited them or they visited me while I was living with my maternal grandparents.<br />
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My mother had mental health issues that would lead eventually - when I was eight (1953) and she was 38 - to her being hospitalized for schizophrenia for basically the rest of her life. She was in a huge psychiatric facility in upstate NY - Wingdale Psychiatric Hospital - until she was in her 60s, when she was moved to a group care home.<br />
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My father was a psychiatric social worker with a practice in NYC where he lived with his second family. He and perhaps his second wife as well (I don't really know about her) were both card carrying members of the Communist Party - maybe my mother was too back in the 30s and 40s but that never came to the fore when I knew her. Everyone was drawn to my dad's way of looking at things; he was very intellectually gifted and a great conversationalist. We talked about the world and about ideas every time we were together. That probably why I'm typing these words right now.<br />
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My grandfather, the one who was my chief care-taker and parent, was a very archetypal American man in the 20th century. Born in NYC into a family with little money, he never went to college, and had a "Horatio Alger" type of success story - starting out working for a company that imported cocoa - then starting his own company and achieving great success, permitting him to buy amazing property on Long Island and to live among the rich and famous until he lost everything in 1929. He was an ardent supporter of FDR and a proud American. He amazingly combined the wonderful attributes of both father and mother for me; he was the main cook and housekeeper in our family, the main care-taker for me, and glue that held everything together for me.<br />
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My grandmother was quiet and reserved. I knew she loved me, but I have literally no memories of doing anything with her except brushing my hair, and she died when I was eight. She did go to church, and taught me to say prayers before I went to bed, but I was not baptized as a child - Communist parents!! and did not go regularly to church. I found my own way to God and to both the Catholic Church and to Quakerism - my dad was the one who introduced me to Quakerism when he bought John Woolman's Journal for me in high school. But that is not going to be the main focus of these pieces I hope to write.<br />
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So where does all that context lead - I have been all over the spectrum politically from patriotic Democrat in love with JFK to aspiring revolutionary from 1965 to when I had children in the 70s when I reverted into being a very traditional mom but still hoping to be an attorney helping the working class in some way. Then religion took hold and I wanted nothing more than to let everyone know what happiness - you might call it salvation - I found there. Family became very central to me when my faith and my second marriage came together and resulted in a move from NC to NY in the 80s and the adoption of a child in the mid-80s would also bring important issues and experiences into my life. So that's it for today. Tomorrow I will try to get out the complicated and perhaps controversial thoughts I have concerning the #MeToo Movement that has taken the country by storm.Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-67781642358938491262017-01-09T14:00:00.000-08:002017-01-09T14:05:17.108-08:00Different Kinds of "Narrative"I mentioned in my last post that I was drawn back into Christianity by re-reading the Scriptures through the lens of early Friends (Quakers) and their way of seeing the Scripture story as a spiritual "narrative" that all who seek God pass through in some way. Their approach was never called "narrative theology" - that term apparently arose in the late 20th century as a kind of reaction to the theological liberalism that arose in the 19th century among Christian thinkers who sought to integrate their theological approach with the scientific thinking of that era. A thinker and theologian who was very influential in my own journey was Stanley Hauerwas. It is from him that I actually learned the term narrative theology. And I understood his approach to be that the scriptures set forth a story that people, over history, incorporated themselves into in some way. How you did that was personal, but it played a large role in shaping the lives of those who "bought into it" - who decided how they would live their lives by buying in to the story and modeling their lives after those who were part of that story.<br />
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This is certainly one way to approach the Scriptures narratively. But as I've studied the Scriptures more over the years, I've come to see things a little differently. I think it is a little off to ascribe the idea of a narrative approach to the Christian message to modern times. When I read the Scriptures, I am constantly reminded that all of the writers who contributed to the creation of the Scriptures were "narrative" theologians at some level. All of them were adding on to the contributions of earlier writers or editors, and they "added on" in ways that brilliantly interwove their ideas with the ideas and images of earlier writers. That is what is so miraculous about the text of the Bible - Old and New Testaments. This "book" - this compilation of oral traditions, myths, poetry, hymnology, history, critique - is not the work of one creative mind or pen. It is the creation of probably hundreds or thousands if we add in the editors, compilers and translators. They (It) is not the Word of God, but the words of those in close communion with God [and with each other] since the beginning. So how can it possibly be that the themes and images and metaphors and story lines weave together as if they came from one creative genius? I DON'T KNOW, but I am in awe before it as I am before the glories of nature when I open my eyes to them.<br />
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So, when I talk about "narrative theology," I am not really speaking of 20th century theologians, I am speaking of all those believers who brought the writings together and those who wrote them, like the writers of the gospels, the disciples and especially the writer of John's gospel - and, of course, the letters of Paul. They filled the gospels with allusions and direct references to the narrative they saw Jesus fulfilling. I am not sure - there is no way anyone can really know - if some of the story they told was historically true or just inserted to assert a theological truth they saw. Did Mary and Joseph really go to Egypt to escape a slaughter of infants they believed Herod was going to carry out? Or were they simply trying to link Jesus and Moses together in the narrative web. In Hosea 11 it is made clear that God's people -- and his "son" - would be called out of Egypt, and Deuteronomy 18:15 also contained words of prophecy: "Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like myself [Moses], from among yourselves, from your own brothers; to him you must listen." The context of Jesus being threatened with death at the hands of a tyrant like Moses in his youth; and the bringing of the anticipated prophet out of Egypt, these are details that interweave Jesus' story with Moses' in a way that cannot be just happenstance. Did they happen historically? This I doubt. The two more "historically based" gospels - Matthew and Luke - do not agree on these details; but clearly the addition of these details helped readers to see who it was the gospel writer believed he was writing about.<br />
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<br />Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-2611044083396605482016-04-21T08:20:00.000-07:002016-04-21T08:25:12.002-07:00A "Narrative" Approach to ScriptureEveryone is connected to multiple "narratives" in our lives: the family narrative - who our parents are or were, where they came from, what they did and what kind of personalities they had; the connected national narrative - how the family narrative weaves into the historic narrative of our country; and then multiple narratives having to do with religion, ethnicity, race. These narratives shape our identities in very profound ways.<br />
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I don't think I realized when I started reading the Bible how important it would be in connecting me with yet another larger narrative, a narrative of people seeking to connect themselves to God, to see their lives as part of an overarching and deeply meaningful plan. I started reading it when I was about 9 years old after deciding that it probably was the most important piece of literature ever written or rather assembled. I always knew it was not the work of one author. It was a hodgepodge of pieces transmitted orally for centuries, then written down and preserved and added to. After starting out on the King James version my grandfather got for me as a child, I soon put it down for years. Then, when I was 23 and very much an atheist and political activist, returning to college to get a Master's degree in English at UNC, Chapel Hill, I bought a beautiful <i>Jerusalem Bible</i>. It was in fact the first thing I bought when I went to Chapel Hill. Again, I started reading it from page one and read it through as if it were a novel. It didn't bring me back into the Church I had briefly joined and then left in 1964. But I loved it as literature, mythology, poetry and history.<br />
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Some thirteen years later, after I'd gotten my Masters, been married, had children and then divorced, I started reading it again; but this time I was in a different, more open state of mind. And I was reading it along with the writing of early Friends' (Quakers') accounts of their conversion experiences and realized that they saw in the Scripture narrative an array of "types" or "figures" that not only led through the Old Covenant to the New Covenant in Christ, but also reflected an interior spiritual experience that was archetypal in many ways. It told of the whole journey of "man" (all of us) from creation through sin, to a spiritual exodus through a massive desert, guided by rules or law, through more shallowness, unfaithfulness and conflict to a place of rest and peace. Virtually every early Quaker wrote of the journey through the various "ministrations" of God to a resting place "in Christ," in his resurrection. These early Friends were not called "narrative theologians" - that term was not yet in the landscape of religious discussion - but they were. Indeed the writers of Scripture and the apostles of Jesus were "narrative" theologians, seeing this story play out in the life, death and resurrection of their Lord.Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-43581614960995404002016-04-12T07:23:00.000-07:002016-04-12T07:28:36.299-07:00From Inner Core to Looking Out and BackThat undeniable level of experience, which we often tag with the word "emotional" - depriving it at some other level of seriousness - is, I think, the level on which our faith is truly constructed. Typically the emotions that propel us toward's that deepest reality - God - are the following:<br />
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Awe: being overwhelmed by the beauty and order of nature - the stars at night, the rising and setting sun, the landscapes we see every day, the stunning variety of life forms, and our capacity to ponder it all.<br />
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Cries for help: trying to cope with the heart-wrenching tragedies that life brings, the neediness we have for help in finding a way forward, the need for a touch of love much deeper and more constant that the love anyone simply human can show us.<br />
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Thankfulness: the sense of happiness and peace we feel when critical needs are met, when love and assistance seems to flow from the well of blessings that also seem to come our way.<br />
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While these are the main experiences that open us to the "divine," there are others that had played a major role in my life: guilt was one, the guilt I had as a child for creating a world of lies when I was about 8 years old that made it impossible for me to invite friends into my life. I did not "confess" these lies to those who had heard them from my lips, but when given a new opportunity to start things over in a new place, I made a promise to an inner presence I called God, what I would now call a "covenant," to live life differently, to live it based on telling the truth.<br />
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But while these deep impulses, "motions," or "commitments" are foundational for all of us, we tend to minimize their centrality in how we shape our lives and turn either to an established set of explanations that the people around us use to articulate "truths" - usually the religious or ideological "landscape" we happen to grow up in, or, if we're not rooted in any particular tradition, to more intellectual, word-based, idea-based grounds for discussing who we are, what we believe and what Truth is, the philosophical notions we become introduced to as we go through school.<br />
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As a person who was not really born into a religious family and did not spend early childhood going to church or synagogue or mosque, I still knew even when I was ten, that a lot of people built their beliefs on a book called the Bible. I remember at that age having a conversation with a friend about what book we'd take with us onto an island if we could only have one thing to read for the rest of our lives. I chose the Bible, and I explained why - because it probably had been important to more people throughout history than any other book. I think it was shortly after this that my grandfather took me to a Macy's store at the Cross-County Shopping Center and got me a beautiful King James Version of the Bible. And because my grandmother had died a little while before this - an event that caused an aunt of mine to step in, have me baptized into the Episcopal Church so I could go with her and my cousins to church and feel part of it - I started reading that book. I read it from the beginning up to somewhere around the psalms and then put it down. It wasn't a "sacred" book to me; it was just a book. I didn't realize at the time how important it would become to me.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-24176564703077773342016-04-01T06:23:00.000-07:002016-04-01T06:23:10.324-07:00The Doubt Hurdle in Modern TimesDoubt is part of the faith-net. We are all Thomas-like, at some level yearning to be able to put our mental fingers on Christ's wounds to "know" that he is really in our lives. For us "moderns" - post scientific revolution - the challenge of doubt is even greater since all things spiritual have to do battle with the mindset that what we can "know" is all that really matters. We cannot "know" anything about God or about Jesus - or Moses or Muhammad - or anyone. We live in a world where we do know experientially that we cannot completely rely on any human account of events in the past, even things just a few days ago. And the advances of science, the amazing achievements that have flowed from human efforts to understand and find the laws that govern the physical world are awe inspiring.<br />
<br />
My faith in God is not based on what I can know. It is based in all honesty on internal commitments or "leaps of faith" that my mind, heart and soul have made to experiences in my life that seem somehow more real to me than anything I have ever learned: a sense that there was some "being" with "eyes on my soul" that I swore an oath of integrity to when I was still a child, that there was a power that surrounded me that felt like encouraging love, a pillar of faithfulness to me that I could never really doubt in any deep sense of that word. I doubted intellectually, because I could not ever find arguments that could serve as "proof" that Jesus even existed historically in exactly to detail set forth in the gospels. But he was there in me, in some place deeper than my mind, when I was suffering great stress and went through a hypnotism session with a doctor that led me straight to Jesus' face and this was during a period of some fifteen years when I would have told you I was an atheist. And I remember also thinking during that time that God - if there was a God - would rather have me be honest about my inability to believe than pretend that I was a believer. Such irony!<br />
<br />
Modernists need to consider that there might be a level of "reality" that is beyond the scope of our scientific inquiry. It is a level in us on which we build our lives, construct our values and make commitments that give what we call meaning or purpose to our lives.Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-8533930571638950052016-03-29T09:49:00.000-07:002016-03-29T09:49:51.659-07:00Sharing in Christ's ResurrectionThis seems pretty exciting to me, getting back to my blog after several years of silence. I have struggled over the call in me to write, to share my thoughts on life and the world, and it hasn't been easy. I am happy I was able to share the many years of Scripture reading and study and contemplation, but it was easier when I was just recounting the passages I had read and making comments on them. Now, I am mostly just writing from my head, and it's a 70 year old head that doesn't work quite as well as it has in the past. But it is Christ in me that brings me back always to life and away from decay and despair. I must trust. There will be many things I hope that end up on these pages, and I pray that they may all be rooted in love and appreciation for life and growth and change.<br />
<br />
The first things I want to share is that I was recently accepted back into membership in the Westbury Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. I am so thankful. I first became a Friend in 1980 in Asheville, NC. This was 16 years after I had joined the Catholic Church in 1964 and then slipped into a time of doubt and political activism. It was through Friends, early Friends, that I had been able to find my way back to Jesus, and that resurrected faith would eventually lead me back to the Catholic Church in 1991. I wrote the whole story out in my book, <i>Leadings: A Catholic's Journey Through Quakerism</i>. When I returned to the Catholic fold, I did so very much with the intention of bringing the Quaker approach to the Christian faith to the Catholics I met. I did do that on every occasion that presented itself. And in Meeting, I have continued to testify to the leading I feel I have had that all Christians should be one, and that all Christians should be linked to the long and sometimes stained tradition that goes back to Jesus' time. The Meeting I was part of dropped me from the rolls, assuming that was my intention, but it never was. It's taken a while, but I am back as a dual member.<br />
<br />
Now how can that be? How can one be part of two denominations? It's kind of like being a dual citizen of two countries - both roots are part of an identity that is important but complicated. I feel I don't fit into any of the boxes humans created to simplify identity issues. I want to say "No" to the break-up of the Church. I don't want to just swallow history as it is fed to us. I want to think about it. We'll see how this works.Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-87342629846749295252014-02-10T05:48:00.003-08:002014-02-10T05:48:43.381-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 26 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired: Beautiful Quaker Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed
Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and
brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and
oppression.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>It never rejoiceth but
through sufferings; <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack">for with the world's joy it is murdered</a>.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>I found it alone, being forsaken.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>I have fellowship therein with them
who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.</b><br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">26. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">While
yet we see with eyes, must we be blind?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is
lonely mortal death the only gate</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
holy life eternal—<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">must we wait</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Until the dark portcullis
clangs behind</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our hesitating steps, before
we find</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Abiding good?</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ah, no, not that our fate;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our
time-bound cry “too early” or “too late”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can
have no meaning in the Eternal Mind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
door is open, and the Kingdom here—</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet
Death indeed upon the threshold stands</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
bar our way—<b>unless into his hands</b></span></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
give our self, our will, our heart our fear.</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
then—strange resurrection!—from above</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is
poured upon us life, will, heart, and love. </span></b></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-58955187378519749342014-02-08T11:54:00.000-08:002014-02-08T11:54:03.507-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 25 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired: Beautiful Quaker Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed
Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and
brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and
oppression.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>It never rejoiceth but
through sufferings; <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack">for with the world's joy it is murdered</a>.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>I found it alone, being forsaken.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>I have <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places of
the earth</b>, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy
life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">25. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I had fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate
places in the earth</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">can
I have fellowship with them that fed</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">on
desert locusts, or the husks of swine,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">slept
without tent, went naked as a sign, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and
made the unforgiving earth their bed?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
I in gentle raiment have been led</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Through
pastures green, and have sat down to dine</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At
banquets, and have let my limbs recline</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On
easy couches, and slept comforted?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How
can we pray for daily bread, with lip</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Still
smacking from a comfortable meal</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or
how, from Dives lofty table feel</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
Lazarus the glow of fellowship, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unless,
with spirits destitute, we find</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fellowship
in the deserts of the mind.</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-86903293928683041042014-02-06T05:28:00.002-08:002014-02-06T05:28:53.892-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 24 by K. Boulding
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and
brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and
oppression.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>It never rejoiceth but
through sufferings; <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack">for with the world's joy it is murdered</a>.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I found it alone, being forsaken. </b>I
have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the
earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">24. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I found it alone, being forsaken</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
is no death but this, to be alone,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Outside
the friendly room of time and space,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Forsaken
by the comfortable face</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
things familiar, human, measured, known.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not
in raw fires, not in the imagined groan </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
tortured body-spirits, do we trace</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
shape of Hell; but <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in that dreadful
place</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Where in the vision nought
but self is shown.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
yet—he found it there, as on the cross</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
even God had fled, Love did not die:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So
from the last despair, the extremest cry,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Flows
the great gain that swallows all our loss.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
from the towers of Heaven calls the bell</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
summons us across the gulf of Hell.</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-44144377661450577562014-02-03T09:32:00.001-08:002014-02-03T09:32:19.505-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 23 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and
brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and
oppression.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>It never rejoiceth but
through sufferings; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">for with the world's
joy it is murdered</b>. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship
therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who
through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">23</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For with the world’s joy it is
murdered</i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
will not shout for victory, nor praise</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
bloody laurels of returning hosts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Above
the throaty cries I conjure ghosts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
slain to pave the ceremonial ways.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
neither will I mourn defeated days,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
the stiff pomp that martial grandeur boasts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cracks
into chaos on forsaken coasts,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
the balk, craven bead is stripped of bays.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not
with the world’s joy will I raise my heart,</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>Nor
with the world’s grief bow it down to dust</b>;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
will not sell it in an earthly mart,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
every earthly love is kin to lust.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
living soul must find securer worth </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
grief of Heaven than in joy of earth.</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-31359510391031340562014-01-31T03:07:00.001-08:002014-01-31T03:07:47.028-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 22 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and
brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and
oppression.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> It never rejoiceth but
through sufferings;</b> for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it
alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens
and desolate places of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection
and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">22. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It never rejoiceth but through sufferings</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can
grief be gift, love’s gift, Divine Love’s gift?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not
gentle grief over imagined loss,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
vital-tearing agonies, that toss</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All
bodily organs into a bottomless pit</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
choking pain? Ah, dare we, dare we sift</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
abyss of suffering, truly take our cross</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
the insane pit of pain, and there emboss</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love’s
symbol on a door Hope cannot lift?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thou
sayest it—and yet t<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">he very tongue</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That mouthed these words was
bored with blackening flame,</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Seared with twice-bitter
tasting pain and shame.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No greater song than this the
saints have sung:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That there is joy, greater
than Joy can know,</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Through suffering, on the far
side of woe.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><b>I think this is one of the few times, maybe the only time, Boulding makes reference to an actual experience of James Nayler. The words that inspire and "set off" this sonnet, were in fact uttered by a man who had his tongue bored through with a blazing piece of iron after having been beaten and branded with a "B" on his forehead for the blasphemy he was convicted of in "reenacting" Christ's glorious entry into Jerusalem.</b></span> </span></b></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-64818898219511263522014-01-29T07:03:00.000-08:002014-01-29T07:03:59.862-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 21 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and
brought forth without any to pity it; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">nor
doth it murmur at grief and oppression. </b>It never rejoiceth but through
sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being
forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate
places of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal
holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">21. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nor doth it murmer at grief and oppression</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Must
Christian Love move us to fat content</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
the black dismal mass of man’s distress?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
wrapped in God, must we then blandly bless</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wretchedness,
pain, disease, as Heaven-sent</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
prove our virtue, channel our intent</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Away
from Earth, where power and lust oppress</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
ancient-suffering seed of gentleness,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
wealth and health always for nought are spent?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ah,
never, never! If this thing were true,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
we are cattle, tortured, that God’s grace</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">May
shine: I would deny Him to His face.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
yet—and yet—<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">if God should suffer too,</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And share, and love, and die:
may we not see</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The paradox . . . blaze into
Mystery?</span></b></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-76216539072851507422014-01-28T03:40:00.000-08:002014-01-28T03:40:07.508-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 20 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it</b>;
nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through
sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being
forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate
places of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal
holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">20. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Must
every flower reek of its mother dung,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
every joy spring rash from beds of pain?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Must
every bliss be minted with a bane,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
songs of joy to mournful chants be sung?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
though the saints from misery’s mass have wrung</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Their
drops of living water—can the chain</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
golden love the pearl of price sustain</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
all the weight of woe thereon is hung?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lord,
could’st Thou not have brought this life of Thine</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
we inherit, as a cost less great?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Was
there no way to Thee, no other gate</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
sorrow’s gloomy cave, where no lights shine</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
Thy small rush? Then did’st Thou give us night</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
stars, and give us suffering for Thy light.</span></b></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-42414739335444382912014-01-25T07:07:00.000-08:002014-01-25T07:07:13.667-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 19 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">though none else regard it, or can own its
life.</b> It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it;
nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through
sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being
forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate
places of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal
holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">19.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Though none else regard it, or can own its life</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Are
not my friends built round me like a wall?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
stand together in a firm stockade</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Around
the cheerful fire our faith has made,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Its
light reflected from the eyes of all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Beyond
the glow, in night’s unechoing hall</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Slide
shadows, hideous offspring of the shade</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
unacknowledged doubt—but who’s afraid</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
spectres, when there’s fire, and friends at call?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
ah!—let death, or faithlessness, or doubt</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pluck
out the stakes of this protecting fence</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
leave me shivering in the bleak, immense,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dark
Otherness—will not my fire go out?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our
gathered sticks are scattered: but the sun</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Warms
many no more certainly than one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-15669440640547242522014-01-24T04:14:00.000-08:002014-01-24T04:14:36.937-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 18 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>and keeps it by lowliness of mind. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In God alone it can rejoice</b>, though none else regard it, or can own
its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it;
nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through
sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being
forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate
places of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal
holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">18. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In God alone it can rejoice</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
plunge me, shouting, in the fecund tide</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
vast creation; lave myself in light,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dwell
with imperial clouds, cloak with the night,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
woo the earth as lover woos a bride;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Through
intricate kingdoms of pure sound I ride</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On
music, and on laughter, and invite</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My
joyful body-spirit to unite</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
scent, taste, touch: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">all senses
sanctified</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
then! In God alone I must rejoice?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not
in His creatures, His abounding gifts?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
veil of sensual goodness lightly lifts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
through the inward seam there drops a voice:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Could
any gift its giver’s loss atone,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">or
joy be sure, except its source be known?”</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-47343796917123306862014-01-23T12:14:00.000-08:002014-01-23T12:14:22.532-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 17 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> and keeps it by lowliness of mind.</b> In God alone it can rejoice,
though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and
brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and
oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; for with the world's joy
it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein
with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who through death
obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">17. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And keeps it by lowliness of mind</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">No
kingdom falls before it is betrayed</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By
inward enemies—no outward foe</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can
deal the last, and only fatal blow</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
turns defeat to death. So am I preyed</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Upon
by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">subtle fears, lest I have laid</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thy kingdom in me open to a
slow</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unseen decay that yet may
bring it low</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
desolate the joy that Thou has made.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
see—the stony citadel of pride,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My
inmost stronghold, is rebellious still</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Against
the peaceful envoys of Thy will.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ah,
Lord, run through me with Thy sudden tide,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
this proud heart can never be Thy throne</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unless
its pride be pride of Thee alone.</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-72962224261708024992014-01-22T12:36:00.000-08:002014-01-22T12:36:31.962-08:00New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 16 by K. Boulding
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span>here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned;<b> it takes
its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention,</b> and keeps it by lowliness of
mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its
life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor
doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through
sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being
forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate
places of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal
holy life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">16. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And takes its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Are
there no armies, no angelic hosts,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Invincibly
arrayed in awful might,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
battle with the shapeless forms of night,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
slimy writing ranks that Satan boasts?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Has
Heaven no navies to assault the coasts</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
Hell’s hard Kingdom, cliffed with vulcanite?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can
Hell be taken with thin wisps of light,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Handwringing,
cooing, pale, entreating ghosts?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
Kingdom yet has been by wooing won?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What
King for words has willed his crown away?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then
with what right of reason dost thou say</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thou
has a Kingdom where there can be none?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ah!—but
<b>what know ye, ye blind lords of strife,</b></span></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>About
the secret Kingdom of Man’s life</b>!</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-51844022173458043432014-01-21T04:21:00.000-08:002014-01-21T04:21:31.949-08:00Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 66 and New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 15 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isaiah 66 – </b>“With
heaven my throne and earth my footstool, what house could you build me, what
place could you make for my rest? All of this was made by my hand” (66:2).
Still God’s eyes are “drawn to the man of humbled and contrite spirit” (66:2).
People sacrifice all kinds of things to their idols rather than respond to
God’s love. Jerusalem should rejoice, for now “towards her I send flowing
peace, like a river” (66:12). She shall be comforted. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">There is a constant tension in
these lines between the fury God will show towards those who do not attend to
his voice and the peace that will come to those who do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This dichotomy continues to the very end of
the chapter as seen here. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I am coming to gather the nations of every language”
(66:18). “From the New Moon to New Moon, from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind
will come to bow down in my presence, says Yahweh. And on their way out they
will see the corpses of men who have rebelled against me. Their worm will not
die nor their fire go out; they will be loathsome to all mankind” (66:23-24).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">This is kind of sad to say, but the two year bible-reading
schedule is DONE. How cold it have gone by so quickly? Not sure where the
Catholic-Quaker Blog is going – resting for a while, I think. I will finish up
the Nayler Sonnets by Kenneth Boulding. They are so amazing. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness
of God. Its crown is meekness, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">its life
is everlasting love unfeigned</b>; it takes its kingdom with entreaty and not
with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can
rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in
sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief
and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; for with the world's
joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein
with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who through death
obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">15.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Its life is everlasting love unfeigned</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Caught
in a mirrored maze of bright deceit,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peopled
with images, that but reflect</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
groping movements of the intellect,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Till
bounds are smudged where fact and shows meet,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
mind is lost, until with quickened beat</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love
scents a wind, blowing from God, unchecked,</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
senses, deeper laid than sight, direct</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
the free air our once-bewildered feet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
love must be made pure to be our guide;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not
trader’s love, that seeks more in return,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
love that with clear, slender flame will burn</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Through
it be spent for nought, spurned, crucified,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Until
to one vast song our spirit lifts:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
love for Love alone, not for His gifts. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-45123057159548209962014-01-20T04:18:00.000-08:002014-01-20T04:18:02.393-08:00Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 65 and New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 14 by K. Boulding
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isaiah 65 – </b>The
last chapters are an apocalyptic vision – post-exilic or even later in time.
The Lord has been ready to help those who went astray, but no one ever asked
for help. “I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me” (65:1). All
day long the people threw dirt into God’s “face” – burning incense of pagan altars,
breaking the laws God gave to their ancestors. They will suffer punishment at
God’s hands “both for their own sins and for those of their ancestors” (65:7).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But I will not destroy them all . . . For just as good
grapes are found among a cluster of bad ones . . . I will not destroy all
Israel” (65:8). “I will preserve a remnant of the people of Israel and of Judah
. . . The plain of Sharon will again be filled with flocks for my people who
have searched for me” (65:9-10). But the rest - “I commit you to the sword, all
of you to fall in the slaughter For I called and you would not answer, I spoke
and you would not listen” (65:12). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“For now I create new heavens and a new earth, and the past
will not be remembered, and will come no more to men’s minds” (65:17). No
longer will there be weeping, no longer infants dying or men not living long
lives. Life will be what it should be. “They will not toil in vain or beget
children to their own ruin, for they will be a race blessed by Yahweh, and
their children with them. Long before they call I shall answer; before they
stop speaking I hall have heard. The wolf and the young lamb will feed
together, the lion eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will do no hurt, no harm on all my holy mountain, says Yahweh” (65:23-25).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">for its ground
and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. </span><b>Its crown is meekness,</b>
its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes its kingdom with entreaty and
not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can
rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in
sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief
and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; for with the world's
joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein
with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who through death
obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">14. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Its crown is meekness</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How
every virtue casts a mimic shade</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
subtle vice, so like in form and face</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
shadow oft usurps the royal place</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of
substance, in unholy masquerade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So
rotten pride, in pity’s garb arrayed,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Drops
hidden poison in the springs of grace,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
selfishness transmutes to metal base</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
gold of love, by lesser love betrayed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
most of all, the very crown of good,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unconquerable
Meekness, is pursued</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By
the grey ghost compliance, bland and lewd,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
cowardice seeks to stand where courage stood.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yet
no deceit of words can hide for long</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>The
seed of life, the meekness of the strong</b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-66911521180020049492014-01-18T03:37:00.002-08:002014-01-18T03:37:29.642-08:00Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 64 and New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 13 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isaiah 64 - </b>“Oh,
that you would tear the heavens open and come down—at your Presence the
mountains would melt” (64:1). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No ear has heard, no eye has seen any god but you act like
this for those who trust him. You guide those who act with integrity and keep
your ways in mind” (64:4-5). “And yet, Yahweh, <b>you are our Father; we the clay,
you the potter, we are all the work of your hand”</b> (64:7-8). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All we ever had from you is destroyed – Zion, Jerusalem, the
Temple. “Will you continue to be silent and punish us?” (64:12)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be
betrayed, it bears it, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">for its ground
and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. </b>Its crown is meekness, its
life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes its kingdom with entreaty and not
with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can
rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in
sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief
and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; for with the world's
joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein
with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who through death
obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">13. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My
Lord, Thou are in every breath I take,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
every bite and sup taste firm of Thee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With
buoyant mercy Thou enfoldest me,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
holdest up my foot each step I make.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thy
touch is all around me when I wake,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thy
sound I hear, and by Thy light I see</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
world is fresh with Thy divinity</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
all Thy creatures flourish for Thy sake.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
I have looked upon a little child</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
seen Forgiveness, and have <b>seen the day</b></span></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>With
eastern fire cleanse the foul night awa</b>y;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So
cleansest Thou this House I have defiled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
if I should be merciful, I know</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It
is Thy mercy, Lord, in overflow.</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3772198861041013150.post-32236623841009855762014-01-16T02:55:00.000-08:002014-01-16T02:55:23.184-08:00Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 62 and New Testament Inspired Words of James Nayler - Nayler Sonnet 11 by K. Boulding
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isaiah 62 – </b>I,
the prophet, will not grow weary of Jerusalem until her “integrity shines out
like the dawn” (62:1). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The nations will see your righteousness. World leaders will
be blinded by your glory. . . The Lord will hold you in his hand for all to
see—a splendid crown in the hand of God” (62:2-3).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She will be like a crown in God’s hand. <b>No longer “forsaken”
or “abandoned”, she will be the Lord’s delight, wedded to Him like a bride.</b>
“[O]n your walls, Jerusalem, I set watchmen. Day or night they must never by
silent” (62:16). She must be the “boast of the earth” (62:7), the “city not
forsaken” (62:12).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New Testament
Inspired:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beautiful Quaker
Words: </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">James Nayler’s Deathbed Testimony</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">here is a spirit which I feel
that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure
all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all
wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever
is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it
bears no evil in itself, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">so it conceives
none in thought to any other.</b> If it be betrayed, it bears it, for its
ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness,
its life is everlasting love unfeigned; it takes its kingdom with entreaty and
not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can
rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in
sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief
and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; for with the world's
joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein
with them who lived in dens and desolate places of the earth, who through death
obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.<br />
<br />
Thou wast with me when I fled from the face of mine enemies: then didst Thou
warn me in the night: Thou carriedst me in Thy power into the hiding-place Thou
hadst prepared for me: there Thou coveredst me with Thy Hand that in time Thou
mightst bring me forth a rock before all the world. When I was weak Thou
stayedst me with Thy Hand, that in Thy time Thou mightst present me to the
world in Thy strength in which I stand, and cannot be moved. Praise the Lord, O
my soul. Let this be written for those that come after. Praise the Lord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kenneth Boulding’s Nayler
Sonnets:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">11. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So it conceives none in thought to any other</i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is
there indeed a river that can clean</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
stable of my thought? Can I not hide,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Behind
the glittering wall of outward pride</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
virtuous act, the dismal inward scene?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not
what we think, but what we do has been</span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>The
standard of the world:</b> <b>so have I tried</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>To
wall out God with deeds.</b> And yet inside</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My
soul blazes His light despite my screen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ah!
Blinding Union! Now falls away</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
shelly life of outward righteousness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Torrential
seas of brightness round me press,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Turning
my secret night to open day,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Till
in the fullness of Thy light no room</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is
left for any cherished walled gloom.</span></div>
Rene Lapehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07687298416304574910noreply@blogger.com0