-- Ruthie-Annie: You may wish to sit down before reading this post...

Honest to God thoughts from an unconvinced Quaker psychologist

"Had she thought there was no meaning in life, no purpose, when God had gone?...'Well there is now,' she said aloud, and again, louder: 'There is now...We have to be all those difficult things, like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us...and then we'll build...the Republic of Heaven." Lyra, In 'The Amber Spyglass', Philip Pullman

Sunday, February 13, 2005

You may wish to sit down before reading this post...

I am going to quote from the Bible.

The Way of Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

(I Cor 13, NEB)

I hope I can follow this way in seeking to continue those friendships that I'm currently finding somewhat awkward. My thanks to Laurence, Digger, Rich & Larry for your comments to my previous post. They were very helpful and much appreciated.

2 Comments:

At 7:46 PM, Rich in Brooklyn said...: Ruthie -
You seem to be shocked at yourself for quoting the Bible, but I am not surprised. It is clear to me that you are deeply influenced by the Bible. To some degree it may have been spoiled for you by the uses and abuses to which it has been subjected in all too many places (I will not single out the church of your childhood, because it is far from unique). Nevertheless, it is a wonderful spiritual resource and you show an awareness of that.

George Fox said that we can't understand the scriptures aright until we come into the power and spirit that gave them forth. Recognizing that has helped me to be relatively undisturbed when I see scriptures misapplied, and even when I myself find some particular passage or teaching hard to understand or accept.

- - Rich Accetta-Evans
At 3:45 PM, Ruthie said...: Thanks Rich :)

I'm very tongue in cheek about these things. On occasion I gently mock myself saying I'm an unbiblical heathen these days - but actually I cannot deny the impact that the Bible, particularly the teachings of Jesus have had on my life. I wouldn't want to - Jesus' teachings are the most wonderfully wise, compassionate and subversive ideas that I've ever come across and I'm trying to live my life in line with them.

I'd be interested to hear how you as a Quaker read the more violent passages of the Bible?

Ruthie