Nonaligned faith and practice in the present
A reading from today’s Global Meeting for Worship
1st Century – 1 John 2:27 (New New Testament version)
“But for you the anointing that you received from the Christ abides in you, and you are not in need of anyone to teach you; but since his anointing teaches you about everything, and since it is a real anointing, and no lie, then, as it has taught you, maintain your union with him.”
Can you not see
that the hurricane
is not
about you
but
around you?
It is not
being done to you. You
simply happen to be
in the midst
of it.
As
…
I saw, also, that there was an ocean
of darkness and death;
but an infinite ocean of light and love,
which flowed over
the ocean of darkness.
In that also I saw
the infinite love of God,
and I had great openings.
As the pastor began to speak the absolution,
I stood up and
interrupted the liturgy.
“Anyone who looks into their hearts
and acknowledges what they find there
also finds the power
to forgive
themselves.”
To the woman on my right
I said,
“You can still make love
…
The world groans.
She cries out under
heartless regimes
propped up by fearful,
hungry people.
The powerless
are driven into homeless exile
in the very battlefields they fled.
Broken,
with their children
stolen from them.
Other ages were more hopeful.
But ours
sees only end times
and flails back
…
NOTE: I originally posted this essay on The Surly Librarian, the blog I published from 2008-2016 during my years as a reference librarian with Jacksonville Public Library. On the blog’s Favorite Rants page, I declared my professional librarianship values:…I take a couple of themes very seriously:
- First, the quality
In much of the world, Samhain/ All Hallow’s Eve (Hallowe’en) /Día de los Muertos /Hanyijie (Chinese “Sweeping of the Graves”) is NOT about play-acting as ghouls.
It is about reconnecting with loved ones who have crossed over, yet who greet us across the veil when it is thinnest during the cusp of October-November, to eat and dance with us once more in memory.
This music video brought me
This story was originally published on Walhydra’s Porch in February of 2007. For those readers who don’t know her, Walhydra is my grouchy old crone storytelling persona. When faced with some petty or significant annoyance, Walhydra gives voice to my complaints.
The only rule for these stories is that she has to come to some even-older-but-wiser resolution by the end—either on her own or through the intervention of The Goddess. For more Walhydra, see here.
…
Louis awoke in his chalet to the sound of tearing winds. The night had been deep and full of tossing dreams beneath the powerful sway of the full and cloudy moon. He lay in fuzzy, semi-sleep. His eyes burned, and he did not wish to rise.
The March wind rushed along the earth and slammed against the chalet walls. There was no shuddering, yet the sound was powerful. He could imagine that the sea below his hill would be quite
…This piece was first published on August 11, 2019, by Quaker Universalist Fellowship (QUF). It refers to content available on the QUF website.
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