{"id":731,"date":"2014-10-22T09:49:43","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T09:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=731"},"modified":"2014-10-22T09:49:43","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T09:49:43","slug":"u-is-for-ubiquity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=731","title":{"rendered":"U is for Ubiquity"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--\n<span id=\"mce_marker\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\"><\/span><span id=\"__caret\">_<\/span><!--\nP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: \"Liberation Serif\",\"Times New Roman\",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: \"Droid Sans\"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: \"FreeSans\"; font-size: 12pt; }\n--><\/style>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Sans,Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">But the silence in the mind<br \/>\nis when we live best, within<br \/>\nlistening distance of the silence<br \/>\nwe call God. This is the deep<br \/>\ncalling to deep of the psalm-<br \/>\nwriter, the bottomless ocean<br \/>\nwe launch the armada of<br \/>\nour thoughts on, never arriving.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Sans,Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> It is a presence, then,<br \/>\nwhose margins are our margins;<br \/>\nthat calls us out over our<br \/>\nown fathoms. What to do<br \/>\nbut draw a little nearer to<br \/>\nsuch ubiquity by remaining still?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Sans,Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> R S Thomas<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"LEFT\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/remain-still.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-733 aligncenter\" alt=\"remain still\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/remain-still-300x201.jpg\" width=\"690\" height=\"472\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Sans,Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">This poem speaks to me on a deep level. Silence, listening, deep, never arriving. Presence, ubiquity, remaining still. Regular readers of this blog will recognise where I&#8217;m coming from.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Sans,Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">But I did have to go and look up &#8216;ubiquity&#8217; in the dictionary. The Concise Oxford gives me &#8216;<b>ubiquitious: <\/b> present, appearing, or found everywhere&#8217; and &#8216;<b>ubiquitarian: <\/b>a person who believes that Christ is present everywhere at all times&#8217;.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><span style=\"font-family: Liberation Sans,Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">In my Quaker understanding, that which I call G-d can found everywhere at all times &#8211; if I am aware. More easily, if I am inwardly still. In my Buddhist understanding, everything is everywhere at all times, there is no separation &#8211; no G-d, no not-G-d, no me, no not-me. It is easier to touch that knowledge if I am silent within. In my experience, Christ Jesus is there too, along with all the Bodhisattvas, with everyone, but if I forget to be still, I lose contact with that Presence.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"LEFT\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/everywhere.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-734 aligncenter\" alt=\"everywhere\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/everywhere-300x123.jpg\" width=\"711\" height=\"310\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But the silence in the mind is when we live best, within listening distance of the silence we call God. This is the deep calling to deep of the psalm- writer, the bottomless ocean we launch the armada of our &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=731\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions\/735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}