{"id":75,"date":"2013-02-11T16:28:20","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T16:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=75"},"modified":"2013-02-12T09:35:37","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T09:35:37","slug":"c-is-for-luke-cock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=75","title":{"rendered":"C is for Luke Cock"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--\n@page { margin: 2cm }\n\t\tP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\n--><\/style>\n<p>I first met Luke Cock when I was moved to pick up the unfamiliar book from the table in meeting for worship. I&#8217;d only been attending Loughborough meeting for a few weeks and was curious as to what this book was. It was &#8216;Christian Faith and Practice&#8217;. I opened it, apparently at random, and encountered <a href=\"http:\/\/qfp.quakerweb.org.uk\/qfp20-22.html\">Luke Cock<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/QFP-on-table.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-76\" alt=\"QF&amp;P on table\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/QFP-on-table-300x161.jpg\" width=\"491\" height=\"273\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The words spoke to me then, and have continued to ever since. The same quotation is included in the revised edition of the book &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.quaker.org.uk\/shop\/quaker-faith-and-practice-fourth-edition-paperback\">Quaker Faith and Practice<\/a>&#8216;. My family tease me about my tendency to refer to &#8216;my Friend Luke Cock&#8217;, but that is a good way to express my response to this passage. It appears to be the only recorded piece of his ministry that we have, though you&#8217;ll realise that his is not an easy name to run a google search for, so my research has been somewhat curtailed.<\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--\n@page { margin: 2cm }\n\t\tP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\n--><\/style>\n<p>The language is archaic dialect, but to me has a ring of the style of speech of my grandparents, giving it a certain homely familiarity. The absence of particularly &#8216;Christian&#8217; language makes the passage more accessible, I like the idea of <i>&#8216;my Guide&#8217;<\/i>, clearly an inner spiritual guide. He speaks from the heart, from his experience. He exposes his fallibility <i>&#8216;I mun leave Thee here: if Thou leads me up that lane, I can never follow&#8217;<\/i> and makes clear that there is always hope, however often we fail <i>&#8216;I said, if I could find my good Guide again, I&#8217;ll follow Him, lead me whither He will. So here I found my Guide again, and began to follow Him&#8217;,<\/i> but that we need to persist &#8216;<i>This was very hard; yet I said to my Guide, &#8216;Take my feeble pace, and I&#8217;ll follow Thee as fast as I can. Don&#8217;t outstretch me, I pray Thee.&#8217;<\/i><i> <\/i>His fear that<i> &#8216;I&#8217;se be ruined of this butchering trade, if I mun&#8217;t lie for a gain.&#8217;,<\/i> but eventual experience that <i>&#8216;I had been nought but beggary and poverty before; and now I began to thrive at my trade&#8217; <\/i>may well have something to say to us today. The image of <i>&#8216;my Guide led me up another lane&#8217;<\/i> appeals to me, especially as it is only one lane at a time &#8211; there is no compulsion to achieve everything at once. I&#8217;m trying to apply this to leading a more sustainable life, changing one thing at a time, however small. One step at a time towards the goal.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Bristol-Road.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-86\" alt=\"Bristol Road\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Bristol-Road-300x164.jpg\" width=\"497\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--\n@page { margin: 2cm }\n\t\tP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\n--><\/style>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I admit that I still don&#8217;t understand all of the passage, especially the reference to <i>&#8216;creep under the hedges&#8217;,<\/i> though I have gained some insight into <i>&#8216;a watering&#8217; <\/i>which is a phrase used by other Friends of that time about some meetings. It remains my personal favourite passage from Quaker Faith and Practice.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first met Luke Cock when I was moved to pick up the unfamiliar book from the table in meeting for worship. I&#8217;d only been attending Loughborough meeting for a few weeks and was curious as to what this book &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=75\">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-75","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\/75","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=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}