{"id":907,"date":"2016-01-10T21:34:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T21:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=907"},"modified":"2016-01-10T21:34:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T21:34:17","slug":"my-faith-in-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=907","title":{"rendered":"My Faith in Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><i>This is the text of what I said at Area Meeting today10\/1\/16. Most of it is already on this blog under Q is for Quaker in 2013. But a copy was requested for circulation and it seems as well to post here too while it is, in some way, topical.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I was only asked to speak today at short notice, but yesterday morning, in response to a question, I found myself saying:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">What do I know? Not very much:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">that I should stayed married to Jim<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">when I breathe in I know that I am breathing in, when I breathe out I know that I am breathing out<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I am alive, which is better than the alternative<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">God loves me<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">These things are deeply spiritual and also quite pragmatic. The Quaker way is, I&#8217;m increasingly aware, simultaneously mystical and practical. Basically, all I need to do is follow Advices and Queries 1 &#8216;Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts \u2026&#8217;. The rest just follows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">And now, as I said to Ryan, and in true &#8216;Blue Peter&#8217; style, here&#8217;s one I wrote earlier:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Why am I a Quaker?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because it&#8217;s where God wants me to be,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because it&#8217;s a place I can work out how to follow the teachings of Jesus without the rituals and creeds that troubled me in other churches,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because I feel it&#8217;s where I belong,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because it gives me a safe spiritual home from where I can engage with different traditions,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because I feel accepted and challenged,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because together we seek the will of God for us, here and now, and try to follow it,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because Quakers understand that words are inadequate for expressing deep spiritual truths (which is why this is such a hard question to answer!),<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">because I go to Meeting for Worship and am aware of the Presence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I discovered I was a Quaker in my late teens\/early twenties when searching for an understanding of God, what God wanted of me and what my Guide promise to &#8216;do my duty to God&#8217; really meant. I&#8217;ve realised that it doesn&#8217;t matter to me whether God is &#8216;real&#8217; or a human construct, but that it does matter to me that I believe. Within Quakerism, I have been able to explore my beliefs and deepen my understanding, and experiment with different ways of expressing those beliefs. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">How am I a Quaker?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by remembering that there is &#8216;that of God&#8217; in everyone I meet, be that face to face, by telephone, by email, in online forums, or otherwise (I was LM clerk when I wrote this, so lots of these opportunities arose),<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by acting from love, not from anger,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by finding frequent opportunities (alone or with others) to be quiet and reconnect with the Presence,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by pausing to give thanks for food, friends, health, doubts, difficulties, sunshine, rain, everything life offers me,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by heeding the &#8216;promptings of love and truth&#8217; in my heart,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by expressing gratitude,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by giving time to listen,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by being aware of the present moment, where I am, and who I&#8217;m with,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by trying to love my neighbour as myself,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by questioning why I&#8217;m doing what I&#8217;m doing, how I&#8217;m doing it, how I could do things differently,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by asking &#8216;is this the way it would be in the Kingdom of God \/ Republic of Heaven \/ Paradise ?&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">by continuing to make changes (however small) to the way I live to make my lifestyle simpler, more peaceful, more honest, better aligned with the will of the Divine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">In practical terms, I do a lot of Quaker stuff: attending Meeting for Worship, serving as elder and registering officer, convening children&#8217;s committee, accepting the huge challenge of being on Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (even saying the title is quite a challenge!).I do a small amount of Buddhist stuff: walking mindfully and trying to follow the five mindfulness trainings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Outside Quaker structures I do a very ordinary, part-time office job for the NHS, run a Guide unit, serve on the committee of the local interfaith association, grow some fruit and vegetables on my allotment, try to keep up with the housework and support family members. I am blessed with a supportive family and local meeting, good colleagues and friends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I have a vision that the Kingdom of God is right here, right now, in Watford, as elsewhere, and a desire to help other people to perceive that. The way to that end is by many small steps, and mostly not by talking &#8216;God language&#8217;. It is by what I do and how I do it, not by what I say.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the text of what I said at Area Meeting today10\/1\/16. Most of it is already on this blog under Q is for Quaker in 2013. But a copy was requested for circulation and it seems as well to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=907\">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-907","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\/907","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=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}