Faith & Life Inspirational Message

I am not sure Quakers are always prepared to talk about the sacred.   But I do think Quakers are taught fairly well to be prepared to engage the sacred.   Let me explain and elaborate the difference.   I suspect in the process of explaining and elaborating, some of you who grew up in other traditions or, perhaps, no tradition at all will find some resonance in my own experience.             First of all, I define the sacred as the Presence of God or the Holy One.   Sacred simply means the place or space of the Divinity.   In the history of religions the sacred might be a place, like a cathedral, a grove in the forest or some other shrine.   The sacred can be the object of pilgrimages.   Sometimes the sacred has been the place of healing, as well as revelation.   The sacred is opposite of the profane---which literally means “outside the temple.”        ...

There are a few people I follow in the sense that I want to hear and read whatever they are putting out there.   My interest in these kinds of people does not parallel the people the general culture follows.   For example, when I go through the checkout counter in the grocery store, I read with some amusement the cover of the various Hollywood-type magazines.   I usually don’t even know the people about whom the magazine is putting forward.   People are pregnant, getting dumped or duped or generally making a scene out of their lives and I don’t care.   I just want to pay for the carrots!            I am not really interested in the sports stars upon whom our culture lavishes so much blabber.   I don’t care about Tiger, LeBron or Michael.   Certainly, they are accomplished in terms of a skill set for a particular sport.   But that says nothing about the kind of human being they are.   Many a...

Very often the things that wind up causing me to think a little more about life and how to make spiritual sense out of life come from the ordinariness of my life.   I do affirm there is a sacred dimension to our world.   What I am not sure about is whether there is a non-sacred dimension.   I realize for many people, this is backwards.   It would be easy to find folks who would be quite sure the world is secular, if not outright profane, and they would not be at all convinced there is any sacred dimension.               It would take a book to define and develop what I or any other person means by “the sacred.”   Since I don’t have that ambition nor space to do that here, let me simply say for me “the sacred” is the sense of the holy---the place or space where one senses the Presence, the holy and the mystery.   I believe that dimension is all around us.   However, I also believe that m...

One of the things I began to realize as a Quaker boy growing up in the middle of last century was that I was deprived!   When your world is small and provincial, you have very little to compare.   It is easy to assume people are all basically just like you are.   You assume most people live just like you live and have relatively the same amount of money, etc.   I figured I was normal and that was the deal life dealt to most people.   I was ok.   But then I went to school.    Back then, going to school was usually the window out of one’s provincialism.   I suddenly confronted “difference.”   Of course, I have to smile.   Back then, difference consisted of farm boy having to spend time with very small town “city kids.”   But they were really different.   They seldom wore blue jeans.   They did not have to milk cows nor drive tractors.   They did not know a bull from a heifer!   I was farm-smart, but they di...

I remember so many times when I was growing up in rural Indiana, one of my parents (or even grandparents) would ask, “Did you thank him?”   They drilled into my head that I owed someone a word of thanks if I were given something or if I were told something special.   I suspect that I did not fully appreciate what they were doing for me.            I am sure they were teaching me this lesson long before I could register what they actually were doing.   I know with my own kids and, now with grandkids, I am watching that age-old lesson being taught.   No doubt, the kids are too young really to grasp why saying “thanks” is all that important.   I know when I was young I was just happy to get a gift.   I am sure I was driven by pure self-interest.   In a one or two-year old, that is normal and fine.             But learning to say “thanks” is an ea...

I am not sure Quakers are always prepared to talk about the sacred.   But I do think Quakers are taught fairly well to be prepared to engage the sacred.   Let me explain and elaborate the difference.   I suspect in the process of explaining and elaborating, some of you who grew up in other traditions or, perhaps, no tradition at all will find some resonance in my own experience.             First of all, I define the sacred as the Presence of God or the Holy One.   Sacred simply means the place or space of the Divinity.   In the history of religions the sacred might be a place, like a cathedral, a grove in the forest or some other shrine.   The sacred can be the object of pilgrimages.   Sometimes the sacred has been the place of healing, as well as revelation.   The sacred is opposite of the profane---which literally means “outside the temple.”        ...