A dear woman I’ve known through ROTB for years asked me to help her find a community with whom she might feel a spiritual-connection. She had tried a lot of places, but none seemed to fit.
I suggested that she write a personal ad to express what she was looking for. She took me up on the offer and wrote this:
If you know of a place or you are a person who might be a kindred soul, please click to send an email that I can forward along.
What a wonderful idea: to seek what you want!
George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers), left many churches in his day. Stories tell that he would interrupt preachers and ask upon what authority they knew or preached. And, as the story goes, a preacher once exasperated, asked him, “Brother George, what it is that you are looking for?” The response: “I am seeking that which speaks to my condition.“
The above phrase always reminds me of the Kenny Roger’s lyrics made popular in The Big Lewbowski — I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
George Fox, who for good reason looks a lot like the Quaker Oats guy, wrote in 1656:
But as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition.
Two centuries later, Walt Whitman, who for no reason I know of looks a lot like Gandalf, wrote:
Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.
How beautiful. What powerful words to keep in mind: dismiss what insults your soul.
What is it that you seek?
As the year comes to a close and the practice of setting resolutions is upon us, let me ask you, “what is it that you seek?”
My answer, “I seek a stronger sense of surrender and being in God’s love.”
How about you?
What is it that you seek?
The clearer you can be in what it is that you seek, the better your chances of finding it.
This week’s spiritual religious advice:
Elaborate upon and seek that which speaks to your condition.
With love,
