Monday 30 March 2015

GEOFFREY DURHAM: Everybody can have an experience of the divine


Two quotations from Geoffrey Durham’s book The Spirit of the Quakers:
 “The active life takes many forms, among them work, creativity and caring. …
Work is action driven by external necessity or demand. …
Creativity, in contrast, is driven more by inner choice than by outer demand. An act cannot be creative if it is not born of freedom.  In creative action, our desire is not to solve, or succeed, or survive, but to give birth to something new. 
 … In caring we aim not in giving birth to something new; we aim at nurturing, protecting, guiding, healing or empowering something that already has life. “
(Parker J Palmer, 1990, from the section Faith in Action)
  
And from the section, God, the Spirit and the Light Within:
'Quakers in the twenty-first century are often reluctant to talk about the Divine.  Many use the word ‘God’, but others prefer ‘the Light’, ‘ the Truth’, ‘the Seed’ or ‘the Spirit’. 
The early Quakers discovered that everybody can have an experience of the divine.  
Some Quakers today reject traditional notions of God and use the word ‘nontheist’. … Their view should not be confused with an atheist one.'

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