Re: Why

Timothy Travis <qspirit@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:C4AF306D.4A2B%qspirit@xxxxxxxxxxx:


The Light, in all people, is the means by which that in us
is sorted out, seed or seed, and in this sorting we are
brought to face that which is sorted to the seed of enmity
and that which is sorted to the seed of love. We have the
choice as to what to do from there, but Quakers believe
that the Light gives us the power, if we will choose the
love and eschew the enmity, to build the former and
dismantle the latter. In the process (often called
"perfection" but in modern terms "maturity" or
"completeness" probably best conveys the meaning intended)
we come toward restoration to the image of God from which
our mythology says that we fell.


I agree with the idea of a continuing work in process. I used
to think that conversion was a transformational event, and in
a way I suppose it is. But if there was a transformational
event, it was a commitment or choice to fully engage in the
process of becoming what I needed to be rather than a point
that I reached it.

Ajahn Brahm wrote the following anecdote (in the book "Who Ordered This
Truckload of Dung").

"Two of my fellow Western monks were having an argument.
One of the monks was a former U.S. marine who had fought as a
"grunt" soldier in the Viet Nam war and had been badly
wounded. The second was a very successful bsinessman who had
made such a large sum of money he had retired in his
mid-twenties. They were two, strong, clever, extremely tough
characters.

Monks aren't supposed to have arguments, but they were. Monks
aren't supposed to have fist fights, but they were about to.
They were eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose, and spitting
anger. In the midst of a ferocious verbal exchange, the
former marine got down on his knees, and bowed gracefully to
the shocked ex-businessman monk, and then looked up and said,
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

It was one of those rare gestures that comes directly from
the heart, which are always spontaneous and inspirational
rather than planned.

.....

The ex-businessman wept.

A few minutes later they were seen walking away together as
freinds.

Monks ARE supposed to do that."

The relevance of the anecdote to me is not in the particular
resolution of the difficulty. Rather it is relevant to me as
an example of living in the real world where anger and such
do arise without becoming locked into destructive outcomes. It
is the ability to have difficulty, to even get caught up in
the intensity of things, and then to back away in the middle
of it because one has remembered something much more
important. And having walked away from it, it is to let the
matter rest in peace in the past rather than forever being
resurrected every third day.
.