Another quirky seasonal creation in our house. Martha Stewart, move over.
Tag: Inspiration
Acid test mystic: James Nayler (1618-1660)
The most powerful of the public ministers in the early Quaker movement, Nayler remains unjustly tarnished by what I see as a street theater event that erupted into scandal and his conviction by Parliament (not court) on blasphemy. His shameful treatment by Quaker leader George Fox afterward furthered the sleight.
He’s seen as the most systematic theologian of the emerging movement, as I’ve written elsewhere. What fascinates me the most, though, is his articulation of the Light, as early Quakers experienced Christ. Nobody has written more insightfully in its wide-ranging appearances.
One difficulty is that the experience isn’t “like” anything else. What, for instance, is light itself like? Or the color green? Nayler’s writing, then, can make full sense only to others who have experienced a spiritual Light inwardly. Logically, we’re stuck in a tautology.
His text, though, works and sounds more like contemporary poetry than you’d expect from 17th century English prose. Well, Ezra Pound did describe literature as “news that stays news,” which I think fits here.
Kinisi 214
this crew like a well-oiled machine
contrasts sharply
to that new level of low
lubrication
Two eagles sitting in a river just below the fish ladder
Their version of a drive-in restaurant, we suppose. There were others overhead, all ordering fresh alewives migrating upstream from the ocean.
Young porcupine on a seaside trail
We had to walk gingerly around it before it left, in a huff.
Red Point island
You can walk there only at low tide.
No traffic inside the Cobscook Shores public preserve.
Kinisi 213
NEW
NOON
TUNING
MOOING
MOON
Eagles in trees
One looking regal.
And three in one shot. Including the one in the first shot, as it sits in the upper left corner of the second.
Officially released today, hooray!
I rather backed into this project, beginning with the elusive question, “What do Quakers believe?”
It led me to something much bigger, ranging beyond the Society of Friends, but springing from the seemingly quaint language of its earliest voices in mid-1600s Britain. There are good reasons the time and place are referred to as the world turned upside down.
Centering their experiences in three interlocking metaphors – Light, Seed, and Truth – they created what’s been called an alternative Christianity, and though their thinking and process have been diluted over the centuries since, their foundation remains revolutionary, startling, and challenging. I’ll argue that it’s cutting-edge contemporary, as well, in a time of disbelief and skepticism.
For one thing, how do you see “truth” as a verb? It becomes something quite different from carved marble or courtroom proceedings.
While some of the chapters originally appeared as chapbooks at Thistle Finch editions, this newly enlarged volume of essays is now available on your choice of ebook platforms at Smashwords.com and its affiliated digital retailers. Those outlets include the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, and Sony’s Kobo. You may also request the ebook from your local public library.
The book now ranges far beyond religion and spirituality, by the way. Even atheists have their beliefs. Change the perspective, as I think I do, and you can find the exchange of first-hand experiences refreshing. How else can we talk about the deepest issues in life?
The move unites the essays in a single volume, rather than a series of four smaller chapbooks, and makes them available to a wider range of readers worldwide.
Do take a look.
Clammer at work on a tide flat
Wait till the tide rolls in.
