Through a glass darkly

I'll come back to the title shortly. First I want to talk about synchronicity. I had an email from (son) Dave about my last blog post. Seems on the day I was writing about Douglas Adams and the quantum computer of life, he'd been thinking on the exact same topic. I love it when that happens.

On Thursday evening I went to a Quaker Study Session based on Rex Ambler's work considering the origins of the Quaker movement. We looked at Words of Sarah Jones (as published in "Light's Appearance in the Truth", 1650). Sarah advises that we rest in 'the eternal word', rather than in any manifestations proceeding from the word; to live in the purity and simplicity of truth which has power rather than holding onto the 'form'.

This teaching fits very well with the other works I'm reading: "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh and "A Course in Miracles", both of which encourage he who seeks peace on earth to recognise that the peace dwells within and when we seek that inner peace, we can look beyond the world manifested by ego and see reality... which leads me to the title of this article. 'Through a glass darkly' comes from a biblical quote: 1 Corinthians 13 (King James Version), 'For now we see through a glass, darkly'. The Message version suggests 'We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist'. "A Course in Miracles" teaches that my grievances obscure the light; obscure the miracles that the world would offer if set free (through my forgiveness) to do so. In other words, when I look at the world through the distorting lens of my perception, I'm not seeing the true picture, but something akin to Plato's shadows on a cave wall. Recently I read Betty Eadie's book, 'Embraced by the Light' which also speaks of the earthly world as reflecting our thoughts, and the freedom to see the full and true beauty of reality once released from the prison of the body.

At the study evening, one of the questions for discussion was: are there pros and cons of using words, internally or as vocal ministry? We happened to have three physicists in the room, all of them familiar with Stephen Hawking's book, "A Brief History of Time" (in a room of 9 people - how unrepresentative is that of the population?). One of these worthy gentlemen likened the structure of 'self' to the structure of a black hole as described by Hawking: the majority of our being is non-verbal and highly responsive to all that surrounds it, this response mediated by the 'crust' of our 'chattering verbal self - the ego', thus words effectively forming the 'event horizon' of self (if I've understood correctly).

The study evening included this quote (from Quaker writings, 1659):

Let us in the simplicity of truth abide and dwell... that we be not again led back into the errors of those who went before us, who left the power and got into the form ... but that all they (the ones who come after) may be directed and left to the truth, in it to live and walk, and by it guided ... Wherefore, in love and tenderness ... may (we) all in the unity of the Spirit dwell in the pure wisdom, that none may exercise lordship or dominion over another, nor the person of any be set apart, but as they continue in the power of truth, that truth itself in the body may reign, not persons nor forms ... that our path may be as the way of a ship in the sea, which no deceit can follow or imitate.

Further synchronicity: with that image of the ship in my mind, the next morning I came to the reading from 'The Word for Today': When men first learned to navigate the seas by using the stars, a whole new world opened up to them. A common saying in those days was, 'He who is a slave to the compass enjoys the freedom of the open sea.' The devotional went on to encourage readers to let Christ be our compass in life.