Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a Divine Center, a speaking voice to which we may continuously return...
-Thomas Kelly

A couple of weeks ago, during the Ohio Open Doors event held here at the meetinghouse, I attended a session with Michael Ramos on the writings of the Quaker, Thomas Kelly. Michael inspired me to want to speak about Kelly, whose life represents an amazing story of spiritual transformation. Since Kelly is one of my favorite Quaker authors, many of you will notice that I have spoken about this man before.

Kelly's experience of transformation is documented in the Introduction to his little book, A Testament of Devotion. He began a series of lectures at Germantown Friends Meeting near Philadelphia by saying this: To you in this room who are seekers, to you, young and old who have toiled all night and caught nothing, but who want to launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught, I want to speak as simply, as tenderly, as clearly as I can. For God can be found. There is a last rock for your souls, a resting place of absolute peace and joy and power and radiance and security. There is a divine center into which your life can slip...

These words marked the transformation that Thomas Kelly, the scholar and life examiner, would have found impossible to say earlier in his life. Kelly, the academic, was a philosopher who loved scholarly pursuits, but now he was speaking from his heart. He had experienced failure as an academic at Harvard, but now was experiencing a spirituality that transformed his life. As Douglas Steere has said, "...a strained period in his life was over. He moved toward adequacy."

What does it mean for you to move toward adequacy?

“A foundation of Spirit creates a sacred trust that allows us to be vulnerable with one another in Beloved Community. Beloved Community is love and care and kindness for everyone – each other and around the world. There’s something about spirituality that is not easily spoken or shared or dealt without outside the meeting. Here it’s different. We are open to knowing this is Holy Space. There’s a sense of humility and a shared understanding about something larger. The spiritual enriches and expands our sense of what community could ever be.”
— The Gift of Navigating Beloved Community Cincinnati Friends Meeting, May 2021

Essentials of Beloved Community
1) A life centered in Spirit/God
2) A community of faith, where belief and practice are shared, supported, stretched and encouraged with space for:
- Personal and community growth;
- Safety to share about our faith/life triumphs and struggles, and where conflict is held with love;
- Acceptance that is free of judgment, where we embrace, understand and love differences;
- No fear, where we can make mistakes, grow from them, forgive and practice non-violence;
- Honoring, cherishing and encouraging gifts; and– Expressing care and concern for each other, ourselves, humanity and the Earth.

Queries

––How might we become MORE inclusive, more loving, even doing the hard work of looking at our white privilege and racial bias?

––How can our Beloved Community flow beyond our walls, into our other circles of community?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
-Matthew 5:6

Following worship last week, one of our members asked me about the use of the word righteous or righteousness. They are words that we do not use very often, except in the negative to describe someone as self-righteous. We are helped in our understanding by the Oxford Dictionary definition of righteousness, which states that it is "actions characterized by justice."

We are living in a time when whole segments of our population feel that they are being treated unjustly. Such feelings of injustice have permeated all communities of color, as well as those who call themselves "Proud Boys" or "Oath Keepers." Although the groups of our population who feel unjustly treated span the entire political spectrum, the feelings are, at root, the same.

As I thought about these feelings of injustice, I thought about John Woolman. Over the years, few writings have meant more to me than the Journal of John Woolman, which describes his pursuit of justice, especially for the enslaved African-American community in America. It was Woolman's immersion into what we can call the Fellowship of Suffering, and an ever deepening sensitivity and humility that moved him to that place where he did, indeed, hunger and thirst after righteousness. The channel of universal love will, at the very least, encompass these two important spiritual elements. And if there was ever a time in our history when the human condition needed to be immersed in the fellowship of suffering and experience an ever deepening sensitivity and humility, it is now.

In your life, what has moved you to work for justice?

And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
-Micah 6:8

I love the word discernment. It is a word that Quakers frequently use when trying to understand what Spirit is saying to us, and what the Inner Light is encouraging us to do. It is a word that is used when seeking to understand life direction and what our purpose in this life is. It is a word that describes the focus of any Clearness Committee. As Friends, we believe that we can be led by the Spirit of God in the here and now, and through the process of discernment we can learn what that leading is to be.

This process of discernment is greatly enhanced by the use of queries, or questions, which is another strong Quaker emphasis. By asking questions Friends believe that we can more fully discern God's Will for our lives, a practice that we believe is better than reciting creeds that were written centuries ago in a completely different cultural context.

This morning I want to focus our attention on one of my favorite topics, our search for meaning. Last week I spoke about hope, and used as our main scriptural text the Apostle Paul's words from Romans where he encourages those early Christians to "Rejoice in your hope." I quoted Andrew Del banco who wrote: "We always live at the brink of this chasm of meaninglessness where with just a nudge we might tumble into melancholy and despair." He then writes about how we can maintain our hope even when all seems meaningless. And so I return to the topic of meaning. I believe the search for meaning is central to understanding our life together, the hope for which we long, and the spiritual growth which results.

What gives your life meaning?