From: bobbitt@school.enet.dec.com (Jody Bobbitt)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker
Subject: re: inner light (please pardon any accidental prior post - editor slippage!)
Date: 23 Jan 93 18:18:31 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation



>This "inner light" everyone claims to experience
>in meeting: what is it exactly? Christ? The 
>Great Mother? The human spirit? Conscience? Is
>your inner light really connected to my inner
>light? Someone posted here that it is "the shard
>of the divine" in each of us. Is God fragmented, then?

who can say they know for sure?


>But while there are many ways, there is only one
>Way, Jesus the Light of the World. Every heresy,
>if I may use that unpopular word, has been an attempt
>to deny that the Light is also a person, one Jesus.

I deny that the light *must* be a person, one Jesus.
That's not how my faith works, although yours does, and I'm sure
others work that way also.  I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm
saying that I don't feel *I'm* wrong.

I believe that there is one God.  I believe that Jesus
was no more or less a son of God than any of us, and that
if we all do our best to work towards the good and the
light, we'll be as good as Jesus and get to heaven.
I don't believe in Hell.

>This is not a minor, optional point. Pontius Pilate
>sitting in judgement on Christ remarked "What is 
>truth?" An Orthodox priest once commented that the
>question is tragic; he should have asked "Who is
>Truth?" Truth is not an abstraction, truth is not a
>concept, truth is a person, and that person is Light,
>and the Light was made flesh.

Oh, but it is an optional point.  How do you know Pontius
Pilate sat in Judgment?  How do you know what Christ said?
Were you there?  

I'm not saying that it didn't happen, I'm
just saying there's no proof for me that it did, although I've
read the new testament and found it very enlightening in
my search for spirituality.  I just feel that my view is
as valid as yours, as is anyone else's here.  I guess part
of me feels chastised and "corrected" when you express that
your truth is the only truth.  I feel there are many truths 
and that this electronic forum can support and sustain many
insights and opinions - by supporting one another however
we are we can all grow, and all learn.  That's why i'm here.

>What a terrible thing it is that the sins of Christians
>have alienated so many of you from knowing this 
>person who is Truth, the Friend who founded and named
>this Society!

oh, but I'm not alienated!  I feel quite close to God
much of the time!  And I'm not here for the name, I'm 
here because it called to me, and I found that with
new spirituality in my life, and the power of attending
meeting (whether in a meetinghouse or by myself - spirit
is wherever you seek it!), I found myself closer to what
I felt I was meant to be.  It's a step of growth inwards,
and outwards.....

> Can one be a Quaker and never quake?

No.  I am moved to tears by the pure spiritual joy I feel
in connection with the divine....I find spirit in my
poetic writings and my dance.  

-Jody

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Jody Bobbitt			 | bobbitt@school.enet.dec.com
				 | ...!decwrl!school.enet.dec.com!bobbitt
"so wired I could broadcast..."	 | bobbitt%school.enet.dec@decwrl.dec.com