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Permalink Reply by Patrice Wassmann on 3rd mo. 20, 2014 at 2:55pm

I used to live in that country. I want to go back to it too.

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Permalink Reply by Olivia on 3rd mo. 20, 2014 at 5:15pm

This is beautiful, Forrest.  It has the added kick of not being cynical (while still being very clear about the truth).  That's kind of compelling!  Makes me feel a little Way Open or something...      like if we could all just turn a few degrees to the right after reading this the Way may just be there.   

I don't presume that the real good of it though is that it causes Something Else, but am just sharing with you that I think you wrote with great power. Thank you so much for sharing it. 

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Permalink Reply by Rick Massengale on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 6:24am

Forrest

Great poem.. A country that belonged to the people.

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Permalink Reply by Clem Gerdelmann on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 9:02am

America, like seductive Babylon of Revelation, has always been fantasy(as opposed to the reality of a true freedom of the children of God). Why do you think things like Fantasy Football and American Idol are our favorite(flagrant?) pastime? 

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 10:39am

Yeah, Clem, that's the wrought-iron irony of this great poem that anyone could have written from the bottoms of our beady little true hearts!

Everybody leading (himself and?) us further into the pit we're in has been able to play on that yearning.

I had some wonderful teachers who truly believed we were just going to keep on getting closer and closer to that ideal [and someday we'd all live in Futureland!] Neither they nor I could quite understand why so many of our leaders [and the public] were evidently determined to keep us from reaching that. This was so unreasonable; how could people go on defending inequities and iniquities? -- much less prevail as they have since?

A one-eye microscope will show you things you couldn't possibly have seen without it; but while using it one has to close out  awareness of what that other eye is seeing. So is every istism!

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 11:32am

A consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by the immediacy of Presence is such a blessing. In Presence (directly experienced Ideal, not an opinion or  abstract thought constructs), there is no need to look back or to look forward. All things are realized moment to moment within. Blaming others for a past lost and an expected future not attained, is consciousness seated in and conscience informed by outward expectations and memories rather than present inward light.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Scattergood on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 12:08pm

I long for the Holy Experiment. .  .  Penn's Woods.   .  . .  We can still be a City on a Hill.   It isn't over yet.

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 1:17pm

Thank you for this Laura. It is so edifying and instructive. We do not share the same faith and source of longing. This is not a criticism, just an acknowledgment. In Presence, I no longer reflect back upon or look forward to an outward City on a Hill. In Presence, it is present right now and in all things, and I'm so grateful to be walking in it.

Laura Scattergood said:

I long for the Holy Experiment. .  .  Penn's Woods.   .  . .  We can still be a City on a Hill.   It isn't over yet.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Scattergood on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 1:31pm

Keith, it is my blood.   .    . A long time ago the story is a woman

died in

n persecutions against Friends in England and her small son survived and was taken with his uncle on one of Penn's Ships to the Holy Experiment.

ey said, "Let Us See What Love Will DO."  And a few generations later I was born, a descendent of that small boy.   I am still interested in DOING.   .   . I am getting tired but I still put out the weak cry to my Lord and Teacher, "Here Am I, Send Me'.   

 

Let us see what LOVE WILL DO.   .   .

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 1:53pm

Thank you Laura. I hope you realize your outward expectations and I wish you well in your outward doings. I also honor your family history.

You and I do not share the same faith. It is okay. It is a blessing to know distinctions. Acknowledgement of distinctions often releases by not setting one's expectations upon another.

I've a faith that declares Presence is Doing. 

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 5:56pm

What is "outward" is created by what/who is "inward". The Creation was not created pointlessly.

The ongoing Life that each of us experiences more or less explicitly, that each may refer to in differing ways (as did the early Friends who were our spiritual ancestors) -- has created us to have outward needs and desires. It could have created us without any such thing. It might have created us to live with no 'external' experience whatsoever, perfectly content and nourished by that condition.

-----

In a recent 'worship-sharing' sort of activity with my Meeting, I was verbally running amok (as I typically do) while also wanting to hear some wonderful things other people were saying about God's presence within and among and between everyone and everything 'external' -- How nothing is truly entirely 'external' [though we don't always recognize our connection to it or its influence on us]

And that reminded me of one of those fables that were all over the internet a few years ago, re the difference between Heaven and Hell.

In Hell, everyone sits at a big table covered with good food, everyone there very hungry. But their chopsticks are so long that they can't get the food into their mouths.

Heaven is much like that, but people feed each other.

This, I think, is something we were created to do on many levels...

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 3rd mo. 21, 2014 at 6:43pm

Forrest. Thank you for this piece revealing the difference between my faith and yours. In the presence of the inward Christ, I am not bond to your outward model of Heaven and Hell. In Presence, I am not bond to the outward chopsticks or the length of the chopsticks. In Presence, I merely break the chopsticks (making them smaller) and show others, through personal testimony, they could do the same. Or I throw the chopsticks away altogether and use may hands and show others they could use their hands freeing them from bondage to the chopsticks and the length of chopsticks. And on and on it could go.

I've no issue with people using the long chopsticks and feeding each other. I do take issue with the suggestion that all should conform to that particular way or practice. In Presence, I am not bond to outward rules and forms and ways. A consciousness anchored in and a conscience informed by the immediacy of Presence knows the thing in itself in all things , no longer bound to particular models or thoughts from a person or persons who would bind them to a particular outward construct.

There is another way ... the way of the inward light that is
sufficient in all things. In the presence of Christ I affirm and acknowledge a different way from that of which you speak. The way of immediacy.

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