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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 7th mo. 17, 2015 at 11:55pm

It's the goal.  this scripture has delivered me from a lot of stress especially as I have been self-employed most of my life.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 18, 2015 at 1:13am

Being self-employed can make for a lot more stress or a lot less, depending.

I'd had a used bookstore, B. A. ('Before Amazon') and once we got a good location downtown (right across the street from the Overpriced District) we started making respectable money. Lots of work, not much stress... until the S&L crash drove away the small banks where many of our customers worked, while the local naval guys all came in, stocked up on science fiction & mysteries, & went off to the Persian Gulf. We would have been okay, even then, if Anne had been willing to move back into the back of the store.

Anyway, the stressful time was when I had a secure job with oppressive bosses.

But it's those times of needing to trust The Invisible Means of Support that really stretch one's faith, yes?

Somehow institutions, Quaker or otherwise, aren't generally willing to do that. (Catholic Worker under Dorothy Day's leadership was the one exception I know of.)

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 7th mo. 18, 2015 at 10:54am

Yes. Quakers have and do live this way ... that life that knows and seeks His Kingdom and His righteous. In others words, that way of being that experiences the Light of Christ deep down into the very core of consciousness, so that self-awareness and meaning come from the direct experience of His Presence in all moments of need and want, is the posture of Presence wherein conscious, not by seeking outward sufficiency, is sufficient of itself in the Light. It is not that we no longer need to eat and cloth ourselves, it is that we are no longer captured by the need to eat and cloth ourselves. A conscious anchored in His Presence itself knows a conscience guided and informed, not by outward need and worry, but by His guidance directly so that our conscience is not informed by outward worry. We act, not from a posture of worry, but from a posture of freedom from worry in his Name.

BTW,  My burden is holding to Presence when things are going well. That is, when I want for nothing, I can  lose a want for His Presence. 

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 19, 2015 at 1:42pm

That does sound like what early Friends were about; it does not seem to apply to most of the contemporary Friends I know.

Of course there's one of Raymond Smullyan's favorite ancient Chinese sayings: "The sage needs nothing, not even life." From that perspective, one can count on what he needs, whether he likes it or not.

We know that what Jesus is saying here is true; what we don't know is what we need vs what we think we do.

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 7th mo. 19, 2015 at 4:41pm

Forrest, generally speaking, isn't it true that you live this way?

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 19, 2015 at 5:29pm

I do remember to acknowledge and attune with God's presence, to the extent I can. And yes, I also know that precarity is my true economic condition, that Anne and I live with limited incomes, under God's care or not at all.

And actually, for now, we have all we really need, and more!

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