Comment by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 7, 2014 at 12:26am

Thanks for exploring this dimension.  I have some sounds that I might dare to call sacred, or that they at least induce in me a state that is a glimpse of transcendence.  There is a particular bird in the meadow next to my house whose call seems divine, there are many birds, one of the calls speaks to me.  Other meadow songs, like crickets seem to echo for me a certain unifying beat, (and in fact not surprised to learn of disputed legends concerning the slowing down of cricket song through sound engineering yielded a sound like the choir of angels. True or not, don't know) Also, certain human voices stir up the sacred, Van Morrison in his spiritual masterpieces,  the voices of the nuns who interpret Von Bingen in "Vision".  Krishna Das and the harmonium invoke, and purposefully so, sacred awareness.The first cry of a human baby is one of the most sacred sounds on this earth. This was an intriguing question that I would never have thought to bring up but is something that is a vital strand in my experience.

Comment by William F Rushby on 7th mo. 4, 2014 at 4:32pm

From the Journal of the Life and Religious Labors Richard Jordan: A Minister of the Gospel in the Society of Friends. (Philadelphia: Friends' Book Store, 1877. Tenth Month 11, 1801, p.139.

"Through considerable fatigue and difficulty, we arrived at Congenies [France], where we were kindly received by Lewis Majolier and his wife, with whom we put up.  Third Day, had an appointed meeting at this place with those under our name [Friends], and although we found them in a very weak state, and not much appearance of the Friend about them, yet it proved through the renewal of holy help one of the most watering seasons I ever experienced in a meeting.  We found it necessary to use great deliberation in our communications in order to be at all understood, so general a weeping prevailed at hearing the sound of the gospel in plain, simple truths delivered among them."

Comment