New Quaker Voices launches in January

Quaker Voices is a new publication from Quaker Life, starting in January 2010. Replacing Quaker Monthly, it is a substantial bimonthly magazine, for the spiritual nurture of both individuals and meetings, bringing together new articles, poems and graphics. Below is an excerpt from an article by Harvey Gillman, to appear in the first issue. To subscribe, contact Trish Carn (details below), or buy a subsciption online from the Quaker Centre bookshop.

Excerpt from an article by Harvey Gillman

'I was asked at a recent gathering what was the purpose of the spiritual life. I was nonplussed as I had never asked myself that question before, nor had anyone else ever asked me it.

‘I just assumed that we were on a spiritual journey – though someone else questioned whether journey was the appropriate metaphor! – and that was quite enough. It was a bit like asking why we were alive. My first reaction is: but we are alive, so let us see how best we can live. I faced a similar challenge years ago when I was asked to define the word spirituality. This word causes an almost physical allergy in some people. I came however to a working definition: spirituality is a series of inter-relationships. There is self with self, self with the ‘neighbour’, self with the cosmos, and self with Spirit and it is Spirit which animates us, unites us, and challenges us in this sacred web. Actually each aspect is really already part of the other, as the self is part of the cosmos, and the Spirit is within the self. The aim is to grow in awareness of these relationships and to live out one’s life accordingly. It is both being and doing.

‘Jesus talked of life and life in abundance. Mystics from different traditions have used expressions like waking up; being reborn; beholding; being redeemed; being saved; even being intoxicated. Again Jesus used the paradox (and paradox is a key to the challenge of Spirit to the rational mind) that the kingdom is both within, in the here and now, and about to come into being. Often it seems that western spiritual traditions stress the latter – the kingdom (or, as I prefer it, the divine commonwealth) is where you go to when you have been purged from your present condition through the mediation of saviour, text, liturgical act. The former position of inwardness in the here and now is taken by eastern traditions. You are redeemed from the self in one tradition and in the other you are to recognise the greater Self. This antithesis is far too simplistic. Each pathway of faith seems to offer a whole range of emphases. The Quaker response, as we know it in our particular silent tradition, is that we turn inwards in order to discover what to do outwardly. The Spirit challenging us to wholeness, to transformation, to depth, is experienced in our form of worship as a voice, a light, a gentle prompting, and sometimes as an inner volcano.'

To read the full article by Harvey Gillman in the first issue of Quaker Voices, contact:

Trish Carn, Editor
qv@quaker.org.uk
020 8446 5772

or buy a subsciption online from the Quaker Centre bookshop.