Afterthoughts From Quaker Meeting Feb. 19, 2023

A number of messages came through on art and the genius of art this morning.  The afterthought that I had was regarding the redemptive and regenerative power of art in our lives. 
 
As a wordsmith and a person who loves and writes poetry, the power of word has been a constant theme in my life.  An art form with so much promise and power.  Our word is something we strive to honor as Quakers, but also the utterances, the very act of speech and the choice of words, creates new worlds and new possibilities that we can then live into. 
 
Words can create or destroy and the mindful use of words could be our greatest human asset.   I am reminded of a poem that imagines space and time and solitude as love. 
 
MEDITATION IN SUNLIGHT
by May Sarton

In space in time I sit
Thousands of feet above
The sea and meditate
On solitude on love

Near all is brown and poor
Houses are made of earth
Sun opens every door
The city is a hearth

Far all is blue and strange
The sky looks down on snow
And meets the mountain-range
Where time is light not shadow

Time in the heart held still
Space as the household god
And joy instead of will
Knows love as solitude

Knows solitude as love
Knows time as light not shadow
Thousands of feet above
The sea where I am now

Creating these spaces, these containers, as we do in Quaker Meeting and the other groups we participate in is by and of itself a transfiguration. A complete change in form or appearance. I have watched the debt of fear, worry and concern lift in community as we feel the love in solitude.   The regenerative aspects of what we share in messages and the healing power of the gathered community is, I think, more than any of us can fully comprehend.  

Words fail to describe experience but also offer a glimpse. 

Words create. 

Word = creation

Creation of the world we seek. 

~ Joseph Olejak