Deepening the Life of the Spirit
Pete Duckworth is delighted with a new spiritual booklet
Few Friends will be surprised that as Meeting co-clerk I get a lot of mail. Much of this needs sifting, sorting, being presented to an appropriate Friend or quietly filing away. One packet that was not for quiet filing was Ginny Wall’s new booklet Deepening the Life of the Spirit: Resources for Spiritual Practice.
This book is an absolute delight. Arranged alphabetically from Appleseed to walking meditation, it contains a two-page introduction to sixteen distinct spiritual practices. Each is presented in an exemplary modern, straightforwardly readable style. The use of lists and bullet points acts as a model for a contemporary Quaker writing style. The reader is encouraged and, for this reader, enthused to try something new and to return to methods that have been neglected.
Few seasoned Friends will find all the resources presented entirely new. I suspect that fewer such Friends will have tried all of them.
Highlights for me are a revised model for the Bible study group I belong to and two ‘gratitude practices’, which are entirely new to me.
This is a lovely distillation of practices currently used across Britain Yearly Meeting. It was developed for use during the Quaker Life Representative Council held at Woodbrooke in April this year. If, like me, you can feel a bit overwhelmed with the possibilities presented by Appleseed, Experiment with Light, Kindlers and the wealth of practices offered by Woodbrooke courses this booklet is brilliant. Laid out before you are a set of tools to help a Meeting or an individual reconnect with the divinity, which we all too easily ignore.
At £4 it’s terrific value. I trust every Meeting house will have one. Every Quaker can, I believe, benefit from this work.
Deepening the Life of the Spirit: Resources for spiritual practice Ginny Wall. Quaker Books. ISBN: 9781907123306 £4 + £1.80 p&p.
