A woman in a forest, looking up at tall trees, in a brightly-lit mist. Photo: By Mick L on Unsplash.
Gateways into awareness: Angela Greenwood picks up where Rufus Jones left off
‘The more one surrenders, the more one receives.’
In Rufus Jones’s 1925 article republished in the Friend’s Quaker Week issue (‘Worship as a unifying force’, 26 September), he talks of open-hearted worship, including an ‘increase of the mystical aspect of religion in our public worship’, which he describes as much needed. In more modern language we can learn from experience how opening to silence and stillness can be gateways into present moment awareness, and into the timeless dimension of universal consciousness and oneness. This is a gift of grace perhaps, which comes when we are ready and sufficiently open. We cannot work towards it or earn it, of course, but to realise our ‘true nature’, and increasingly to allow it to ‘live through us’, is surely the essence of true spirituality.
