‘We are being asked to be faithful to the truth revealed by the awakened heart.’ Photo: by Cathal Mac an Bheatha on Unsplash
Heart of the possible: David Brown is awakened
‘This awakening changed their lives, leading them into spiritual adventure.’
The experience of the divine is sometimes described as an awakening of the heart. Within Quaker history, one of the most touching descriptions of this is by Isaac Pennington, who says: ‘At last, after all my distresses, wanderings and sore travails, I met with some writings of this people called Quakers, which I cast a slight eye upon and disdained, as falling very short of that wisdom, light, life and power, which I had been longing for and searching after… After a long time, I was invited to hear one of them (as I had been often, they in tender love pitying me and feeling my want of that which they possessed)… When I came, I felt the presence and power of the Most High among them, and words of truth from the Spirit of truth reaching to my heart and conscience, opening my state as in the presence of the Lord’ (Quaker faith & practice 19.14).
