Letters - 04 March 2016
From Quaker worship to ex-offenders and false allegations
Quaker worship
Quaker silent worship often falls into the third state of mind, which is neither awake nor asleep. Hypnotherapists know this as trance – a narrowing of the attention and being utterly absorbed, which can vary in quality between light trance and deep trance. Religious experiences in a trance state can be treasured, intuitively true and nourishment to the soul.
This week in Meeting I experienced Jesus coming in and blessing each and every one of us worshippers individually. It was a cherished and strengthening experience for me. If I had been asleep we should call it a dream. If fully awake, we should call it miraculous. But I was in a meditative trance so I just ask that we call it my personal truth. As my subjective experience is not objectively true or false I am not inclined to constrain or label my world view as being theist or nontheist.
Michael Stroud
When my time is up…
Ann Wimberley asks (12 February) if burial with ‘grave goods’ has any resonance for us – us being Quakers, I assume. Most Quakers seem to favour cremation, where perhaps grave goods would not be relevant. I also suspect that such a practice might be regarded as sentimental, mawkish even. But it certainly has resonance for me.
When my mother died a few years ago, it seemed to come quite naturally, and to be important, to put certain things with her in the coffin: the doll that she had become attached to in the later stages of her dementia; love letters from her youth; family photos (including those taken at her granddaughter’s wedding, which she missed by just six days); and a tiny, terra-cotta urn containing her cat’s ashes.
Such an action had been equally natural and important for me nearly forty years ago, when our second child was stillborn. As his mother, I had failed to protect him from harm – almost the only thing I could do for him was to make sure that he had a teddy with him.
Jan Lethbridge
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