Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 18th May 2025

Dear Friends

Caroline Pybus writes:

The Divine

There have been many ways throughout history to describe the divine. Some cultures have preferred to personify it. The Greek and Roman gods are numerous, and the faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam adhere to one god as a person. Some individuals will agree that their view of her/him/it is too small, and Freud of course said that humans have made god in their own image.

About 80 years ago, Dietrich Bonhøffer wrote, “God is the beyond in our midst”. Later in the same century the American Episcopalian writer, John R Yungblut, who was also a Quaker and spent some time as Director of Studies at Pendle Hill, USA, wrote, “Graven images continue to be recognized as idols, and reverence for them as idolatry. But the verbal images constructed by the mind and wrought into creeds, confessions of faith, and rigid theological systems are not recognized as idols, nor their vain repetition as the idolatry they really are.”

This seems to me to be a profoundly true statement, but I understand that not everyone finds their way to the divine by the same route. For me personally, some years ago now, I started to think seriously about a single verse in Paul’s letter to Christians in Galatia. “The harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control.”  I feel these are intangible gifts which we can offer to whatever society we live in, and are a good beginning for anyone wishing to grow spiritually.

“Come to meeting for worship with heart and mind prepared”. (Advices and Queries 9)

Each week the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) invites a Friend to write a message to help us to prepare for our Sunday meeting and to sustain us if we are unable to come. Our meeting is enriched by the diversity of our members and these messages help us to share and learn from others. Every contributor writes from their own experience as an individual, recognising that others may think differently.