tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post4138599491518024083..comments2024-03-26T17:44:29.168+00:00Comments on The Mercy Blog: "Sinners make the best contemplatives"Mike Farleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06732248182662167951noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-85721239781510914112016-02-15T12:53:25.121+00:002016-02-15T12:53:25.121+00:00It's interesting, isn't it, how familiar F...It's interesting, isn't it, how familiar Friends are with the actual practice of Meeting for Worship, yet are often unfamiliar with the much longer Christian contemplative tradition within which it (sometimes uneasily!) sits.<br /><br />There's a good, plain-speaking article on the difference between kataphatic and apophatic prayer <a href="http://opcentral.org/resources/2015/01/13/frederick-g-mcleod-apophatic-or-kataphatic-prayer/" rel="nofollow">here</a> which might demystify it for a few...Mike Farleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06732248182662167951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-50270651588014184272016-02-15T12:13:47.003+00:002016-02-15T12:13:47.003+00:00As member of the the Manchester Julian group I am...As member of the the Manchester Julian group I am happy to align myuself with the idea that sinners make the best contemplatives. My comment on Facebook arose from my experince as a member of Central Manchester Local Quaker Meeting where Friends rarely talk about prayer or the Chrstian Hope. Although Michael Birket (page 42 of Silene and Witness - The Quaker Tradition.2004, London, Darton Longman Todd) speaks of Friends using both kataphatic and apophatic prayer to centre down, I find that these are unfamiliar and puzzling adjectives and, like accounts, sadly a big turn off for local Friends.Christopher J Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18056694742288589912noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-4356942714050862632016-02-13T23:36:20.832+00:002016-02-13T23:36:20.832+00:00I absolutely agree, Barb, and thanks for saying so...I absolutely agree, Barb, and thanks for saying so. Accepting one's own situation, be it voluntary or involuntary, in no way absolves us from doing whatever we can, whether in prayer, words or action, it seems to me.Mike Farleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06732248182662167951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-90036009511667232072016-02-13T21:58:54.052+00:002016-02-13T21:58:54.052+00:00On the other hand, while one can accept for onesel...On the other hand, while one can accept for oneself voluntary poverty, if one is articulate one has a responsibility (it seems to me) to advocate for others who have been tossed under the wheels of the system (as Jesus himself may have been doing).Barbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06373994759952500579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-64980069707155220302016-02-13T19:15:13.999+00:002016-02-13T19:15:13.999+00:00Thank you for this, Peter.
The point about Luke&#...Thank you for this, Peter.<br /><br />The point about Luke's reading here is well made. I think that if you reread my post, though, you'll see that I do mention being blessed at a time when I was (at least for someone living in England) materially poor, and certainly without much security at all. But it was "the extraordinarily conscious closeness of God" which brought the blessing, not the lack of money or security, and that came about through my acceptance, in silence, of the situation as being through, or at least in, the hand of God - see Romans 8.28. There were people I knew then in similar situations to myself who were decidedly not blessed; they greeted their situation with anger, self-pity or political cynicism, and that is the point I was trying to make. It's not the financial and social poverty that is the vector of blessing, but the poverty of spirit that may or may not accompany it.<br /><br />I don't know whether Matthew is recording a different occasion to Luke's - I'm sure Jesus re-used his best bits, like any preacher - or whether his source remembered differently to Matthew's, or whether he embroidered the recollection, but the instinct is right. I don't intend to pronounce on what Jesus himself intended, I think, so much as to bear witness to what I experienced then, and have experienced under very different outward circumstances in later years.<br /><br />All the best<br /><br />MikeMike Farleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06732248182662167951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15398304.post-82026398667392821102016-02-13T17:00:42.841+00:002016-02-13T17:00:42.841+00:00In Luke 6:20 it is the poor who are blessed, no me...In Luke 6:20 it is the poor who are blessed, no mention of the poor in spirit.Can Luke and Matthew both be right? Why not.To take a synonym - the 'humble' can be poor in worldly things or they can be modest and unassuming. Neither is necessarily by choice, the former is by circumstance, the latter by personality. I'm inclined to think that Jesus meant both and neither in whatever it was that he actually said, and that the well-fed un-humble likes of us should be careful when we pronounce on what he meant.<br />cheers<br />Peter SPeter Staples, aka Petrushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04693677445268714944noreply@blogger.com