Choice

We had the meeting of the reading group I wrote of yesterday and most of the members spoke with admiration and devotion about the "looking within" of various past Quaker seekers and I spoke of my own disciplines and practices of looking within. What I notice is that many people speak or write with very genuine admiration and devotion about the practices of others and their own wish to have that same connection, but then fail to follow through with their own discipline and practices. As Gilbert Kilpack, another Quaker, wrote, "We want to be spiritually alive, but also to be comfortable; to be prayerful, but not to rise early in the morning to pray; to possess power to lead, but not to undergo the discipline that it takes to control the power." My choice of discipline had to initially be renewed pretty much daily and now comes easily and with pleasure.