The Religious Society of Friends sometimes refers to "Sunday" as "First Day," as it is the first day of a new week.
I went to Meeting today for the first time since I began my expedition. I've been thinking all day about what I should write, and I still haven't totally figured it out yet. First impressions: I'm the youngest by 30 years and this is a really small group (5?). It's very different from the comparative hustle-and-bustle movers-and-shakers up at the Friends Meeting of Washington, but it really worked well. There hasn't been a Meeting yet when I haven't come away being enriched spiritually and having learned something new, and today was no exception. Something that came up after the meeting was the definition of an actual member of the Religious Society of Friends. I've given some thought to pursuing this avenue, but have been conflicted by several personal hesitations. If one is to truly desire to worship Jesus Christ as his or her own personal savior and call him or herself a Christian, then I would think that the pact between him/her-self and God would be the most important indicator of his or her Faith; carrying a card that states to which denomination of Christianity one belongs to seems like more of a worldly concern. I suppose this issue could be viewed instead as a furthering of education about that denomination (or whatever religion, this could be another of those patterns to which I earlier referred) instead of a "confirmation," or "indoctrination." I don't know if that makes any sense at all.
At any rate, I would like very much to learn more about the Friends, and also to become more involved; I am probably going to go through with the membership process and no longer be merely and Attender. This does bring into light the contradiction inherent to many Christian denominations; sometimes the ritual can detract from the central issue, which is to Live the Word.
Enough of me on my soapbox. Comments?
Posts
As a card-carrying Lutheran, technically I'm supposed to tell you that the Quakers are weird because they reject sola scriptura and ...? Okay, actually I'd have to look this up on Wikipedia because I don't know what I'm talking about.
ReplyDelete*Actually* I think it's amazing and beautiful that asking these questions and looking to Live the Word. in the last few years I've finally gotten a glimpse of what Jesus really looks like when you stop putting everything in terms of denominations, and I think I can say that you should keep right on looking for Jesus wherever He chooses to be found by You -- rather than feeling like you need to shop for the right denomination to join.