Letters and Journal to Friends : Laura MacNorlin, Friend

This episode is an open letter of thanks to a congregation I chanced to visit, and how I experienced welcome there. It is a prayer that Cultivating a Sense of Welcome become what we offer, what we do and who we live to be. What would it look like to intentionally place our lives at the center of this question, “How do I cultivate a sense of welcome here? Where have I found a true sense of welcome?” Where do I feel led to ask this question?

“Listen and attend with the ear of your Heart- Saint Benedict Over the last months, I’ve gotten to have many conversations and times to listen to the open-ended questions (queries) of my family and friends. In their listening to this podcast, they’ve been opened to initiating conversations with me about their own life paths, urgent wonderings and worries of the heart. In feeling this podcast concluded this summer, still the writings, contemplation and poetry that began as a practice here in this project have continued, though I haven’t posted any episodes till now. Here are a few of the messages and prayers of my life that I am led to offer, and in opening up the prayer of what will come next in my life path? People have asked me, is it a book? A Blog? A workshop? Traveling as a public Friend in visiting F/friends with the messages and leadings that center my life? Yes. Perhaps in the long view in “god time”. For now, it is the living it in the moments of laundry, dishes, jobs. It is the grace and gratitude daily patience pilgrimage, and chance to celebrate the blessing of the present, of my existence. It is the inward and the home place journey with my children, partner/wife. And this beloved community. A wide and expanding Ocean of our People, of which, god willing, you are feeling part.

This episode offers a description and some background on where I’ve come from and where I find myself now- a Friend called to Quaker ministry, who has said Yes the Calling these 10 plus years and actually for a lifetime of who I have always been. I hope to use this podcast venue as a new art from, that to be a way of sharing emerging ministry and messages, so that I can have a way to tell You, my beloved community, what messages I hold that I feel are for more than just myself. It may be that the messages are kin to a modern version of writings that Friends historically offered in their letters to one another and their published Journals. For me it thus far is a compilation of photography, journaling, poems, letters to f/Friends, connections to other Quaker artist work and their images impact on my journey, and messages that have come to me share either in a meeting for worship at a Friends Meeting, or prepared in me when compelled to write a message - and that I’m looking for a way and chance to offer to F/friends. If this mode is one method of being faithful and in the following the leadings, I hope it will be a chance to walk with you and with my Guide- Christ Jesus, God/goddess, Spirit and my Fellow Friend Travelers within the perhaps too thick “hedge” of the society of Friends and the much in need of healing and Witness wider world. Let me know what you think, but most of all; hold me in the Light as I follow this Bliss? Peace and Love and Best- LGM

Clay: Pottery in the making If we in our lives are being formed like clay, what cycle of the process are you in? This poem and meditation is on looking at our lives through the metaphor of clay being formed into pottery. In this time of the Covid epidemic, we are all likely in new ways looking for meaning in the longterm and immediate importance of our lives. Holding what is dear, like one holds a cup filled to the brim, what of your life can you honor? Can you look at your life like pottery, by knowing you are a beloved creation? Clay: Pottery in the making We are being formed like clay What cycle of the process are you in? The wet ball? The baking underway? Being formed into perfect imperfection? Glazed? Etched and marked? Wandering where on the wheel? Centered? Off center? Wisely used? Greatly in well-washed daily interaction with human Kind? Broken and thrown back into the pile Shards infiltrating dirt? Lost in billion pieces? Buried in rubbish piles or mosaic walls to be created yet? A treasure under the ground, that Will once found by hands not expecting cause awe in the heart of unknown persons? Wonder to flow over? What is this? A cup? Did it once hold? A cup that overflowed?

I offer this episode in the time of the Covid-19 crisis, when we are practicing social distancing as well as creative ways to uplift one another. This message came to me at the winter solstice, as a kind of Christmas message, though I publish it now as a spring meditation in the time when many communities would be gathering with their communities, friends and families to observe Palm Sunday, Passover and Easter. Here is a virtual way to gather in “gathered / waiting” worship together. This is a message for all of us, whether far or near, F/friends dear to my heart. It was recorded it by the ocean. Below is my poem letter, We have to Lose our Way at Times. Also offered on the episode are a few of my favorite hymns and a tune that came to me in prayer: We have to lose our way at times We have to lose our way at times In order to find out way back We have to know this lostness To be people And to understand the way that it is for Others to walk the lonely way At times we are touched by, Humbly graced by, a type of loneliness Of quiet solitude That carries us beyond ourselves And into the care of that which is beyond us And brings us to an understanding of compassion and lived experiences of Eternal bottomless profound love That lets us live in and on into what it is we Can be There, We breath into the way through We breath into our own peace We breath into belonging and Knowing we are not lost We find there Forgiveness perhaps A humble grace in our littleness, and yet connection to the grandness of this place we get to live our lives When at times we are lost And frustrated Empty And finding only despair Questions to hold and let go of, Longing to ponder, we’re tumbling, uncentered Full of Hopes that cast us out to the wide ocean of possibilities, but leave us wondering at the why, Here is a time to pace and pause It is the worst time to pace and pause It is the most wondrous time to ponder In the quiet of our beings, out in the place Perhaps where the water meets the daybreak Or where the hilltop meets the dawn Or where the sidewalk cracks meet the morning There, Find yourself And touch God there Find the Light that is guiding you in Into the brightest and best corners of your life Into the capacity to hold yourself as loved Come there, And be held for a time Then you will know more How to hold others How to love others How to walk with others Into those places of despair or wholeness Into those moments of lostness or found-ness Into those chances to be broken open or filled full Hold that place for as long as you can And come back to it often Practice that coming home to yourself That you can then come home to us all too And then invite us back there with you in The way that is yours to By the one unique light of who you are In this one unique lifetime

This concludes the episode on Accompaniment in honor of my Friends, especially my friend Sadie, My spiritual elder at who’s birth home I got clear to publish the episode for my dear one Judi, Friend. Here are a few links to songs on the episode, that help me feel connected to lately to her light. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RKfxALkopOU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ea0mD2QSq1w

Accompaniment and behold are terms that Quakers have used to uncover the process of spiritual friendship called “eldering”

To ring the bells that you can ring: My journey birthing triplets and finding my tone chime therapy. Listen to the chimes at the Emory Midtown Hospital Atlanta GA where I ring a chime I’ve rung for the last 5 years to celebrate and honor my trying journey of natural triplet labor and healthy births of my children, who as five year olds came to with me to the hospital gardens and rang that chime with me for the first time. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM23BW_Wind_chime_at_Crawford_Long_Hospital_Atlanta_GA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6wRYjtvIYK0

Connect with me if you can: A poem and letter to the Ocean of Our People who have been and are coming into being, and inspired by the message given by Alice Fraser “And because only the unfinished can contain the infinite.” - The Alice Fraser Trilogy Connect with me if you can Because of the chords youʼve played in me by being you Iʼd like to connect, Iʼd like to connect to your chords Lower and upper tones Om, and low moan hmmmmmmm of the universe. Thatʼs the long Process I can hope to let you in on, I offer the part of me, the being in the present, my Best offer of what is, my imperfect contribution Call it peace or possibility or Order or beauty The uncompleted, the living into, the beyond what we can contain or comprehend. Iʼm called to live that in the breathe, the infinite between. In the continuous “revelation”, the part at your core, where you get clear just by being Call it ones best living, the open centered living. Thatʼs what lasts beyond us. Thatʼs what I understand of you, that is the piece you bring, even if you think you donʼt or canʼt, The push off from believing you do, Because you are bringing it, into the places you that you come to- Itʼs that bringing of yourself to the infinite, that brings me to love you, the infinite uncompleted you. Our offering to each other is to challenge, to claim, with clarity of centered conviction, And your part of that unfolding infinite. I am lifted and centered, by believing in your part in that infinite. And thatʼs the “life chord” that I want to play, I want to listen to it in You, offering a True clang of I love you, I love you, I love you I love you for the peace you bring to life and offer just by being you, imperfect, perfect, certain, uncertain, peaceful and troubled - in all of your parts Thatʼs how I can love you Laura MacNorlin “All I really really want our love to do is to bring out the best in me and in you...” - Joni Mitchell

This episode explains a little bit more about what Friends have historically done to share their spiritual journey and messages outside of Friends Meetings and worship. This is followed by my first message I offer, a poem I wrote for a friend and for Friends, for my children and beloved spiritual companions. The poem is called Moth and Light. At times a message comes, at least for me, I t be form first of a reoccurring thought that comes back like a moth to a light. I find that the message bubbles and brews, percolates and becomes a little taste of a message. Lately, I have been gifted with the chance to have many poems, Letters and ministry messages pour out of me. Hold me in the Light y’all, as I keep getting these. Often it is in the middle of the night and come out of a dream that then I can get up and find “writes itself in me”. When in that process and then when done I feel momentarily complete. But then, I don’t feel quite balanced until I message the words to the listeners, my close listening Friend(s) or my best chosen family or my wife Hannah. Hannah is my constant clearness committee, helping me discern my path. When she tells me I need to follow a leading, or offers an idea that could be a way to be true and faithful to a Calling, it is a powerful confirmation. And I find that then when I follow the leading and her insights, it’s clear way forward, as we like to say when we are on a long journey and hit blocks (literally traffic) or challenging hard times. We like to say “we’re never bored” and always have a project or community bond to connect, or little leadings that we nurture in each other- best of a true chosen partnership. So when Hannah suggested I might try making podcasts, and get advises from some of our friends who’ve been on that path, Quakers have been making new podcasts and reminded me of those who have done this recording thing and are professionals at it (shout out to Peterson Toscano and Evelyn Perry), I figured out that yes it felt like just the most wonderful and right way to offend modern Quaker message. And even more so realizing that there are already Quakers who have been making this their longterm practice. I am finding the courage to try, inspired by y’all who I know will hear this, and by the words sung by my Friend Susan Stark and offered in a wonderful QuakerSpeak video of Friend Niyonu Spann speaking, “you are never alone, no never, so live up to the light that thou haste and more will be granted thee. So live up to the Light thou haste...!