Who I Share That Bench With

I have a feeling that this blog is going to be like this - it takes some time for me to ruminate and give full flower to thought . It's been an especially busy time in life here in Central Coastal California. Three very busy committees( especially Nominating and the wonderful visiting we have been having with Friends and attenders-future post at the end of that process ) and a job outlook that has gone up and down( I made it through with out being laid off- hanging on for recovery!) have kept my focus kinda local. But I knew I would get to this and here we go-
I have found more gold in the pages of Testimony and Experience in Pacific Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice. The first bit is something I have carried in mind with me for a long time and resonates within me in the continual dialogue of theist/nontheist-
15 ...I am clear that we are a branch of the Christian church, even if to the majority of orthodox Christians our particularities may put us beyond the pale. Our capacity to hold within our fellowship those who cannot declare themselves Christian is part of our particular witness, not least to the Churches. Quoted by Roger Sturge, 1998
This Friend speaks my mind- I would feel impoverished of Spirit if I was not sharing the bench with all - and I would feel impoverished of Spirit if the Christocentric tradition of the Society were denied as well and left unpracticed. I came to a renewed love for Rabbi Jesus in this house and yet I know I would have been as spiritually nourished if I had maintained a nontheist view.
59 Our society has had opportunity to learn, by sorrowful lessons, the danger of exalting too exclusively the Christ within, on one hand, and Christ without, on the other. We have need ever to guard alike against that refined and emasculated spirituality, which undervalues the Bible and the outward means of grace, and even the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God, and that no less fatal outwardness and superficiality which would substitute profession, and prescription, and ritual, for saving faith and all the soul-renewing and life-transforming verities of Christian experience, realized through the imparted energy of the Spirit of Christ within. Joel Bean 1880 I think to be open to the Seed growing within we would do well to listen carefully to Friend Joel's words. I know I keep coming back to them. I think that's probably enough to for now. More to come.