Opening myself to Scripture

A strange thing is happening ever so slowly in my Quaker life these days: I am looking up passages in Scripture.

I wouldn't say that the Scriptures are being opened to me as they were opened to George Fox. Fox, after all, had read the Bible and knew it, supposedly, backwards and forwards. As I understand it, at some point what Fox was reading took on new meaning for him as he came in touch with the Spirit that gave forth those words.

In my case, however, it's new for me even to read a passage from the Bible, let alone get in touch with any Life or Power that gave forth The Word.

It so happens that I started being more curious about certain parts of Scripture because of my encounters with Friends--either in print or through conversation. For example, while reading a number of pamphlets, texts, and online essays, I began to see how references to the Bible were adding weight and dimension to the points the authors were wanting to make, whether about Quaker practice or as a metaphor to make a concept clearer.

I saw how Quaker bloggers were linking to a Bible search engine when they quoted Scripture. I began to see that the writing of Scripture was not all about who begat whom, or what sinister army was destroyed by what God-anointed one.

And most important of all, no one was forcing me to read and quote Scripture. I was discovering it for myself.

It's been like drops in a bucket. At first, I could hardly tell that anything was accumulating from the few references I had come across in my reading. But since I've kept on reading, and since I've kept on having conversations with Friends who are familiar with Scripture, well, I've kept on coming across and hearing about references to Scripture.

It was this most recent First Day, though, when I looked in my bucket... and saw that yes indeed, water was collecting there.

Over the two-and-a-half years or so of worshiping in the worship group, a few Friends there have been sharing parts of Scripture as it relates to their own spiritual journey and daily struggles. I have never felt threatened by these comments; it has always been clear to me that within the worship group, the Bible holds power, meaning, and Life for some of these Friends.

It's also probably no coincidence--it's actually probably God's doing--that the worship group has been meeting in a church's fellowship room, where there are a number of Bibles on a bookshelf. On a couple of occasions of late, one Friend or another has pulled a Bible off the shelf, looking for something in particular to share with the rest of us.

And then for some reason, this past First Day, when one Friend spoke about how twice in two weeks he has reflected on the parable of the sower, I found myself wanting to understand why that parable spoke to this Friend in the way that it did.

I cared about the Friend too much to not read what was speaking to him, and so after worship, I approached the Friend and asked where I might find that parable in the Bible. He pulled a Bible off the now-familiar shelf, quickly found the passage for me, and then excused himself to tend to his family's needs.

When I got home, I looked up the passage again, this time online, and read beyond the specific parable to which the Friend had referred. It was an added bonus, then, to come across the admonition against putting a lamp under a bowl, and the importance of "using our measure" (Mark 4:21-25). Here in one short section of the Bible were two essential "advices" of Quakerism:

1. that we not hide our light under a bushel; and

2. that we live up to the measure of Light we have been given... and even more will be granted us.

As a result of this emerging curiosity about Scripture, now I'm going to have to consider whether or not to get the booklet that has the Bible studies from the 2005 Gathering, since they are written by Thomas Gates, whose pamphlet on the functions of meeting had spoken so deeply to my condition...

Blessings,
Liz