Overview

"My Life is a Quilt: A Book of Quaker Messages by Wendy Clarissa Geiger is a collection of Quaker messages given by Wendy from the silence during numerous Meetings for Worship. Wendy is unique in that she felt lead to remember and write down her messages for a number of years eventually submitting a collection to SEYM Publishing. She was ""moved"" to speak on a number of topics throughout the last 20 years from ""B"" Beauty to ""W"" Worship. Her messages are reflective as well as provide commentary and encouragement for social justice. The reader, Quaker or other, Christocentric to agnostic, or anyone interested in faith and values may find her contributions interesting, sometimes challenging, and always thoughtful from her perspective."

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9781939831231

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Reviews

Space does not end; it is not enclosed somewhere, somehow. But, my concept of God as super-human has boundaries. Perhaps, God's message to us is: live infinity, live infinitely, or live with infinite possibilities of God Within and observe how the heart-mind expands infinity, expands infinitely.Holding someone in Tenderness and Wholeness is doing God; it's God as a verb.In calling people names -- such as Christian or Quaker -- we accept or reject a label according to our perceptions of ourselves and/or others. We are -- or, are not -- fitting of given labels. Labels give us reference points on our journeys through life and death. They give us structures to stand or climb on so as to see or feel different or view new perspectives.We will not be judged by how we lived, but by how we loved. We actually won't be judged in the sense that we commonly think of it: distributing and meting out punishment or proclaiming and finding someone guilty or innocent of a crime. We will just be more aware and awake and see a bigger picture than before death. Our horizons keep expanding. We are not just seeing with our two eyes in the front of our heads; we are seeing with our memories of other dimensions and views. We gain understanding through touch and smell and hearing, too. We will judge ourselves on how much we have changed in order to know what lessons we need to learn in the future and have learned in the past.A person's personality is like a state or a country. One might be cold and full of highs and lows or rather dry with areas lush and verdant. Another might be like the English countryside. Another like the United States with a wide variety of personality traits. A person's personality might have boundaries like a state or country. One might be well-defined while another melds with a neighboring personality.From the earliest days of Quakerism, we have heard to walk cheerfully over the Earth answering that of God in everyone (George Fox). Alice Walker, the African-American writer, wrote that she doesn't go to church to discover God as much as share God. I come to meeting to discover God within me. And, I go out into the world and find that of God within me reflected in others I encounter.Quakers recognize, cultivate, accept, and frame silence like a clear view of the mountains. We don't build a pagoda symbolizing something. We just use silence -- as free as the air. We stand up for silence. We advertise silence by being translucent ourselves. Silence is our companion, an extension of us created anywhere, anytime. I see an image of the Peace Pagoda being built next to the Smoky Mountains by Buddhist friends and others. Why can't we feel the peace and awe just by looking at the mountains without the pagoda in the way? Do we need a peace pagoda? A blade of grass or a mountain would work just as well. Yet the pagoda is a monument to humans' willingness and capacity to strive for peace.Why is Please Call Me By My True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh my favorite poem? I must remember -- as a peace activist -- the militarist within: that which is rigid, on guard, ready to kill without thinking, ready to kill, period. Kill: with words, with tone of voice, with my eyes. Kill people. Kill ideas. That's violence: my willingness to judge the militarist, my willingness to condemn the militarist, anybody really, my willingness to see the militarist as other than me, as the enemy. But, at the same time, the militarist is my opposition. She or he is the person I'm trying to convert. She or he dwells, also, within me. She or he is not the enemy. No. The enemy is violence.

Author Information

Wendy Clarissa Geiger is a contemplative socially concerned activist, folksinger, artist, poet, baker of cookies, encourager, reader, letter writer, racism-awareness worker, and practitioner of love, nonviolence, and amazement as she holds the world's joys and sorrows in her heart-mind. She lives, on the family farmstead in Jacksonville, Florida. She's the niece, daughter, and cousin of seven conscientious objectors to wars spanning World war II, Korea, and Vietnam. In 1960, her parents met in the Movement to Make Democracy Real, as Vincent Harding called the Civil Rights Movement. Wendy went on her first demonstration in her mother's womb in 1963, and she continuously has been involved in peace and justice movements. Great joy is found in involvement with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Pax Christi, the International Thomas Merton Society, the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice, and Quakers.

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