Finding the CENTER

"Strained by the mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence..."

"Within, is the beginning of true life."

"...a dynamic center, a creative life...a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of humans."

"Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center."

"From this holy Center we love our neighbors as ourselves and are stirred to be the means of their awakening..."

Wise words from Quaker Thomas Kelly,
A Testament of Devotion and The Eternal Promise

The central difficulty though in finding this CENTER and
living in the CENTER and becoming more and more who we truly can and ought to become
is
the contradictory points that humans, even Quakers, declare about whether the CENTER even exists.

In so many ways, finding and CENTERING is like the story the Jewish prophet told about a seeker of fine pearls who found a wondrous pearl. One first needs to seek!

Then one needs to use her/his reasoning ability to identify and discard fake pearls and fraudulent ones that at first looked genuine.

Then one needs to compare average pearls to fine pearls--average facts to transcendent oughts and great truths.

And then comes the most difficult of all--when finding the ONE pearl of perfection,
we humans need to focus on that central wonder.

Each of us needs to give all in order to acquire the perfect gem.

Let us, in this dark time of suffering and confusion and delusion--

Seek that CENTER--seek what is true, what is reasonable, what is wise, what is good, what is just, what is beautiful, what is kind...

Live in the Reason which spangled the universe into becoming.



In the Light, in the Center,

Daniel Wilcox