Annual Query from Lake Erie Yearly Meeting

Am I open to the other? What keeps me from connecting with those who are different from me? What fears cloud my vision of the Light in all beings? How can I listen with my heart, willing to be vulnerable?

I wish I were open. Anger and fear keeps me closed and clouds my vision. I am not willing to be vulnerable yet.

Still, I am going to Meeting, and meeting new people. I am willing to acknowledge that there is that of God in all people, whether or not I can perceive it. Isaiah 45:5-7 “I am the Lord, and there is no other…. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”

I'm reading Evelyn Underhill, an "ordinary" English woman who was also a mystic. She struggled with these queries, married and living in the world while all the time wishing she was able to live as a solitary, in perpetual retreat. She suffered from her perceived failings, from depression, from illness. And yet she was able to convey the idea that a mystical connection with God is open to the ordinary lay-person, not reserved for prophets or saints.