17 Comments

This was absolutely beautiful.... it validates my own experience.... makes me look and listen to my own story, thank you

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"My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul...."

Every line in Rumi is worth doing a whole lectio on it :-) Thank you!

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loved your genealogical reflection and the old Quaker meeting house. I am my family's geneologist and find it a very grounding experience. I too have entered liminal spaces whose connections remain unclear to me but seem to me to be portals into a life lived in the presence of a holiness or sacredness that is beyond my words to express and beyond my genealogical knowing.

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I too grew up in a Methodist church and had my earliest "God experiences" there. We had a large room on the third floor of the building that we called the Upper Room. It had frescoes of Jesus and the disciples on the walls. Other than the name and the frescoes, though, there was nothing really special about it. It was used for Sunday school classes and choir rehearsals. But I often felt I was in the presence of God when I was there.

Unfortunately, the congregation built a new building on the edge of town, and the old building near downtown, with its Upper Room, is now a museum.

I have loved your story about your experience at the Third Haven Friends Meeting House ever since I read it in "Grounded." Liminality, then, seems to be entry into a place where the time/space boundaries dissolve and one experiences timelessness? That description, if accurate, seems sort of like the "thin places" that Celtic spirituality talks about. I have thought that the Upper Room in my old church building was for me a "thin place."

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Thank you Diana. You did a beautiful job of expressing your lived experience. It excites me beyond words. I have had such experience over my almost 40 years of seeking. Yours began in a church and mine outside of a church in the beginning and then inside a variety of buildings. I am in my 70's and you have inspired me to do some family searching and especially that of my mother's history. Thank you again.

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Thank you, Vicki Burkleo. and Shalom to you too! Yes, an indelible memory, and so peaceful.

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I am a church returner, after many decades "outside" because I couldnt' fit myself into the kind of churches I'd known. I was soaking up a new version of Christianity (wonderfully progressive) with my head. I was enjoying moments of peace and comfort, but I certainly didn't expect to ever experience a mountaintop experience of God.

But then I was visitng the beaches of northwestern Washington one cold March, and took to picking up the bits of plastic detritus and stuffing them into a breadbag I'd brought along.But then I noticed what was sneaking up on me. It was more than satisfaction.

Imperceptibly, I began to feel like I wasn’t really on the beach like an owner picking up around the place; now I felt invited to be of the beach. Or in the beach—in some way part of the beach itself. Without conscious intent, I slipped into my place within this place. Inanimate stones had a sheen of ocean water, of course, but also a sheen of . . . friendliness, as though what I saw bypassed my mind and went straight to my spirit. And when my back started to ache, the beach seemed to cluck in sympathy, and the ache felt better, like a mother’s kiss on a scraped knee. These were moments that seemed out of time. Eternal in a way. In these moments—did it last an hour?—as the boundaries of my self expanded and became permeable, I was deeply, quietly happy. A presence of God, I felt.

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Thank you! You have encouraged me to write down my experiences.

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Thank you so much for sharing your direct lived experience and for naming it as a research form. As a dancer, direct (embodied and ensouled) experience is my medium. Dancing evokes and amplifies connection with imminent and transcendent realms. I grew up in the Methodist Church, too, and identify with the polite silence and the quandary it put me in as someone who used to dance in worship, often alone. Like you, my recent ancestors detached from their history. I like to say, "Clear-cut." When my step father researched my mohter's ancestry-it opened up to the Magna Carta. Shocking. I discovered that I descend from family members that include Anne Hutchinson. My dancing grace-centered theology made genetic sense. When I led a workshop called "Changing the Race Dance: in Roxbury Mass I found myself in a New England sanctuary standing next to a plaque dedicated to Thomas Dudley. He was one of the most agitated antagonists of Anne and those I call the Grace Puritans. The energy in my being was uncontainable. So much more to share.

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Vicki expressed how I responded to your memories. I got chills when you told of the experience in the Quaker house.

It made me immediately recall one of my chilhood memories.

Diane most have happened in nature. One such experience was at the Grand Canyon. I woke up at sunrise leaving my children and husband sleeping.

I was overwhelmed by the majesty of the canyon. I saw 2 nuns ahead of me, and I said to them “ No one could ever doubt the presence of God if they were here!”

I don’t remember their response, but it didn’t matter, because for to me I was in the presence of The Creator.

As always thank you for making me remember.

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Good Sunday morning, Diana.

Up earlier than I’d rather, but not able to go back to sleep in bed, so just enjoyed your musings…your church/meeting house experiences such fine examples of “God disguised as life”…so I’m convinced that the countless life experiences I’ve had show “God” is in them all…or nowhere! Certainly not where or how I conceived for far too long the Mystery of Sacred Presence/Grace as being something I needed to assuage, or please, or be forgiven by, or praised, or thanked, or petitioned!

Thanks for bearing and reflecting the Light.

Karen

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Jan 15, 2023Liked by Diana Butler Bass

I've been attending Southern Lights virtually this weekend. So powerful! Blessings to you and Brian.

When I listened to your stories of experiencing God. I wept. They reminded me of those times I've been able to enter the liminal space and experience the Divine. Thank you for sharing your narratives. They always sound like poetry to me.

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Thank you,

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Jan 15, 2023Liked by Diana Butler Bass

The city of Boston has just unveiled a new sculpture in the Boston Common entitled, “The Embrace”. It’s 20 feet long & 26 feet wide and it’s a bronze sculpture of MLK Jr.& his wife Coretta hugging after he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. It’s of their shoulders, arms & hands ONLY. Therefore, the artist wants us to feel the embrace not just visibly but one can also walk underneath it and experience being included in their embrace as well. His name is Hank Willis Thomas. It’s quite amazing!!

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Jan 15, 2023Liked by Diana Butler Bass

I am in awe of your narrative experience. I feel blessed by your share. You have inspired me to dig into history further.

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founding
Jan 15, 2023Liked by Diana Butler Bass

I feel like I have been given the opportunity to feel the warm embrace of the universe. Thank you for this.

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