Deb Arrowsmith
As I write this we are coming up to Easter – as you read this it may well be past. As a ‘birthright’ Anglican, convinced Quaker, I still have a hankering to observe Lent – or at least have a go! I don’t mean preparing for the gigantic festival of Chocolate that many confectioners would have you believe Easter is. I mean putting yourself in another’s shoes, walking with Jesus to think through the experience of his stumbling journey and imagine carrying that through our lives today. Many of us value seeking a closer influence of the divine in our lives now. Lent is that period of 40 days before Easter replicating Jesus’ wanderings in the wilderness when I, at least, imagine him to be questioning, agonising, fasting, seeking both the way ahead and literally what, on earth, to do. To others it’s about abstinence, reliance, seeking guidance, a different perspective, getting clean, prepared, and so much more.
My most successful Lent (if that’s how you would put it) was aged 8 when I gave up sugar in tea. Haven’t touched it since – result! These days the fashion is not so much to give things up but to take things on. In my time I have tried all sorts in an attempt to internalise the ‘holy’; focus on the spiritual nature of life; breathe in a bit more goodness, compassion, humility hope – all the values Jesus encouraged us to adopt. Mostly, my efforts fall far short of the anticipated revelatory experience I would be happy to share.
This year a Friend suggested Lent was really all about making the presence of God real in our lives. This seemed to me like Quakers seeking that of God in each one of us. Do we really believe that? And, if so, how does that make us feel, behave? In lockdown – only two people in the house with microscopic bits of God in them – that presence needed a bit of external reinforcement this Lent.
So, I thought, let’s invite God around, and if God were coming we’d better lay a place for Him/Her/They/It at our table. And so we did: placemat, napkin, knife, fork, spoon, glass for water, and glass for wine (obviously). Side plate in case we had bread…or olives? All laid out ready. A third chair with a nice cushion…
Did God come? Well, thankfully, we didn’t get to the spooky level of putting out food and wondering if God preferred spaghetti to linguine but there were more conversations with God. A quiet gentle reminder of ‘the other’. A shifting of perspective. As if, from the corner of your eye, you almost see someone. Know they are near about. That alone stetches our inner world to take in that presence. Makes the creative pause which I believe is God with us. In an effort to shed the lockdown pounds chocolate is banned in our house this Easter. God, however, is very much with us to celebrate.
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Forty-Three e-Newsletter • Number 504 • April 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW