cosmichope.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

There's been a lot of reflection in our Quaker Meeting about the nature of Worship & Ministry (whether waiting or wordless). I often struggle to disentangle myself from the promptings of the Spirit. Sometimes Worship can feel like wrestling as I prod & poke at what arises. But I keep trusting.

submitted 2 hours ago • 0 comments

Out of all the characters in Lord of the Rings, Saruman is most like the self-interested modern politican. He often sounds like the Oswald Moseley of the 1920s.

submitted 12 hours ago • 0 comments

The 3rd Series of Star Trek: TOS has the deserved reputation for being the worst. But despite that, there are still gems to be found. Two of my favourites are "The Empath" (a ghostly tale of alien manipulation) and "In Truth There is no Beauty" (an episode about the pitfalls of pride & jealousy).

submitted 17 hours ago • 0 comments

At the very least, Origen has a more generous conception of life and personhood than our modern definitions. Given that stars can respond to divine dictates, he reasons that like humans and angels, stars can also stray and fall from God's cosmic order. 😇🙏

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

'A particular office is assigned to a particular angel: as to Raphael., the work of curing and healing; to Gabriel, the conduct of wars; to Michael, the duty of attending to the prayers and supplications of mortals' (Origen of Alexandria, First Principles). 😇

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

For Origen, the cosmos is not an inert bundle of stuff, but a living community. In this, Origen is inclined towards animism: '[The stars] may be designated as living beings, for this reason, that they are said to receive commandments from God, which is ordinarily the case only with rational beings'.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

'For out of the things of which the children of lsrael spoiled the Egyptians the furniture of the Holy of Holies was made, the ark with its cover, and the cherubim and the mercy-seat and the gold jar in which the manna, that bread of angels, was stored' (Letter of Origen to Gregory).

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

'Charity obeys no created thing except Love. Charity possesses nothing of her own, and should she possess something she does not say it belongs to her. Charity abandons her own need and attends to that of others. Charity has no shame, nor fear, nor anxiety' (Marguerite Porete) 🔥

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

'I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God; and I had great openings' (George Fox, Journal, 1647)

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Yay! ♥️

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

'Thinking, existentially speaking, is a solitary but not a lonely business; solitude is that human situation in which I keep myself company. Loneliness comes about when I am alone without being able to split up into the two-in-one, without being able to keep myself company' (Hannah Arendt)

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

'Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character; & solitude in the presence of natural beauty & grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts & aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without' (J.S. Mill) 🔶️

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

I'd forgotten about this scene in Star Trek: Enterprise @rywig.bsky.social 😀

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

⏰ Just one week left to sign up our course on 'The Mother of Quakerism: The Life and Writings of Margaret Fell'. This six-week course, led by Stuart Masters, explores the life, writings and legacy of Margaret Fell. Find out more and book your place here: www.woodbrooke.org.uk/courses/the-...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I'm starting a new project with @lilyrchadwick.bsky.social in March. Getting a head start with some preliminary reading.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

A fascinating commandment became it is based on a blunt contradiction. If we are truly able to love our enemies then we cannot truly regard them as our enemies. So what's being asked here? Treat enemies as if they are in fact friends? Is this how God views creatures who are at enmity with Him?

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

'I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again' (Etienne de Grellet) 🪷🙏

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

In 2020, (midst of the pandemic), our Friend Rowena Loverance reflected on the theme of finding light in the darkness. Since then new shadows have arisen in our world, but these words still offer much comfort. 🙏🔥

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

A really wonderful episode. ♥️✨️

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

A fascinating discussion of the English Revolution open.spotify.com/episode/616I...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

“For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” (J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King) ✨️

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

When all is said & done the UK is also a decaying plutocracy. The NHS has become an income stream for shareholders. Public housing has withered. Our Universities exist on a pile of debt. Privatisation in water, energy, & infrastructure has led to hideous profiteering. www.tiktok.com/@bernie/vide...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

'If we wait around to have peace in our hearts, love and goodwill to all men, we’ll never get anything done. The peace-on-Earth part will never happen. So I suggest that we do our best to mend breaches, forgive where we can, and beyond that—don’t wait' (Harper Fox, Seven Summer Nights)

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

“A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise! I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.” (E.M Forster) 🌿♥️

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

"When all thoughts are exhausted, I slip into the woods". 🌿♥️🙏

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

'The eye must be something like the sun, Otherwise no sunlight could be seen; God’s own power must be inside us, How else could Godly things delight us' (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) 🔥☀️

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

During sunrise, the seven year-old Goethe captured the light of the sun with a pocket-lens and lit a candle, standing it on top of his father's music-stand. To the young Goethe, this was a ritual act, a simple homage to the divine and invisible source of Nature. 🔥🌿

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

'We never arrive at the truth...if we only analyse things and divide them, into parts. We must always interweave one thing with another; for this is the nature of living things' (Rudolf Steiner) ✨️🙏

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

'According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty' (Plato, The Symposium) ❤️

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Isaac the Syrian ❤️🙏

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

'Heaven must receive Jesus until the time when everything will be restored' (Acts 3:21). ✨️🔥

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

'[The tyrant appears] particularly earnest in the service of the Gods; for if men think that a ruler is religious and has a reverence for the Gods, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands, and they are less disposed to conspire against him' (Aristotle, The Politics, Book 5).

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

I often think I'm in a fascinating position. I'm a Christ-centred Quaker (with significant sympathies with Conservative Friends) in a hyper-liberal Yearly Meeting. Sure, there are challenges (even doubts) but the Spirit keeps on telling me I'm where I'm meant to be (despite some discomfort).

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

"The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity" (Goethe) ♥️

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

'We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers' (Mary Oliver)

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

This very much echoes Plato's earlier observation in The Republic: The tyrant begins as the upmost friend and benefactor of the people. But in the end, he is revealed as a ravenous wolf, who feasts on the public he has transformed into a placid and defenceless flock.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

There's a peculiar paradox in the surviving literature of the Desert. In leaving the world, many of these hermits rediscovered human beings in their actuality. Through solitude, these warriors of silence began to see God reflected in the faces of others. They had to leave home to come home.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

'God is infinitely Good, Loving, and Bountiful; yea, Goodness and Charity it self; an infinite Fountain, and Father of Goodness, Charity, and Bounty. Now how can it be, that this Fountain shall not always plentifully flow, and send from it self Living Waters?' (Anne Conway)

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

I always feel delightfully bourgeois when I listen/watch the Waitrose podcast. Its Joanna Lumley this week. I regret nothing! youtu.be/N35gCrxeLK4?...

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

I don't know whether we as Quakers really have the solutions to the world’s problems. All I know is that we need the love of God to warm our often cold hearts. We need that warm sunlight so that the soul's winter finally recedes. 💙

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

'For any sustained and more or less original work it seems most necessary that one should have the quietude and strength of Nature at hand, like a great reservoir from which to draw. The open air, and the physical and mental health that goes with it' (Edward Carpenter)

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

"Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can’t really happen outside sleep" (E.M. Forster, Maurice) 💛

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

'It has been said that Socialism is about equality. If you ask for an equivalent short-hand description of Liberalism, I should say it is about freedom and participation' (Jo Grimond, The Liberal Challenge, 1963) 🔶️💛

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments