2016/03/30

Sitemap - Emissaries of Divine Light | Emissaries of Divine Light

Sitemap - Emissaries of Divine Light | Emissaries of Divine Light

Sitemap – Emissaries of Divine Light

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Introduction to Quaker Basics | Quaker Learning Australia

Introduction to Quaker Basics | Quaker Learning Australia



Introduction to Quaker Basics

Posted on April 5, 2013 by admin
Quaker Basics (QB) is a course of study focussing on various aspects of Quaker life and practice. The basic materials for the course consist of a manual which is available online or as a hard copy publication. QB can be undertaken individually, with another Friend, or as a small group and will probably take several months to complete.
Experience suggests that the experience is richer when done as a pair or a group; the momentum is hard to maintain on your own.
There are readings and discussion questions associated with each topic, and many of these readings are reprinted in the manual. Other cores texts are:
  1. British Yearly Meeting Quaker faith & practice and this we can say for(Advices & queries)
  2. Silence: our eye on eternity by Dan Seeger, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #318, 1994
  3. A light that is shining by Harvey Gilman, Quaker Home Service 1997
  4. Four doors to meeting for worship by William Taber, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #306, 1992.
  5. Testament of devotion by Thomas Kelly, Harper & Row, 1941.
  6. Spiritual discernment by Patricia Loring, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #305, 199
These texts may be available from your Meeting library. QLA also has sets of them available for loan. To obtain these and/or purchase printed copies of the manual, contact qla@quakers.org.au.
An online version of the Quaker basics manual (pdf 1458kb) is also available for downloading.
The QB course is made up of the following topics:
Session oneIndividual practiceCentring and meditation
The experience of silence
Session twoCorporate practiceMeeting for worship
Vocal ministry
Session threeTestimonies and concerns• Simplicity
• Peace
• Equality
• Ecological responsibility
• Integrity
• Community
Session fourReflections paper
Session fiveTaking action: a Quaker view of ministryOrganisational structures among Friends
International Quaker organisations
Session sixIndividual discernment / leadingsClearness process
Session sevenCorporate discernmentFriends business meetings
Session eightMembership
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Wendy Fenton | Quaker Learning Australia

Wendy Fenton | Quaker Learning Australia

Wendy Fenton

Posted on June 21, 2012 by admin

Simply in the Spirit

When people approach Quakerism for the first time as adults, they are conditioned by their lives to apply some sort of method to their exploration of Quaker spirituality. Whether this approach is intellectual (scientific, psychological, philosophical, etc.), or mystical, there is usually a need for some sort of methodology. In their spiritual seeking, they go deeper and deeper into an individual spirituality, but in this exercise they may perhaps be missing a core element – the simplicity of spirituality and of worship.
Renowned Japanese violinist and teacher Dr Shinichi Suzuki, when studying the violin in Germany as a young man, and struggling with the German language, was struck by the fact that German children learnt to speak German fluently at their mother’s knee. This “mother tongue” learning was the basis for his method of teaching very young children to play a musical instrument.
In this same way, a child in a Quaker family approaches Quaker spirituality, and absorbs it in such a way as to become almost instinctive. During a secure, happy and loving early childhood she will learn to trust the Spirit. She becomes acquainted with “that which is of God in all men” as the Inner Light, and gradually comes to understand that she needs to follow the promptings of that Light, and to seek it in others.
I was such a Quaker child. I was told stories of the good deeds of Quakers in times gone by. Elizabeth Fry was my favourite story, and my Elizabeth Fry doll, lovingly dressed for me by a lady in my extended Quaker family, became my favourite possession. I was taught that I should make my life speak, without yet being aware of George Fox’s famous words. My Quaker spirituality adhered to the Testimony of Simplicity.
As time went on, this Quaker child realised that the Testimonies by which Friends endeavour to live are embodiments of the Spirit itself. Peace, Justice and above all Love are what my God is all about. I lived by the fact that the Inner Light is a reflection in me, and in everyone, and all around me, of the Spirit. With this, came the realisation that many people are unaware or in denial of their own Inner Light. As a young adult, I recognised this denial in the words of Francis Thompson, which was a significant lesson for me, as I hadn’t experienced this in myself:
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes, I sped:
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat – and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet –
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’[Francis Thompson, 1889, “The Hound of Heaven”]
My father had explained to me that if I can seek out the Light of God in those who live without Faith, there is the chance that the gleam of that Light might reflect back to them, so there is always a reason to seek it.
Times of contemplation inevitably become for me periods of conscious worship, as too do times of joy, thankfulness and contentment. At other times, when I find myself “incommunicado”, I pause for what my late husband called “station identification”. Solitary worship is a time for personal spiritual contact to discover what God requires of me. I do not feel a need to try to understand God.
Corporate worship, as in Meeting for Worship, is a different experience for me. It is as if my silence is blended with the silence of those around me, so that if the Spirit moves one, it may move all. Spoken ministry is one way of making that connection within the corporate silence. This “gathered stillness”, this linking in the Spirit can also happen quite spontaneously at quite unexpected times, and in quite unexpected places.
Recently, as I was standing on the pavement, an African family walked past. The two children were running ahead, laughing, and their parents followed behind them. When they saw my pleasure at the happiness of their children, they smiled back at me, and during that moment, there was a ‘gathered stillness’ and I felt wrapped in the warmth of it.
George Fox enjoined us to seek that which is of God in all men. In doing this, we are living our spirituality outside of ourselves. We are doing so in the course of our lives, not in personal isolation with God. It is significant for me to truly seek the Spirit, rather than spirituality.
There were times in my life when my circumstances took me away from Meeting for Worship for years on end, and, living amongst unbelievers, my conscious awareness of God was diminished. Now that I am, thankfully, back in Quaker Meeting, and perhaps growing wiser as I grow older, I find that I am reverting to my ‘simple spirituality’, and it has lost none of its validity for me.
Spirituality is now a constant part of my life – every day and all the time. The Spirit is with me, it is in me, in everyone, on every leaf and flower, in the sound of the sea, in art and music, and in every breath I take. To me, it is not necessary to “work out a suitable timetable” for contemplative practices, as the Quaker Basics course recommends. Spirituality can be spontaneous and constant. God does not require us to make an appointment; this divine Spirit is always available, if we just live in it and wait on it for Leading. Then we are led into the Quaker way of letting our lives speak, to “be patterns, be examples …………. answering that of God in every one”. We are then open to meeting in “a gathered stillness”, to share simply in worship, our corporate Quakerism. We learn to respond to Leadings and to hold back if we aren’t sure we are Spirit led, and we gain the joy, comfort and direction of life in the Spirit. In its essence it is spontaneous spirituality answering to our Testimony to Simplicity.
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Quaker Learning Australia | Quakers for Peace

Quaker Learning Australia | Quakers for Peace



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2016/03/29

Descendants of the Sun: the Korean military romance sweeping Asia - BBC News

Descendants of the Sun: the Korean military romance sweeping Asia - BBC News

Descendants of the Sun: the Korean military romance sweeping Asia
By Tessa WongBBC News
  • 27 March 2016
    •  
  • From the sectionAsia

Screengrab of KBS' website for Korean drama Descendants of the SunImage copyrightKBS
Image captionThe drama tells the story of thwarted love on the battlefield of a foreign land

Korean television dramas have always been popular across Asia, but the region may have hit peak K-drama fever with military romance Descendants of the Sun.
"This show satisfies all my fantasies," 35-year-old Beijing fan Ms Dai tells the BBC. "It reminds me of the feeling you have in a romantic relationship."
Seoul's latest offering chronicles the star-crossed relationship between a soldier and surgeon. It has won millions of fans across the region, but also caused alarm from some authorities.

Love is a battlefield

The 16-episode show began airing on South Korean television in February. It is also being simulcast online in China and streamed on other websites - not always legally - watched by South East Asian fans.
It has all the familiar ingredients of a K-drama: a convoluted plot, A-list actors and an exotic location - in this case Greece, standing in as the fictional war-torn Mediterranean country Uruk.
But one unique feature of Descendants of the Sun is its military setting - it is often not fate that gets in the way of the main characters' happiness, but the urgencies of war.
The show is mostly set in Uruk where a special forces captain played by Song Joong-ki juggles peacekeeping duties with wooing an army surgeon played by Song Hye-kyo - rather inconveniently, he often has to leave her at crucial moments to save lives or go on mysterious missions.

Screengrab of KBS' website for Korean drama Descendants of the SunImage copyrightKBS
Image captionSong Joong-ki (left) and Song Hye-kyo (right) are two of South Korea's A-list actors

"The surgeon is a woman with a First World problem in a five-star package. She has a mystery man who is totally into her but who keeps leaving. Yet the drama also keeps reuniting them in airbrushed, beautified real-world circumstances," was how one Singaporean newspaper reviewsummed up its premise.
The military theme has resonated because the armed forces play a big part in South Korean society, with the constant looming threat of war with the North, and where conscription is mandatory for male citizens.
An editorial carried by the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily praised it as "an excellent advertisement for conscription" showcasing South Korea's "national spirit" and "communitarian culture", and suggested China create a similar soap opera.

Screenshot of Facebook fan page for Descendants of the SunImage copyrightFacebook
Image captionThe show has spawned several fan pages on Facebook, each with tens of thousands of followers

International appeal

At home, the drama has broken viewership records and won plaudits from even the likes of President Park Geun-hye, who said it could help spread South Korean culture and boost tourism.

What fans are saying

  • "The military theme does not appear frequently in TV shows so combined with the romantic theme, this is not like other Korean soap operas," Ms Gao, 24, Beijing resident
  • "Unlike most Korean dramas which are about a rich guy who falls in love with a poor, golden-hearted girl, the story feels more like the love story of two evenly-matched adults." - Chen Yuanni, 32, Beijing resident
  • "(Song Joong-ki) is very good looking with a boyish look. In real life a captain must shoulder a lot of burden and would look older." - Prayuth Chan-ocha, prime minister of Thailand
The city of Taekbaek, where some of the filming took place, is now planning to rebuild the film set because of intense interest from tourists, reports the Korea Times.
But its main fan base lies overseas, particularly China, where so far it has been viewed more than 440 million times on popular video-streaming site iQiyi.com. China has strict rules on broadcasting foreign dramas, but relaxed them for Descendants of the Sun, whose production was reportedly partly funded by Chinese investors.
It was a move seen by some as a sign of warming relations with South Korea, though others have pointed out that one scene depicting a fight with North Korea - China's ally - was censored in the Chinese broadcast.
Even Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha - an army general who took power in a military coup - is a fan, urging his countrymen last week to watch it as it promotes "patriotism, sacrifice, obeying orders and being a dutiful citizen".
The show has been sold to 27 countries including the UK and translated into 32 different languages, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

Screenshot of Descendants of the Sun advertisement on Chinese streaming site iQiyi.com.Image copyrightIQiyi
Image captionDescendants of the Sun is one of the top shows on Chinese streaming site iQiyi

But fandom has its costs. There were panicky reports in Chinese media earlier this month of a woman who nearly went blind binge-watching the show and another drama, when her 18-hour marathon session triggered acute glaucoma.
Chinese authorities have warned of the dangers of watching Korean dramas, which it said could lead to marital trouble and criminal behaviour.

Screenshot of Chinese public security ministry's warning on Weibo on Korean dramasImage copyrightWeibo
Image captionChinese authorities issued an advisory on "the right way to watch Korean dramas" like Descendants of the Sun

Earlier this month, Chinese tabloids carried a bizarre story of a young man who was so jealous of his wife's obsession with Song Joong-ki that one night he drunkenly stormed into a photography studio and demanded that the shop owner take pictures to "make him look like Song". The owner eventually called the police.
China's public security ministry highlighted this incident in an advisory on its Weibo social media account two weeks ago.
"When chasing male or female stars, do not become too infatuated with them. Because sometimes your casual words could end up hurting those who really care for you," it said.
It also cautioned citizens against imitating the more melodramatic aspects of K-dramas, such as "forcibly kissing women" and slapping one another during lovers' tiffs.
"This sort of behaviour may seem romantic, but this kind of romance is not acceptable to everyone... it becomes wrong when you justify criminal behaviour as romance," it said.
In the latest episode, the show's protagonists temporarily put aside their romantic angst to fend off the twin threats of a villainous arms dealer and a viral disease spreading through the barracks.
Will love overcome all? Come 14 April, the day the finale will air, millions across Asia will be tuning in to find out.
Additional reporting by Wei Zhou, Zoe Chen and Lily Lee
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