What do we seek, we Friends of Truth, we Friends of the Light, we Quakers?

We were Seekers first, before we were Quakers, after all, in the genetic origins of our Religious Society. But then, we were also Ranters, in part. Both strands of thought in that chaotic time of the mid-seventeenth century are seen in us, today. There is even a soupçon of the Levellers and Diggers about our origins, I am quite sure.

If we were Seekers, did we find, and stop Seeking? To suppose that search is over strikes me as the most profound religious hubris. So it is that we continue, as a group, to seek.

We also seek as individuals. Perhaps there are some, and have been many through our history, who have felt their search to be over. Whether they are right or wrong, as a group we would continue to seek, because whatever it is we find in our search cannot be transmitted from one to another, but only discovered by each person for themselves.

So still, we seek, but can we yet see what for we seek?

We seek for answers, you may say. For truth. For enlightenment, the modern admixture of eastern philosophy might suggest. We seek wholeness. We seek God.

Pretty words, to be sure, but what do we seek? Can you truly say it in words, or even in pictures or in music?

The object of our search cannot be described beyond the words of the heart, the music of the soul, the great art of the intellect.

And those words, that music, that great art cannot be communicated, except at its utter fulfilment.

Written March 2018