Confessions during a Quaker Meeting: an art work by T Newfields

Confessions during a Quaker Meeting


God – I have tried to ken Your Greatness in silence
& contemplate Thy Wonders with this little brain
but often all I'm left with
the pettiness of my small thoughts
and dry, fossilized feelings of disdain.

Sometimes however
all "I" evaporates
and on hard oak wood benches
& shuffles of the instant disappear:
then and then only does silence make sense
And Your Blessed Spirit Seem Near.

When there is no "self" to contain
or contend with or profane
The Burning Bush of Thy Glory
outshines the blatherings of this day:
only then is there worship.

Alas, dross that I am
this realization invariably fades
into the blades of the gristmill of consciousness
yet sometimes a few kernels remain.