Advices and Queries: 1

This is the beginning of my series about the little red book, Advices and Queries. I will be examining each of the different writings in turn, seeing what they mean to me and how they are relevant in my experience of Quakerism.

Advices and Queries is a small book of statements that is available for Quakers to read and consider, both in and out of meeting for worship. It is not doctrine - it is more a packet of seeds for Friends to plant in their minds and choose to water or not depending on what fits them best.

The first of them is this:
1. Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.

I think this is one of the Advices that I struggle with. I am still personally undecided about the existence of a God - I believe more in forces of nature, or possibly just our own human spirituality, and what I think I experience during meeting is the feeling of human connection rather than much in the way of external power. I try to apply the word God to that experience for the sake of easier reading of Quaker writing that still uses more traditionally Christian language, but I can find it a little uncomfortable, particularly as I know other people will apply a much different meaning to it. The Light is a phrase which fits better for me, but in all honesty I don't think the perfect word has been invented to describe it yet - a sentiment I have heard more than a few people express.

As a result of this, I interpret this Advice as referring to listening to my own intuition - which is still something I struggle with due to years of mental illness leaving my trust in my own judgement more than a little strained. Part of my personal journey is reclaiming the parts of myself that I have lost to my illnesses, so in that respect this is a meaningful paragraph that makes me think introspectively a great deal.

What I take from this advice is motivation to pay more attention to my gut feelings, and learn to reconnect with the instinctive parts of myself that I spent so many years actively suppressing. Whether the promptings in my heart come from an external God, or the Light, or my inner self, or something entirely different, I believe they are there for a reason and it is good for me to learn to listen to them again, inside and outside of the meeting.