USING GIFTS

           George Fox 

by Unidentified Artist

William Blake 

by John Linnell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the 2009 post Honoring Gifts.

Each one speaks according to the gifts he has received. The knowledge of this insight and of its corollary - that we recognize and respect the gifts of others as well as our own gifts - overcomes barriers among us. Here are four statement about the innate gifts from four sources. Out of their own unique gifts, each of these men express congruent ideas from varied perspectives. Let's listen to June Singer speaking of Carl Jung, and to statements from William Blake, George Fox, and Paul the Apostle.

Dr. Singer: from an Interview in 1998 - Complete Interview

"Jung’s great contribution to psychotherapy was his affirmation of the genius (daemon, guiding spirit) in every individual. He had the greatest respect for the individual, a trust in the authenticity of each person’s inner self-knowledge. Consequently he did not often assert his own views as an analyst, but rather worked to evoke the analysand’s own unconscious material and allow it to speak for itself. Trust in the unconscious, not a blind trust but the way you trust any teacher–you must find out for yourself what the wise person can teach you."

William Blake, Jerusalem, Plate 91

"Go, tell them that the Worship of God, is honouring his gifts
In other men: & loving the greatest men best, each according
To his Genius: which is the Holy Ghost in Man; there is no other
God, than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity;
He who envies or calumniates: which is murder & cruelty,
Murders the Holy-one: Go tell them this & overthrow their cup,
Their bread, their altar-table, their incense & their oath:
Their marriage & their baptism, their burial & consecration:
I have tried to make friends by corporeal gifts but have only
Made enemies: I never made friends but by spiritual gifts;
By severe contentions of friendship & the burning fire of thought.
He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children
One first, in friendship & love; then a Divine Family, & in the midst
Jesus will appear; so he who wishes to see a Vision; a perfect Whole
Must see it in its Minute Particulars;"

George Fox, Journal

"...So, Friends, come into that which is over all the spirits of the world, fathoms all the spirits of the world, and stands in the patience; with that, ye may see where others stand, and reach that which is of God in every one. Here is no strife, no contention, out of transgression; for he that goeth into strife, and into contention, is [away] from the pure spirit...."

Paul, Letter to the Ephesians

4:11-13 - "His 'gifts to men' were varied. Some he made his messengers, some prophets, some preachers of the Gospel; to some he gave the power to guide and teach his people. His gifts were made that Christians might be properly equipped for their service, that the whole body might be built up until the time comes when, in the unity of the common faith and common knowledge of the Son of God, we arrive at real maturity - that measure of development which is meant by the "fullness of Christ".

4:14-16 - "We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the craft presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love."

Learn more about Quakers and Blake from Larry.