Thought for the Week

by Sylvia Boyes, of Keighley Quakers.

As Christians, we are urged to use the prayer of Jesus: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be the name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."

These words must surely be the most well known of the teachings of Jesus, said by so many and probably over a lifetime.

Yet the challenge of how to live our lives so that the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven remains with us.

In a time of great turbulence and suffering in our own country, as well as around the world, how do I maintain that hope of a better world not only for myself but for all?

I feel at the moment the darkness is overcoming the light. I know that every day there are great acts of kindness and self sacrifice carried out by both individuals and organisations, in all countries and in all societies.

Where peoples work together there are marvellous achievements. I do believe we need to be active out in the world, and the life and and teachings of Jesus did and does cause turbulence.

My challenge is that I must also listen, to quiet my own thoughts and hear that still, small voice showing me the way forward.

In the meantime some words of TS Eliot: "I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, for hope would be hope of the wrong thing; Wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing.

"There is yet faith. But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

"Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing."