Stones

[poliphilo]

He asked me why we now had a bowl full of stones on the table in the Meeting Room

Comments

[mairi_dubh]

"stones are the bones of our Mother..."

...strikes me as sounding very Jean Auel-like.

I'm very much liking your bowl of stones.
Why not say the truth, that the idea came to you not as thought but as inspiration? It has become quite usual (here, anyway, with "here" being local or regional to my knowledge but might be a national thing, too) to explain, "God/the Lord put it on my heart to [or, that] ____________" and of course that blank is filled in with the inspiration, assuming that the speaker was inspired and believes the inspiration to have been divine.

[poliphilo]

I'm afraid it would be considered thoroughly unEnglish. If I said "God put it in my heart"- my interlocutor would think I'd lost my marbles.

[mairi_dubh]

M'm, no. It is very specifically, "...on my heart." That God put it on one's heart, not in it.
Almost as if "it" is a burden, an obligation, a duty.

Ever hear this? "What other people think of me is none of my business." Maybe acquaintance with someone who's lost his or her marbles would do your interlocutor a power of good.

[heleninwales]

It's talking about suggestion coming directly from God that would sound weird to British ears, regardless of the specific wording.

[wantedonvoyage]

"Why are there stones on the table?"

"Why not?"

[poliphilo]

Indeed!

[ambeziee]

Collecting pebbles from the beach is a sort of rite of passage. It can be a concentrated effort as you carefully select those that are special to you. At the end of the day you usually discard one or two because of unnoticed flaws. Collected in a bowl they become one memory which hopefully you can find enjoyable every time you see them and run your fingers through them. Others might make there own if they do the same. If down the line they fail to inspire you throw them back on the beach and pick some more. There are millions of them so it will be a new memory.
I can waffle too..............

[poliphilo]

I love stones.

There are trillions and trillions of them on our beaches and no two are quite the same or have had quite the same history.

I like your waffle :)

[halfmoon_mollie]

One thing I wish I'd said to him- because it sounds so deep- is "stones are the bones of our Mother..."

of course. This makes perfect sense to me, and I think you are not giving yourself enough credit. And perhaps your fellow Friend will learn - not necessarily from you - how to *see* spiritual things.

[poliphilo]

The point of having stones on the table seems so obvious to me that I had a hard time justifying and explaining it.

I am still a pagan, just as I am still an Anglican- and all without taking away from my present identity as a Quaker. We don't discard the good things we pick up on the journey- or are fools if we do.