Thankful for and faith in the immediacy of the Spirit of Christ that was present in the historic Jesus.

I acknowledge those who have no or fragmented faith and trust in the immediacy or direct experience of the Presence anchoring consciousness and informing conscience. 

While I acknowledge there are those who hold to outward form to anchor or help anchor consciousness and inform conscience, the Presence within me has, from the age of 16, candled a way anchoring consciousness and informing conscience not beholden to outward form. My life has been a gradual growing into a relationship with the Presence through my turnings away and re-turnings. Gradually, the Light filled the nooks and crannies of consciousness and conscience...  more and more guiding and informing from immediacy rather than the mediation of outward form. 

There was a time when observation and study of the natural world was sanctuary. The activity gave consciousness a foothold and meaning and spoke to my conscience. The outward forms of the natural world filled my consciousness and gave form to being.

There was a time when religious institutions, doctrine, theology, and scripture was sanctuary. They gave consciousness a foothold and meaning and informed my conscience. To repeat, These outward forms filled and anchored consciousness and guided my conscience.

There was a time when political institutions and ideas were sanctuary. They anchored consciousness and informed conscious. These outward forms filled my consciousness and guided my conscience.

There was a time when philosophic study was sanctuary. It filled consciousness and informed conscience. The outward "isms" gave shape to being.

And on and on...

However, in the midst of it all, the candling Presence was ever there, nudging toward re-cognition and I would sometimes re-turn in thirst of Being, consciousness, and conscience unbound from these outward anchors and informers. Sometimes religious professors of various outward forms would capture my consciousness and conscience and I would embrace their commodities and then, again, re-turn to the immediacy of the Presence and drink.

Life has been an embracing of the Presence anchoring consciousness and conscience; the Life not mediated by the outward. Then turning away to hold to form, a denial of the sufficiency and the immediacy of the Spirit of Christ within; anchoring consciousness and the rule of conscience. My consciousness and conscience has been mostly bound to the outward as the Presence slowly enlightened the darkness within bound to outward institutions, doctrines, ideas, feelings, etc.  

It has taken around 35 years for the Presence within to gain the upper hand and become the my consciousness' primary anchor and the primary Principle of conscience. Long and rocky, with heartbreaking ups and downs, has been the journey. 

One of the beautiful threads the early Quakers frequently wove into the tapestry of their writings reads:

 ... the mystery of which faith is held in a pure conscience...

In the Presence, we know the mystery in a pure consciousness and conscience, anchored and informed, by direct and immediate experience of the Spirit of Christ within. This faith and trust in the immediacy of the Presence is salvation and eternal life. It is the realm of God on earth. It is a blessing to be one among those who have faith in and affirm the Presence within consciousness and conscience as the one true Guide leading to the experience of eternal life and the realm of God here on earth.

I trust and have faith in the sufficiency of the Spirit of Christ as my sole guide and teacher (the Principle and the Rule), shedding faith and trust in any outward institutions (religious or secular), doctrine, etc . In gratitude and wonderment.