Some Shaker Wisdom on a Wednesday

Every week on my Facebook author’s page, I do what I call “Shaker Wednesday.” On those days I hunt up some bit of Shaker history or maybe a picture of something the Shakers made or a building in one of their villages. Some days I just post one of the Shaker sayings. They had a lot – many of them credited to their founder, Mother Ann. Many more were added as the years went by. Most of the sayings are based on commonsense. The Shakers were a practical, hard-working group of people who just happened to believe they weren’t meant to marry and they were meant to dance as they worshiped.

I use some of these sayings in all my Shaker books. One that I use most and is probably the most familiar to anyone who knows anything about the Shakers is “Hands to work. Hearts to God.” That is so much a part of the Shakers’ beliefs that it has to go in all my Shaker stories. Other sayings I drop in as needed such as this one. “Do your work as if you had a thousand years to live, and as if you were to die tomorrow.” To me, that one reveals how they aimed their work to be perfect but at the same time, they wanted to as productive as possible.

I’ve often allowed an established sister or elder to speak the following Shaker statement to my character who is generally a novitiate trying to learn about this strange group of people and their odd ideas that go so against the ways of the world. “Our testimony is for peace, now and always. No Christian can use carnal weapons or fight. He never did so. We oppose wars of households, and wars of nations. All wars are the result of lusts for lands and for women. Those who marry will fight.” That is one of their explanations for practicing celibacy and condemning marriage.

This is one I like too. “None preaches better than the ant, and it says nothing.” 

Here’s another that I think I used in my book, Christmas at Harmony Hill. “Man is a harp with a thousand strings.  Touch the spiritual cord of his heart, and lo, with what inspiration he sings!”

Thanks to all of you who commented in my last three posts to get your name in my giveaway. 

When I was checking for an old post about Shaker sayings that I could rework and share again, I came across some bits I’d pulled out of my book The Gifted for some kind of promotion. I don’t know that those ever got used, but since The Gifted was the prize in my giveaway, I’m sharing them with you.

Security generally trumped love in the game of life. Love was a poor man’s card of choice. (Tristan thinking about how he was expected to marry to enhance his family fortunes.)

“A waste of time chasing the past. It won’t do anything but bite you if you catch it.” (Laura Cleveland’s father warning Sheldon Brady not to look backward.)

And last, Laura telling Tristan why they can marry but perhaps never have love. “Love can’t be ordered up. It is a serendipitous thing with wings that swoops here and there and sometimes lands on you when you least expect it. Or when you can ill afford to follow your heart.”

Odd that I didn’t have a Jessamine quote, but you got to know her in her interview here a couple of weeks ago.

It’s fun but sometimes hard choosing which quotes to pull out of a 100,000 plus word novel to try to entice readers to give the story a read. I just did that for my upcoming release, The Song of Sourwood Mountain. Here’s one of them I chose.

She hadn’t run to escape Gordon’s outrageous words about wanting a wife. She had run because the outrageous word yes was on the tip of her tongue.

And the Winner Is…

Connie Lee wins a print copy of The Gifted. Connie regularly comments here on my blog posts. So, it was fun that she was the winner. Plus, she says she hasn’t read The Gifted yet. Now she can.

Thanks to all of you who joined in with the fun of my giveaway by leaving comments. I ended up with 49 entries. If you didn’t win this time, you can be sure more giveaways will be popping up in the next few months. Maybe I’ll even come up with a game for us to play soon. Not the mystery picture one. I’ll save that one for May for a fun way to celebrate the release of The Song of Sourwood Mountain.

Until next time, thanks so much for reading.

Have you ever checked out my Shaker Wednesday posts on my Facebook Page?