Boulder Meeting of Friends, Quakers, Quaker worship
A personal note: Crossno’s & Bill’s language reflects—albeit accurately—the Christian interpretations and tradition in which Quakerism is rooted. I use this language comfortably, but am not unaware that for many words like God, Jesus, repentance, etc., are difficult, even painful, to hear. Thankfully, we ‘Contemporary Quakers’ also know that there are untold ways for us to try to hold and express (or find ourselves incapable of doing so) the immensity of our Spiritual encounters and worship experiences. So I ask your forgiveness that I use my own. And request that you translate into your heart’s language such Truths as you may be able to glean beyond the limitations of the words used by one tradition. With Light for us all, Chris Griffin-WehrOn Vocal Ministry:Nurturing the Community through Listening and FaithfulnessBarry Crossno & J. Brent BillPendle Hill Pamphlet 460-2019 (pp2 - 4)Worship Meeting for worship is at the heart of Quaker faith and practice. Although our personal direct experience of the Divine is central to our individual spiritual lives, it is in communal worship that we gather together to hear the Voice that has spoken through the generations and still speaks today. We gather not only as individuals but we also gather as a community in a particular place and in a particular time to listen to God speaking to us through each other. We do this to gain strength for the living of our days and to find the power to be faithful witnesses to the Light in an often dark world.The traditional understanding of the purpose of Quaker meeting for worship is that we are quieting our minds to hear the leadings of the Holy Spirit, to be shown greater truths, and to be searched by the Light and laid bare before God so that we see our faults, repent, seek forgiveness, and come into a truer relationship with the Spirit and one another.Worship is also about faithfulness to that which is larger than ourselves. While much time is centered on daily living and its concerns, when we come to worship we are reminded that there is so much more than our individual lives. We come in humble recognition that our lives are not ours alone. Our lives are part of a community of faith that is rooted in a long spiritual tradition but that is also growing and evolving today and into the future. As we worship, we are reminded that our lives belong to God—from whom we come and in which we “live and move and have our being.”It is in worship that we surrender ourselves to the great mystery of how we do that—how we live and move and have our being in God. While theologians through the years have posited theories about this mystery, Friends have emphasized faith in the power of the experience of it. As we’ve worshiped, surrounded by and held in the mystery, we’ve found many names that help us come close to it: e Light, the Seed, God (Spirit). But instead of trying to codify or intellectualize it we come to be enveloped and changed by it. Deep worship gives us space to explore language as we open ourselves to the knowledge and experience extending beyond the ego to an expanse where we see beyond the limitations of the self and the mind and are touched by what connects us all.Worship is also about the care of the communal body we are part of and that the Spirit is enveloping. As Jesus said, “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.” This passage has been illustrated in James Penrose’s The Presence in the Midst, which hangs in many a meetinghouse. The “Presence” depicted there is more than just a pleasant, sentimental image on the wall. The Inward Christ, shown by Penrose in hovering transparency above the worshipers, is present in our gathered worship to guide, instruct, comfort, challenge, and more. Not just as individuals, but as the body that we are part of and which is also a witness to the world. When we meet together we come with our various cares and concerns, joys and sorrows, frets and elations. Into this communion, Spirit comes to heal, help, rejoice, and care for us.Meeting for worship is a time for us to be held in the Light, in the Divine Presence, so we may see love, be stripped of our blindness, be renewed, be healed, be a channel for healing and insight through loving and prophetic witness. And that corporate worship—where Spirit may use any of us as conduits of insight, healing and prophecy for the benefit of all those gathered together in shared purpose, focus and openness—is inherent to the power of the Quaker spiritual path. ................
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