Hello, All,
Our next Seekers Group meeting will be on Monday, April 4, 2016 at 7pm in the Community House. I hope many of you can join us.
Also, there will be a special Seekers Group conversation on Sunday, April 10, 2016 from 11:30-1:30in the Community House on Worship in the Manner of Friends. We’ll share lunch (bring your own or something to share) and consider “What are all those people doing with their eyes shut?” We may have some other Friends from Westport Meeting who aren’t able to get to our evenings conversations join this one.
Meeting for worship takes patience and a real leap of faith – but for some of us it becomes as necessary as breathing. For others, especially newcomers, it is a mystery and challenge. Why do you come to worship? How does it feed you? How do you center? What do you do when your mind just won’t stop? Do you have physical sensations when you’ve been given a message to speak? How do you discern whether or not it’s a message for the entire group or just a new startling insight for you personally? Do you have a story about a transforming moment that has happened in Worship?
It is understandable why Friends have a really hard time putting all of this into words, but it is so helpful to share our wisdom and struggles. More than just a tutorial on the theology of Friends form of worship (though we can talk about that), the hope is that this will be an opportunity for sharing our wisdom and struggles while sitting in unprogrammed meetings.
For those who are interested, here are a few links to readings online that you might check out before this conversation (but there is no requirement to do so):
The Gathered Meeting by Thomas Kelly http://www.tractassociation.org/tracts/the-gathered-meeting/
Friends and Worship by Douglas Steere https://www.quakercloud.org/cloud/maury-river-friends-meeting/resources/friends-and-worship-douglas-steere
Silent Worship and Quaker Values: An Introduction by Marsha D. Holliday https://www.fgcquaker.org/resources/silent-worship-and-quaker-values
Draw Breath, a Poem by Geoffrey Weeden: http://www.quakerquaker.org/profiles/blogs/draw-breath-a-poem-by-geoffrey
Gretchen Baker-Smith