Over time, I come to understand the Holy in new and different ways.
A good Friend shared these words with me,
”Whether one understands this as divine love, fellowship, affection, or
the Spirit of Christ, it is still love.”
However encounter it, we aspire to live in ways that help grow compassion and love.
I fall short of these aspirations each day.
When I go to Meeting it is in the spirit of the words of the
late A. Powell Davies when he said,
“I go to church … because I fall below my own standards and need
to be constantly brought back to them … I must have my conscience sharpened–sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking and action of which I am capable.”
The mystical part of Quaker Worship for me,is not what
I do or not do but the work of the Spirit in the silence.
The Holy uses the holy silence to sharpened are conscience over and
over so we can live in ways that helps us to grow in compassion and love.
My view of Quaker worship is more rooted in a sacramental
approach in which the communal silence not the individual is the center.
Paul R
Silence gives us a new outlook on everything. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us.
Jesus is always waiting for us in silence. In that silence, He will listen to us; there He will speak to our soul, and there we will hear His voice.
Mother Teresa
