gathering in light

If you ever get the chance to sit in on a silent Quaker meeting, take the opportunity. It’s not the kind of experience you’ll get just anywhere. Yes, it’s intense. Yes, it’s likely to be extremely difficult to “center down” and focus for an hour, but it’d still be a great exercise in listening. When I see conversations geared to listening, I automatically think of the Quaker tradition. What better group of people to turn to for advice about how to listen? When Quakers meet for worship they reserve a time during the service for complete silence; this silence is a commitment as a community to allowing God space in our worship. But it is rarely ever a “silent worship.” Rather, in worship Quakers listen for the Holy Spirit to move them to action. That is, if the Spirt of God moves you to share/preach/sing, then listening to God involves acting on what was heard. In this way, the practice of silence for Quakers only begins with listening, but true silence always leads to an action. » Read the rest of this entry «

It is an awful satire, and an epigram on the materialism of our modern age, that nowadays the only use that can be made of solitude is imposing it as a penalty, as jail. What a difference there is between those times when, no matter how secular materialism always was, man believed in the solitude of the covenant, when in other words, solitude was revered as the highest, as the destiny of Eternity – and the present when it is detested as a curse and is used only for the punishment of criminals. Alas, what a change.

Kierkegaard, The Diary of Soren Kierkegaard, 23