Gathered Quaker Meetings 09-01-2016

From experiences of deep collective silences, Quakers are often led to speak to the needs of those present at silent meetings for worship. Regular attendees to silent meetings for worship are often amazed at how Quaker elders can accurately speak to the circumstances of those present. When there’s what friends call a “gathered meeting” there’s a visceral sense of God’s presence. When a seasoned friend is able to channel God’s presence with some well placed words it can pierce the heart. During meeting for worship, a Friend’s words have often spoken to my condition in a fresh and startling way. Sometimes all my games and pretenses fell away in an instant and the naked truth jabbed me in the ribs.

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During these revelations, it’s not the spoken words that open windows of perception and shed new light. Another person in the meeting may hear the exact same words and get a different message. The only way I can explain the nature of revelation in a gathered meeting is “Holy Spirit.” Something about the way the words coincide with a memory or the light through the window or the tingle in the arm sets off a particular train of thought that would derail under any other circumstances. At gathered meetings there’s a sense of expanded consciousness—of piercing pre-rational intelligence. Sometimes all the points of light in the meeting converge to form a dense beam that lays bare an aching problem that’s begged resolution for weeks, months, years.

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David Frenette’s book The Path of Centering Prayer reenergized the Centering Prayer tradition with its fresh insights and teachings.  Centering Prayer Meditations: Effortless Contemplation to Deepen Your Experience of God is a wonderful companion audio program  created to be equally rewarding as a stand-alone guide – gives listeners an immersive resource to learn contemplative prayer, step by step and in the moment. With clarity and compassionate presence, Frenette explains the essential principles of this contemplative practice for both new and seasoned practitioners, and then guides us experientially through core prayers and meditations.

How do we know that Jesus was actually raised from the dead in bodily form? This course with Prof. N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, examines the extraordinary claim that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead in a bodily fashion to appear in person to people after his cruel death, crucifixion, and entombment.

Check out Simply Good News by New Testament scholar and author N. T. Wright.  It is based upon his book Simply Good News.  You will instantly get into the heart of the idea of ‘good news’ as it was understood by the 1st Century writers of the New Testament.  It works well for group studies.   

Prepare to be immersed in the 1st Century A.D. context of the life, work, teachings, and actions of Jesus.  Check out Simply Jesus by N. T. Wright. Enjoy an article Rich wrote about one of the lectures on the Beatitudes.

Check out Rich’s review of Christian Prayer Methods by Dr. Philip St. Romain.