 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 (XXXXI 4) |
Worshipping at Horsham Meeting (PA) recently, I found myself taking in a message from the sounds literally surrounding the meetinghouse. The traffic of Route 611 and the planes overhead, juxtaposed with a gathering of quieted hearts in worship, caused me to feel a sense of urgency.
I felt, not an ordinary urgency, but a spiritual urgency. A quickening. A strong sense of NOW, of being unequivocally present – present to everything around me and within me. Engaged in God’s holiness with EVERY part of me, not tomorrow, not when I have available time, but right now. I wanted to be fully in God’s presence.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is giving me the gift of connection and is available to all of us. As Friends within PYM, we are so very rich in human attention, in love, in energy, in spiritual urgency. God’s ever-presence offers us a spiritual home in which to gather. The Yearly Meeting offers us ways to physically join together in fellowship. All we have to do is show up and be present – the hardest spiritual work of all. This sense of urgency works against complacency or the feeling that there is endless time. If we place ourselves in spiritual time, there is only now.
In my work with Quaker boards of directors for Friends Services for the Aging and Friends Board Consulting, I tell board members their job is to ask good questions, expect good answers, and make the tough decisions. The same could be said of life. When we engage fully with the Holy Spirit, we expect answers that may be surprising, and when we live accordingly, our lives are full and rich beyond belief. And we can do little more than be filled with gratitude.
I pray for depth of Spirit, as we seek God’s direction for the Yearly Meeting. I pray for our ability to put into words all that we feel. I pray for ways to be present to one another as well as to the whole of Friends organizations. I pray for vitality in our Monthly Meetings. I pray for our lives to be a testament to the joy of being in the living waters of God’s love.
I want to step up to the high dive and jump into the flowing river with all my senses open, trusting that Spirit will bless the journey.
Gretchen Castle
Doylestown Meeting (PA)
Clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM