Liquid Offerings

What we do in Meeting for Worship is hard to describe in words, once you have said the obvious “sitting in silence.”  A metaphor may be better than further factual description:

Imagine we are all wineglasses, or perhaps just plain cups.  We gather like glasses set on a table, clinking together softly as we settle.

We come into the Meetinghouse full of ourselves:

Some prefer to be filled with fresh fruit…

Catholics recently made changes to the English wording of the Mass.  The priest says “The Lord be with you,” and where the congregation once responded with “And with you,” they now are supposed to say “And with your spirit.” I confess these changes don’t matter much to me.  Perhaps the change was necessary to redefine the relationship between priest and congregation, or because God might not hear these prayers if they were not said exactly right.

These invocational prayers, along with…