Comment by Raye on 9th mo. 7, 2010 at 8:29am

Thanks - I cannot think of anything to add. Thee has put into words not only what I have seen while visiting meetings, but have given good advice for ways to avoid slipping from meeting for worship into a group of people sharing their feelings and opinions.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 7, 2010 at 3:34pm

So when will the rest-of-week period get energized and enriched by having us seek consciousness of God's presence in those little matters of what comes to our attention, who we're interacting with socially, and how, what we're thinking and expressing and being taught out in a world created-by and also belonging to God? (Is this a rhetorical question? This too is flippant, and also quite serious.)

Comment by Tom Smith on 9th mo. 7, 2010 at 4:00pm

I think it is important to have significant periods of time after Meeting both for "prepared concerns" from the week and from social interactions, as well as time for responses to messages during Meeting that were more human responses than Spirit led.

Comment by Martin Kelley on 9th mo. 7, 2010 at 6:08pm

I had the pleasure of attending worship with Chronicler's monthly meeting earlier this year. They are geographically spread out and meet at various locales; this week's worship was at his apartment. After the rise of worship we ate a long lingering meal together. After that various people stayed and chatted. I must have been there for around six hours-- and it would have been longer except that Chronicler had to get onto a scheduled conference call to plan yearly meeting activities.

I can't remember the last time I just lingered in post-worship fellowship with Friends like that. It's a more common experienced lately that the last car is out of the driveway twenty minutes after the rise of worship. So I do want to say it's possible to both have deep, Christ-filled worship *and* personal fellowship and sharing. They go together quite well.

Comment by Chronicler on 9th mo. 7, 2010 at 9:15pm

Forrest is entirely correct that the Lord acts to teach all of us throughout our daily activities. I wholeheartedly agree that we need to be on the lookout for direction that way.

My main point in the post, though, was that there is something simple one may do in order to deepen our times of worship both corporately and individually by opening more space for a deeper communion.

A Friend mentioned to me that he recently had a message to share in a particular meeting. When he was done speaking, he was amazed by the awe-inspiring and immediate sense of the presence of the Lord (which he felt was clearly different from a sense that he had done a good job). This is good stuff that happens infrequently but is both amazing and impossible to describe with words.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 7, 2010 at 11:29pm

I too have been annoyed by people who rise to speak about politics because nothing else seems quite real to them. And I've also found some times and places more overtly 'sacred' than others, and loved them. But then I lived into different times and places, and had to remind myself that these were equally sacred. Part of what makes that so hard is...

When we've had our hour of worship-- it's like that hour hasn't touched anyone. "That was worship; this is refreshments; next we'll do business." More reverence for the Meeting period doesn't seem enough-- if there's no reverence left for what happens next.

I'm struggling with a worldview that doesn't leave much room for, or assign much importance to, the kind of experiences you're talking about... and it's a depressingly common worldview; people don't realize they're stuck in it; and if you call it to their attention, they're too stuck in it to see it as anything but common sense. I'm as likely to see it at work at Meeting as anywhere else. Some Friends have traditional expectations, of what seems fitting and what seems not, that are supposed to keep the secular stuff from impinging, but can that help people who've seemingly lost any power to recognize the sacred, in Meeting either?

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