Please forgive me in advance. This post will almost certainly be very disjointed. I'm going to attempt to write as I'm waiting for things to load while working. I've begun working 40 hours a week on my new gig. I've got a huge amount I'm trying to learn and the internet networking is very slow today and my outlook is very jumpy so I'm spending a lot of waiting time which I can use to write here.
Thais' School of the Spirit care committee met last night. Bill had invited us over to his house for "low tea". I love Bill and not only because he takes tea very seriously! The repast was delightful with rich butter and cucumber sandwiches and fresh strawberries in winter. The company was a delight, as well. Caroline, Kit, Bill and Thais (Lynda is out of town, I think).
The way our these meetings generally unfold is that Thais tells us about the logistics and agenda for her most recent School of the Spirit retreat. She shared with us some about the Benedictine Sister who had been a speaker at the retreat from which she had just returned. I will not share anything that would breach the confidentiality of our time together but I do want to write about some of what we spoke about.
We began discussing what it means to be obedient to God through our community and how being faithful to community undergirded the spiritual lives of our Quaker antecedents. We spoke a bit of eldering and how we do not know one another nor have sufficient trust relationships built through daily intimacy to help guide one another with loving support through Spirit. We all spoke of some longing to know one another more deeply and to center our lives, individually and collectively, in God. We talked about what it means to be Christian versus Christocentric and what those words mean to us and to other people. Most, if not all of us expressed interest in and a desire for a Bible study group. Most of us have a history with the Bible from the faith traditions of our youth and have studied around the Bible by doing informal scholarship via authors like Bart Ehrman and the Gnostics and other sources. As a group, we feel ready to re-visit the Bible with an open mind and fresh Quaker eyes (listening with tongues).
I can't express how much this group of f/Friends means to me. My heart overflows to be able to speak about my desires, frustrations and yearnings to have my beautiful community truly support and sustain and facilitate and encourage and challenge my awareness of God in my life. The support committee was supposed to be for Thais but I feel like the one benefiting.
1 comment:
Hi - I like your expression of what you get out of being on a committee of care - I've always felt the same, that I gained so much. I'm on a long-standing one now for a dear friend who has gone through (is going through) a challenge to her family, and I'm in awe of the growth and wisdom shared by all. It challenges me to live with more intentionality as well.
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