Haverford Friends Meeting has been listening deeply to our community in a multi-session process, providing in-person as well as virtual access to all of those who wish to share their sense of the spiritual state of our Meeting for Worship. We have held four sessions, with a total of twenty participants so far. Our conversations will be ongoing.
Over the past year, how is the Spirit moving for you in your own experience of worship?
Can you share your own journey from the heart?
For some, the spirit is moving as we open ourselves to the “beautiful messes” of our lives and respond by saying “yes” with love and caring. Sometimes this means gently pushing against barriers to love and care and sharing our experiences as vocal ministry.
Friends asked: What are we doing when we are in worship together? What are we worshipping? What are we offering? Is there humility and an appreciation of the unexpected in our worship? For many, confusion and uncertainly are natural parts of the spiritual path. Can we allow for them to be expressed? Can we go deeper?
Some of us are attempting to go deeper and to explore uncertainties at this time, while others are seeking in Meeting for Worship a consistent, familiar, and quiet space, an oasis, known to us for many years as our sacred space, to find our center amidst all that has been occurring in the world. Friends value the silence that allows us to go inward in a spiritual way. From week to week, or moment to moment, our needs may change, from seeking consistency to exploring uncertainty.
For some of us, the spirit moves as we sit in silence with the meeting house windows open.
Would being seated closer together and making an effort for all of us to arrive on time lead to a more gathered experience?
Some Friends seek to hear more from those who worship in silence and rarely offer vocal ministry. We wonder: what is your spiritual journey? How can we engage one another while appreciating that some of us draw our spiritual experience from resting in the silence? Would it help to have a “check-in” time at the beginning of Meeting for Worship, with each person having an opportunity to speak?
On the other end of the continuum, for some of us, it can be a challenge to resist the urge to speak often. Internally, we ask ourselves a series of questions including, “Is this message for others, or only for me?” While it can be helpful to ask ourselves these questions, we want to take care not to inhibit each other by setting up structures that discourage our expression of the spirit in its mystery. While eldering can be done with great care, it has also had unintended yet hurtful and long-remembered consequences for our Friends. We seek ways to repair these differences.
How have we – and how can we – foster worship experiences in which all members and attenders know they are loved?
Some of our worshippers silently send messages of love to each person as we gather. Love was described as deep support when people need it. Love is felt when we are approached and appreciated for our vocal ministry. Some in our Meeting celebrate and aspire to a constant ministry of love.
While some Friends embraced the idea of love in the context of our Meeting, others openly acknowledged the challenge of this query. To some, the concepts of welcoming, recognizing, caring, supporting, and nurturing seem more helpful and comfortable than the word “love,” which to some, seems to be losing its meaning in our culture.
No matter how each of us defines love, caring, and support, we seem to agree that we value our connections in this time of transition from the COVID pandemic.
A small group of extremely dedicated Friends has been working tirelessly to create a visual and auditory system to keep our hybrid meeting together. When we offered virtual worship only during the peak of the COVID crisis, our ZOOM breakout rooms afforded meaningful conversations and fostered deeper connections among all of us. For those of us who continue to participate virtually in our hybrid meeting on ZOOM, those conversations have continued. Friends who continue to participate on Zoom find that they can see and hear vocal ministry much more easily than in person, leading to a much better experience. At the rise of meeting, our Zoom breakout rooms continue to promote deep sharing and extended, uninterrupted conversations that are as much a spiritual time as Meeting for Worship.
Some Friends who now attend meeting for worship in person are missing the depth of the connections made in the Zoom breakout rooms, and wanting to connect with Friends who attend virtually. A Friend asked, “Can we recapture that sense of connection?”
At the rise of meeting for worship, when we consider how to bring our in-person meeting participants into contact with those of us who are participating virtually, we want to preserve the consistent, connected, uninterrupted nature of the conversations that have been fostered in our Zoom breakout rooms.
An option could be to offer an in-person “meeting for sharing” following Meeting for Worship, for those who wish to continue to connect spiritually and to worship in a more conversational manner.
Several people who attend Meeting for Worship in person have found that Friends seem to be more connected now that we have resumed greeting one another personally, making eye contact and shaking hands at the rise of Meeting for Worship.
Those participating in person deeply appreciate the tireless work of Friends who have engineered and constantly maintain our hybrid visual and audio system. If possible, we wonder whether in the future, ceiling microphones could be considered, as the experience of walking to and speaking from the central microphone may been impacting and possibly inhibiting vocal ministry for some.
How have you – and how have we as a community – nurtured (nourished, cherished and fed) spirit-led vocal ministry?
Throughout our conversations, we heard that the nature of an unprogrammed meeting for worship offers challenges as well as infinite possibilities. We seek to evoke a spirit of sharing. Allowing for silence allows us to truly experience our own emotions and leadings in unique way, which we share in the form of vocal ministry.
We try to celebrate what each person has to offer and have attempted to build a connection between our Care and Counsel and Spiritual Life committees with the understanding that spirit-led vocal ministry and deep listening may arise from a community where Friends care for and understand one another.
When in worship, we try to stay in the moment, seeing Meeting for Worship as a sacred space, where we are present to what is happening at that time.
When people feel the need to speak to a shared message, (to offer a message that is in some sense a response to one that came before), this is a fragile place for a gathered meeting. At times, the response can be affirming. Yet, some response messages may shift into veiled advice or a redirection of the initial vocal ministry, leading the initial speaker to feel unwelcome or misunderstood. It can feel like a form of crosstalk, as opposed to ministry. We seek to understand this and to find a way to repair the spirit when this happens.
When vocal ministry evokes a feeling of uneasiness, we try to ask, “What is in that message for me?” By staying in the moment, we are adding to a sense of a gathered meeting. Some of us appreciate deep, extended, and genuine personal disclosures in vocal ministry, while others among us are looking for brief thoughts that resonate and leave ample room for reflection. If there is silent discomfort or judgement, or valuing one sort of message over others, it can be felt as a disconnection or disharmony. To be gathered in worship, we need not agree with all messages. To many of us, it is all treasure. The Light shows itself in many ways. When there are misunderstandings, it is important to find a way to repair. The intention of listening openly leads to a gathered Meeting for Worship.
How has your experience of worship impacted your life and your practice of our Testimonies, individually and in community with our Meeting?
Friends shared that to identify as Quaker is a way of life. Through our experiences in Meeting, we have known people who were hugely impactful to us, who led by their example of kindness and gentle listening and helped us to find new perspectives through their honest sharing in vocal ministry.
A common theme is that we all seek to lead deeper, richer lives, to connect with our most profound values and commitments as individuals. We find Meeting for Worship most meaningful when it nourishes our individual commitments to social action, and when it helps our committees’ efforts to work together in a connected way.
At times, our spiritual contemplation leads to social action, as when a Friend re-energized our participation in Family Promise of the Main Line by putting out a call for volunteers at the rise of Meeting for Worship. We have an ongoing goal of balancing our worship with thoughtful, authentic, ongoing, and sustained learning and social action.
Mindful that the generation now entering their twenties is dealing with a level of complexity that is hard for us to imagine, Haverford Meeting shares a connection with Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges. We have reached out by offering monthly dinners to the student community and value their participation in our Meeting.
In summary, we are grateful to all who have taken the time to share their thoughts and feelings about the spiritual life of Haverford Meeting in our sessions to date. We look forward to continuing this listening process by gathering with our Friends in a nearby continuing care retirement community and with our young families. By inviting input from our Friends of all ages, we hope to contribute to the spiritual foundation for future generations of Haverford Friends Meeting.
