Beautiful of soul

After a one year hiatus, I finally returned to the Quaker church that breathed new spiritual life into me after the trauma that was the SP internship. This Sunday was potluck Sunday, and I was warmly invited to partake of it by several church members, most of whom are Medicare-eligible. I respectfully declined because my mom and sister had been frantically calling me during worship to ask me to come home and have family lunch. That's the way my family likes to plan things, last-minutely and with great urgency - and if you say no, you violate the codes of filial piety.

Worship at Quaker services, at least the Friends meeting (the only one I've ever attended), is very simple. When you arrive, you sit in a circle facing one another. Silence lasts for an hour. There is no preaching or outward rites or ceremonies because the emphasis is on the reality of the inward experience. Since there are no paid clergy, if someone feels led by the Spirit to speak, they may rise and give their word in order to enhance worship and deepen the silence. "The religious practices of Friends are found in direct communion with God and the conviction that the Divine Light is accessible to all; yet is one Light, one Truth.... Desiring to avoid symbolism that may tend to supplant substance, we do not observe traditional sacraments. Friends seek to view all of life as sacramental." As someone who is deeply interested in and exploring the contemplative stream of spirituality, the Quakers' style of worship does my soul a lot of good.

The discovery of this bottomless thirst for a rich inner life came about during summer 06, while in Cambodia and reading Stream of Living Water by Richard Foster, a Quaker author and theologian. The book covers six different traditions of the Christian faith, including tidbits of church history and spiritual biographies to supplement each section. The contemplative tradition appealed to me the most and left an immense longing for intimacy with the Divine. Probably the most memorable biography is that of Frank Laubach, who devoted his life to prayer and consequently developed a literacy program in remote parts of the Philippines and eventually worldwide. Laubach's life is particularly meaningful to me because his devotion to God went hand-in-hand with his concern for the broken and bleeding of humanity. Prayer was both an act of worship and a tuning in to the heartbeat of God, which ached for the world in pain.

In the words of Laubach: "God, what is man's best gift to mankind? To be beautiful of soul and then let people see into your soul."