Daily online Meeting for Worship
Each morning from 7:30 to 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Quaker Center hosts a silent, online half-hour online Meeting for Worship in the manner of Friends. The Meeting uses a website called Chatzy that provides a text-only format – no audio or video. You can join the Meeting and read more about it by following the link below. All are welcome.
Quaker Center online meeting for worship.
Wednesday Online Worship Sharing
Each Wednesday from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Quaker Center hosts an online Worship Sharing group. Newcomers are welcome. Click the Zoom link below to join the group.
What is Worship Sharing? During Worship Sharing, friends gather in a worshipful attitude to reflect together on a short text or quote, and some related queries (open ended questions). This activity is similar to a Quaker Meeting for Worship in that, after an initial period of silence, those present speak from their own experience and allow for silence between contributions. Participants usually speak only once, allowing some silence between each sharing, until everyone who wishes to has had a chance to share. Worship Sharing is appreciated by Quakers as a way to explore ideas together, learn and listen deeply, and to get to know one another in a meaningful way.
Zoom link for Quaker Center Wednesday online Worship Sharing
If you’re new to Worship Sharing, you may wish to take a look at these suggested guidelines.
This week’s quote(s):
“It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.”
-Diane Ackerman In A Natural History of the Senses
Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
So let us rather not be sure of anything….
Then miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence,
Lead us.
When we have surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.
-Rumi
“My heart is moved by all I cannot save: So much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”
-Adrienne Rich in Dream Of A Common Language
Queries:
- Do either Rumi or Adrienne Rich speak to your condition?
- When you put them together do they seem to make a whole? Or do they seem to contradict each other?
- How does “we shall be a mighty kindness” speak to you?
- Can these writings help us live in the savage and beautiful country we live in today?
First Wednesday evenings:
in-person Meeting for Worship
Each month on the first Wednesday, we’ll have an evening Meeting for Worship here at Quaker Center from 7:15 to 8:00 p.m. We’ll gather for an informal potluck before hand at about six. All are welcome. Call (831) 336-8333 with any questions, no need to RSVP. We usually meet in the Orchard Lodge, but look for the sign when you drive up – it will tell you where the Meeting for Worship will be held.
2024 YEAR-END NOTE: We will not hold an in-person Meeting for Worship on New Year’s Day 2025, but rather hold it on Wednesday, January 8th, 2025. Come join us!
