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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. 

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.

If you’re new to Worship Sharing, you may wish to take a look at these suggested guidelines.

This week’s quotes:

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

— Thich Naht Hanh “Call Me by My True Names“

This week’s queries:

• How do we create a community of support where each person’s truth can be heard?
• When have I felt supported and held by a group?
• What makes me feel supported?
• Around what do I need support now?
• How can we create a space where even very difficult truths can be heard and held in compassion?
• What does this poem bring up for you? 

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.