Letters - 16 September 2016
From spiritual discernment to academies
Spiritual discernment
I have to take issue with Janette Denley’s (2 September) opening statement.
This is a council of despair. How can every member and every attender, from last Sunday’s new arrival onward, ‘understand fully and be both willing and able to practice spiritual discernment’? So, is the Society condemned to failure and disfunction?
People are at different stages in their spiritual growth. I have been a member for fifty-eight years (not counting childhood or teenage). I have always struggled with Meeting for Worship and continue to do so; I am not even sure now that I do experience ‘a gathered Meeting’ – though I recognise when a Business Meeting needs to stop for a few minutes of silence and remind ourselves we are in worship together. I value all the more those in my Meeting who have this gift.
I began to get a glimpse about discernment when serving on Sufferings/Central Nominations Committee: how a member/attender senses the call to minister; how a clerk discerns a minute; how an elder discerns when to help a Meeting in difficulty, or to ask someone ministering who has gone off track to finish; how faithfully researching a subject or a name for nomination can then settle in the minds and hearts of the group (Local Meeting or committee) to a right choice; and how we each as individuals and as groups find what is required of us, day by day. Every challenge, every decision keeps us growing.
I heartily agree with Janette about the testing of concerns, and Meetings need encouragement to teach it, drawing on the experience of those further along the path.
Janet Sturge
Peace, spelling and punctuation
Personally, I am much more drawn to a badge that displays to the world that Quakers ‘Practise Peace’, than one which addresses only Quakers and displays to the world that we command ourselves to ‘Practise Peace’!
I have an inbuilt resistance to obeying such commands, which create anything but peace within me, as does seeing the word ‘Practise’ used as a verb, spelled the American way!
Sue Holden
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