Sharing experiences at Malvern
Lea Cowin writes about a gathering of Friends at Malvern
The headline on the flyer for the late November weekend at Malvern was: ‘Sharing our stories over a morning, finishing with a shared lunch’. The aim of the workshop, led by facilitators Geoffrey Durham and Eoin McCarthy, was to encourage us all in Britain Yearly Meeting to help deepen the communal spirituality of Quaker Meetings. The path to knowing one another in the things that are eternal by sharing personal experience is at the heart of the Quaker faith and yet rarely shared with each other.
If you feel your community has achieved this and continues to do so then this workshop is probably not for you. However, over the last two years I have been very fortunate in that I have been helped and supported by my Local and Area Meeting to take part in the Woodbrooke Equipping for Ministry programme. Over and over again during this time I met so many Quakers, attenders and members, new and long standing, expressing a longing for this deepening of communal spirituality – something I was seeking for myself. So, I was immediately drawn to take part in the workshop at Malvern, and the first book I was given when I started attending Quaker Meeting at Worcester only five years ago was Being a Quaker: A Guide for Newcomers by Geoffrey Durham! Doesn’t every newcomer receive it?
There were four of us from Worcester Meeting. Geoffrey Durham and Eoin McCarthy very quickly created a ‘safe space’ by sharing their own stories and encouraged each of the participants to try this for themselves.
We worked together in ever-changing small groups – each time given a subject to talk about. The first few exercises were ‘just a minute’ (but we could hesitate and repeat words!). The topics at this stage were opportunities to reveal something of ourselves, about coming to Meeting for the first time and our personal experiences. When it was my time to talk the others in the group just listened, heard me, held me. This is often called ‘creative listening’ and when done well is done with trust in confidentiality, and there is no fear of being judged or advised in any way. This was apparent in the groups I worked with and made me feel safe. This is the most important aspect of sharing at a deep level because the safer I feel the deeper I can go and reveal myself. And the deeper I reveal myself the more opportunity there is for others to know me. Equally, when listening and hearing others’ stories the more I can know them.
Then each person talked for five minutes and as the subjects deepened the knowing happened. In the final exercise I was ready to speak of, and listen to, spiritual, peak, mystical experiences within Meeting for Worship and personally. I would call this speaking from the heart, from a soul level. Parker J Palmer, in his book A Hidden Wholeness, names this way of being as speaking from ‘personal authenticity’.
What was remarkable for me was that, in a relatively short time, I arrived feeling I was sitting in a room of strangers and went away feeling I had left a room of old friends. Even though I didn’t work with everyone, there was a shared atmosphere of spiritual community. Creating community at this level is challenging, difficult and embarrassing. It can create great vulnerability and is a skill that has to be learnt and relearned many times. It can be heart-wrenching and very painful. And it may not be for everyone. But it can be lovely, remarkable, delightful, humbling, stimulating and joyful. Most importantly, in my experience, it helps one to see both within oneself and in others the dark and the light, the good and the bad, the strength and the vulnerabilities. And, for me, that is how I find that of God in everyone and everything. It is hoped that this short workshop is going to be available more widely for Friends.
A two-day workshop, entitled ‘Quakers Sharing Experience’, is planned at Glenthorne on 15-17 June.
