Thought for the Week: Same time, same place
Patricia Gosling reflects on intuitive encounters
The youngest member of our clan paid us a visit recently. At just three years old, he has moved from the baby division of his nursery to the preschool section. He has learned to count from one to ten, and regaled us with his achievement with enormous satisfaction and enthusiasm, inviting us to join in the fun.
The ethos of his preschool is of ‘learning through play’. Since this is simply a continuation of his experience at home, the approach comes naturally to him. He is full of curiosity about his world and its objects, wanting to know how things work and what is, and is not, allowed.
In my professional world, the name of Sigmund Freud is a beacon of light. One might well ask why. Even in his lifetime, his theory of how the mind works was continually changing. Since then, others have built on his legacy, extending and developing the theory beyond recognition, though it has been ironic to watch how the hard science techniques of neuropsychiatry are now confirming some of his intuitive guesses.
What he contributed of lasting significance is the setting of the therapeutic encounter – the regular meetings in the same comfortable space, the firmly held boundaries of the analytic hour and, above all, the principle of professional confidentiality. This setting makes it safe to begin the painful encounter with one’s inner demons, the dismantling of once-needed but now inappropriate defences, and the exploration of who one really is.
I see the Meeting for Worship as performing a comparable function. By its regular gathering – same time, same place – in its time boundaries of one hour, and in the containment provided by the group, it provides a safe place to risk the intuitive encounters with the numinous, the glimpses of ‘Ultimate Reality’ for which we wait.
‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,’ to quote Hebrews 10.31. The Meeting for Worship makes it safe.
I think we need to celebrate that reality. I think we should publicise it more vociferously. The good works, the Quakerly concerns, which arise out of our practice, these speak for themselves and are well-known, if not necessarily fully understood. Our practice of worship is not.
Perhaps we ourselves do not fully comprehend its power and its value. Like a good home, we take it for granted, and use our experience of it to build upon.
We do not recognise it for the considerable achievement that it is.
At a time when church attendance is low, but spiritual hunger rampant, I wish we could find a way of commending what we have to offer to the wider community. How to find the right words to describe a wordless experience, how to discover those channels that might communicate with the inarticulate need! It makes for an interesting challenge.
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