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Quaker Practice This Month's Blog Post

The Hold-In-The-Light List

Every First Day, at the end of Silent Worship, the clerk of Reno Friends Meeting reads the Hold-in-the-Light List. This is a list of all those we are “holding in the Light of God.” It usually includes the names of loved-ones we are concerned about because of illness, injury or trouble, and also a statement extending our concern to “all those who live in places where there is strife and need.” In difficult times, the list can get quite long.

Like many other Quaker Meetings, we have always had a Hold-in-the-Light List, but at Reno Friends we haven’t always read it at close of Worship. We started doing that a few years ago during the pandemic. I do not remember who thought of reading it after Worship, but I soon came to appreciate how important the reading of the list was for our small Meeting.

To “hold someone in the Light” is the Quaker way of saying we will pray for them. When I say it, I imagine the person sitting in a beam of God’s love and light, soaking in the healing goodness. I like to think that God’s love and light is always there, ready for someone to step into the circle (or be carried there by the concern of another), so that they can feel their world illuminated by love. It feels better to me than praying, perhaps because the prayers I heard as a child always seemed like beseeching God to do what someone wanted – to heal a friend, relieve someone’s burden, or turn fate in our favor. Instead of asking God for what I want, I just imagine the person I’m concerned about bathed in the Light.

One of the things I love about Quakers is that everyone has their own take on things, including the concept of holding someone in the Light. At a recent Spiritual Discussion, Reno Friends shared their differing perspectives. Some said that holding someone in the Light feels like they are reaching out to shine that Light on them. One woman said she envisions a radiating loving kindness coming through her from a power outside or behind her. Others said they center down into Silent Worship by holding in the Light all those who are in the room, one by one. As one Friend said, “I assume God will know what I mean and what is needed.”

What I came to understand during the pandemic was that the Hold-in-the-Light list was a vital reminder of how much hurt and sadness was afoot in the world, and in our small circle. People listed friends who had been sick, relatives who needed medical care, people they knew who were lonely or struggling. The list also included many of our Meeting members and attenders at various times. There was loss and grief in the Meeting, and the list was our testament to that difficult truth.

I have little doubt that our Hold-in-the-Light list strengthened the sense of community in our Meeting during that challenging time, when we could not gather in our Meeting House and had to rely on Zoom for worship, discussions, meetings and social get-togethers. The list helped keep us united despite our isolation, and tender toward each other and the world. The list became more important than ever.

As we head into the season of Light this December – the celebration of the Star of Bethlehem, the Hanukkah candles on the Menorah, and the Kwanzaa lights – I am reminded of the power of God’s Light and how holding someone who is hurting in the sweet bath of that Light can be a step toward healing. Sharing the Hold-in-the-Light list every First Day keeps our Meeting cohesive and concerned about one another. It reminds us that this Friend is worried about her elderly sister; that another is grieving the death of a dear companion; that someone else is weighed down by illness. And it reminds us to reach out and find a way to help.

Wendy Swallow, Blog Editor, Reno Friends Meeting

The opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of Reno Friends Meeting.

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Meeting Community

Cultivating Joy

This is the second of my blogs on The Book of Joy by The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. The first was essentially a book review (https://www.renofriends.org/the-book-of-joy/#more-5464). This second blog is about my experiences of cultivating joy using the practices in the book over the last six months.

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Quaker Practice

The Gifts of Silence

My husband and I were hiking on a ridge above Lake Tahoe recently when I suddenly realized I could hear almost nothing. This happens out west – if you go far enough off-road you can often find a place beyond the whine of the highway or the hum of the city. We were hiking late in the day, so there were few others around. Even the birds were quiet. The tall pines and slanting light made it feel like we were walking through holy space, the world hushed in reverence.

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Meeting Community

Bittersweet Wisdom

We all have something to say about loss, because all of us have experienced it – yearning for what used to be, but is no more. And perhaps, as our years pass, we wrestle with the issue of loss even more, having chewed some of the gristle of life, as it were, not just the low-hanging fruit.

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Quaker Testimonies

Testimony Pie

Reno Friends recently gathered on Zoom for a spiritual discussion about the Quaker “testimonies,” shared truths that Quakers have distilled from their spiritual experience down through the last 350 years. The most common Quaker testimonies spell out the acronym SPICES – Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality/Equity and Stewardship. We use the term “testimonies” because each person’s experience illuminates different aspects of these shared truths.

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Quaker Practice

The Book of Joy

In March I went on a retreat to Graeagle. My friend, Peggy, sent along The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu. What an amazing teaching this book was for me during my sacred time! It was exactly what I needed. Before my retreat, I had been feeling increasingly hopeless about the future of humanity and all of our relations that share this planet with us. This is a familiar issue for me and one I’ve blogged about before.

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Quaker Practice

Growing Old, Gracefully

The Reno Friends monthly book club recently met to ponder both the challenges and blessings of growing older. Or at least to try and find a few blessings.

Our book for the month was On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Growing Old, by Quaker writer Parker Palmer, a primer to both the yin and yang of the aging experience.

Categories
Quaker World

Toward a Life-Centered Economy

As a young Friend, I care deeply about the state of the world and what we can do to reduce climate change and rebalance our economy. I recently read Toward a Life-Centered Economy by John Lodenkamper, Paul Alexander, Pete Baston, and Judith Streit, and it left me feeling deeply inspired about the future.

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Meeting Community

Our Remembrance Gathering

In the past few years, several members and attenders of our Quaker Meeting lost someone important to them – either through death or illness or into the obscurity of dementia. Others had moved, or lost or changed jobs, which entailed other losses.

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Meeting Community

Seekers and Seeking

Quaker Meetings often attract seekers, those who yearn for the mystery and comfort of a spiritual life but who haven’t yet found their spiritual home. There is something about the open silence of unprogammed Silent Worship – the heart of Quakerism – that seekers find welcoming, even liberating. There is no sermon, no lectionary, no spiritual music, so each person can experience the silence in whatever way helps her or him feel and understand the mystery of God.