Being the Beloved:
stories of ongoing transformation in daily life
By Michelle Layton, Spiritual Director
“For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from God.” —Psalm 62:5
This week I attended my first Quaker worship service. I welcomed the invitation of an hour of communal silence. The world has grown so noisy and even finding my place in traditional “Christian churches” has left me crestfallen and longing for more of Jesus.
As I found my way to the meeting, held at a local community center, I saw the simple circle of sixteen chairs. I noticed the established name tags. I found the familiar “Hello My Name Is” sticky and wrote my name with a big black Sharpie. I looked around the room and found a seat next to a woman who was friendly and made light conversation.
I’m not sure how it began, but soon it was audibly silent. I felt free as my mind wandered over the ways God had been present with me in the past week. I thought about my teenagers—because I am often thinking of my teenagers. I remembered the Genesis reading from my Lectio group the previous week. During the Lectio session, in that communal silence of three women, a passage shared three times, with deep silence held after each reading, God’s presence was palpable. I’m often amazed at what God brings to mind; it rises to the surface, is sifted in the space of the listening, and what is to remain is clarified and deepened. In the Lectio silence, I was comforted by the awareness that God is not surprised by what I and my teens are experiencing in this broken world. I experienced God’s peace as I felt powerfully aware of God’s presence with me and with those teens I love.
Sitting in the Quaker silence, in a circle with sixteen souls I had never met before, I felt attuned to the holy silence in the presence of others. Eventually, a man broke the silence with a word about the terrible practice of children being separated from their parents by the government. I thought of my children, of my privilege, and felt an awareness that my children belong first to God. After another silence, an Iranian man spoke of a word given to him in his meditation this week which means “country less.” He sensed the anxiety of the people committing harm and violence at the behest of our government. He spoke with sadness, with compassion, and with love. I recalled my longing for my children to always feel known and loved by God, by each other, by me, and by their dad. Brief silence was shared and broken this time by the young woman sitting beside me who brought prayers for a Gaza refugee grieving the recent loss of her father. She shared the phrase “to Allah we belong and to Allah we will return.” In that familiar phrase, I again sensed God’s presence with me. After another brief pause in silence, a member brought the meeting to a close by warmly reaching for each of the hands beside him, which extended all the way around the circle to me.
May we all have spaces that deepen our awareness of God’s loving and abiding presence. Amen.
Michelle is a massage therapist and offers spiritual direction in Poulsbo, WA, and online. Holding space for others as they listen for what God wants to deepen is her JOY! When she is not baking something tasty, she can be found wandering local trails with her golden retriever, Charlie. She shares life with her husband and teenagers in a little cottage by the Salish Sea in Indianola.
What books, media, activities are nurturing your heart, soul, mind, strength in this season as we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves? Post in the comments below or hop on over to our Facebook page and share with one another.