Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 10th August 2025

Dear Friends,

Articulating my faith is hard enough; living it is often beyond me. But we are all connected. Strength seeps in from everywhere and amazing things happen. The sense of participation and communion sweeps over me like ocean waves.

Recently, I have become smitten with the word communion.  To commune with another implies an intensity and intimacy beyond normal interchange. What a joy, a privilege, a gift those rare moments of deep connection are with another human being; perhaps they are grace in action.

True communion with the Divine also seems beyond our bidding or control, however desirable.  Hopefully this should not prevent us from seeking such an experience as we share our silence in Meeting, and how wondrous to have such a sensation “sweep over us like an ocean wave” making us participators in something which unites us a not only as people but also with a divine power so much greater than ourselves. Is that what is meant by a gathered meeting?

The following inclusion of communion is an excerpt from a modern version of Sung Morning Prayer and which touches me greatly.

May we know your loving presence in all life
and be guided by your wisdom and compassion
to turn inwards towards our deepest nature
to know the depths of communion.

Judy Lee

Quakers value diversity. We share this Friend’s message in the hope it will speak to others.

Pastoral Care and Eldership Team: Patricia Cockrell, David Hitchin, Sharon Krummel, Tim Pitt-Payne, Theresa Samms, Emily Slater.