Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 11th September 2022

Dear Friends,

I do believe that there is a power which is divine, creative and loving, though we can often only describe it with the images and symbols that rise from our particular experiences and those of our communities. This power is part and parcel of all things, human, animal, indeed of all that lives. Its story is greater than any one cultural version of it and yet it is embodied in all stories in all traditions. It is a power that paradoxically needs the human response. Like us it is energised by the reciprocity of love.

It wills our redemption, longs for us to turn to it. It does not create heaven and hell for us, but allows us to do that for ourselves. Such is the terrible vulnerability of love.

Harvey Gillman, 1988. QFP 26.31

It seemed to me that there are aspects of this message that are relevant to previous messages that we have been thinking about recently. It reminds me of the breadth of our explorations. We seek to understand one another in the context of Quaker worship. Sometimes it feels as if having the meeting house well attended again has reopened our minds to the expectations and to the tenderness of our current experience.

In Friendship

Nancy, on behalf of the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (Bob Harwood, David Hitchin, Chris Lawson, Tim Pitt-Payne, Theresa Samms, Nancy Wall)