Four Doors to Meeting for Worship
This Month’s Theme: Centering
Friends “center down” when they enter into communal worship, leaving worldly thoughts behind to focus on the presence of the divine.
This month you are invited to reflect on your own process for centering and experiment with new ways to still your mind and body.
Your Daily Quaker Message
“Entering into worship often feels to me somewhat like entering into a stream, which, though invisible to our outward eye, feels just as real as does a stream of water when we step into it. Just as bathing in a real stream of pure flowing water needs no justification to the one who has experienced the vitality it brings, so entering into the stream of worship needs no justification to one who has experienced the healing, the peace, the renewal, the expansion which accompanies this altered state of consciousness. I once thought worship was something I do, but for many years now it has seemed as if worship is actually a state of consciousness which I enter, so that I am immersed into a living, invisible stream of reality which has always been present throughout all history. In some mysterious way this stream unites me with the communion of the saints across the ages and brings me into the presence of the Living Christ, the Word, the Logos written of in the Gospel of John.”
— William Taber, 1992
Four Doors to Meeting for Worship
Today’s Invitation
Imagine worship as Taber describes it, an alternate reality that you can access any time. Before holding a few minutes of silence, envision a stream of reality that has been present throughout all history, which you are about to enter.
Query of the Week
What is your process for centering in worship?
What does “centered-ness” mean to you? What does it feel like when you reach a centered state?
