Helen Gould

The Quaking Meeting Helen Gould

The Quaking Meeting: transforming our selves, our Meetings and the more-than-human world. Once, Quakers quaked. Some of us still do. I discuss individual and communal practices of Waiting Worship. My theology and practice, like that of first generation Friends, is mystical. In centring down we can directly experience God?s presence: loving, divine energy sensed in our bodies, which can cause physical manifestations like quaking. Such practice transforms our lives, gradually leading us into a life of holy obedience to the Divine. I have learned from the teachings of early Friends, both directly, and mediated through Rex Ambler?s Experiment with Light. Yoga and Buddhism have also inspired me. My findings are illustrated with stories, mostly drawn from my own life, and with Max Raupach?s drawings. In Meetings for Worship we may sense a mystical communion with God through each other. This is the gift of the ?gathered meeting?. The ?power of the Lord? made first generation Friends quake and filled them with power. We, too, can open ourselves to the loving divine energy, and to the naturally arising miracles that become possible for those who live such lives. Transformation may flow through us to others, in an everwidening spiral, embracing the more-than-human world.