9:30a-10am: optional fellowship.
Friends Room: Coffee and tea will be available on-site
Zoom: bring your own beverage
10:00am- 12:30pm: workshop
In this workshop, we’ll learn from each other, practicing grounding and listening techniques that could be brought into our everyday lives.
“To ‘listen’ another’s soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performs for another”
— Douglas Steere, “On Listening to Another,” p14
Among Friends when we talk about listening, we don’t only refer to the words that have been spoken. We seek for the message beneath the words of another. This kind of listening grows stronger with practice.
As we listen to each other, can we separate the message from our reactions and responses? Can we listen with an open heart, seeking to understand the condition of the speaker? This deep-hearted listening can be helpful with any social interaction, yet becomes an essential part of spiritual practice in our community of Friends.
Have you considered a practice of just listening, without responding or giving advice? Are you interested in honing your spiritual accompaniment skills? We welcome you to join us for a morning of listening practice.
To participate using Zoom, click this link or provide the meeting ID 895 3475 3793 and passcode 703444 (if requested) on Zoom.com, the Zoom app, or after calling 1-646-558-8656.
We will try to provide childcare, if you make a request in advance to childcarerequest@fmcquaker.org.
Contact Sarah Allen, Leo Bray, Jan Nisenbaum and Patricia Wild at pastoralcare@fmcquaker.org
Friend Mary Rose O’Reilley writes “Living in Sacred Time”…
Attention. Deep listening. People are dying in spirit for lack of it….if someone truly listens to me, my spirit begins to expand…So it is with spiritual companionship. If someone pays attention to the part of me that struggles to know God, my search intensifies. The questing spirit grows bold enough to claim its path. If someone believes with me in the amazement of grace, prays with me, and reminds me of God’s tenderness, I live more thoroughly and bravely in sacred time.
One can, I think, listen someone into existence, encourage a stronger self to emerge or a new talent to flourish.
—“Deep Listening” Friends Journal 40, no. 11 (November 1994): pp 16–18.
