Today's meeting had sharings from Advice and Queries. Also someone shared Wordsworth's Daffodils - which I found surprisingly more useful than a 19thC romantic should be in this context.

Gainsborough Quaker Burial Ground/garden, site dates from circa 1700

Good chat today before the main meeting between the newbs group. How would you describe Quakerism to a 19 year old apprentice plumber?

Back with the doggy after today's meeting. Four ministries two on Trump stuff - British Soldiers and Minnesota murders. You have silence for weeks then 5 people speaking - it like London Buses

Conversation needs true listening though - silence is space to let the other speak and appreciate what they have said. Thank you for listening.

Our silent conversation is a dialogue not just with God but the wisdom of those that went before. We are in conversation when gnawing on bones of a provoking phrase or saying or the prompts for self examination in Advice and Queries or the ministry - the sharing of - others.

The early Quakers had good reason to reject liturgy, their witness on this is clear. Let us also remember that the Scots fought a shooting war in the 17th Century with liturgy as one of the causes. Conversation has always the potential for political disagreement, even as liturgy, even as silence.

However, the point about silence in our conversation with God is well made - and we should wrestle with that if we sit in silence and call it a conversation.

As we have sat together in silence for 3/4 hour, let me say I do not think this is a rebuke to us in this meeting. Instead it is like listening in to someone else’s conversation on a bus. Leo is talking in the context of the Mass, the traditional Latin wording against more modern vernacular words

Pope Leo said "Jesus Christ radically transforms man’s relationship with God [into] a relationship of friendship. The Revelation of God has the nature of friendship and, as in the experience of human friendship, it does not tolerate silence, but is nurtured by the exchange of true words”

An article from the Tablet popped in my feed a couple of days ago. It quoted Pope Leo.

At the Friends Meeting House in Gainsborough Lincolnshire today for Weekly meeting and shared this short ministry. Please forgive the vanity of sharing it here