A seasoned Friend shares moving and well-written accounts of meaningful experiences in meeting for worship. The essay will help Friends to appreciate what they, too, have experienced occasionally in worship; it will also help give some answers to the newcomers.

The author maintains that it is part of the spiritual experience of Friends that we, both individually and collectively, have found inspiration and guidance coming to us through our meetings for worship. Drawing upon his experience and discovery, he shares accounts of some of the meetings for worship where Friends were truly touched by God.

This is an account of a number of Quaker meetings where the author and the meeting received a powerful spiritual message. It is nice, but the power doesn't seem to quite come through. ( )

A young Samuel Bownas felt accused during worship in 1696 when Ann Wilson rose and spoke the following message: “A traditional Quaker, [if] thou comest to Meeting as thou went from it and goes from it as thou came to it, but art no better for thy coming[—]what Wilt thou do in the End?” In old Quaker parlance, are we ready to be so convicted today? Kenneth Carroll asks us this question, too, but softens it with a personal understanding of what it feels like to be "touched by God in Quaker meeting." Carroll writes from his own experience that when we come to worship with an openness to the spirit, with a firm belief that God will manifest God’s self in “our own lives, minds, and hearts,” then we, too, can leave meeting “touched by God.” This is one of the many Pendle Hill pamphlets that may take us deeper in our approach to meeting. Pendle Hill pamphlet series subscriptions begin at $25.00 (5 pamphlets a year). ( )

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