Trust. Trust the process. Serving a clerk to my meeting I sit at the table as we begin our meeting for worship for business and remind myself to trust the process, to hand matters over to God. We’ve done our preparation, the Quaker business method is tried and tested, and, if we trust in it and use it faithfully, it works. God may not care what colour we paint the walls, but we’ll ask her and see, not make the decision alone.
Trust. Trust the process. In the silence as we begin our study group, I remind myself to trust the process, to hand things over to God. I’ve done the preparation, my introduction will be clear, I’m ready to listen. Creative listening and worship sharing work well, if we trust and use them faithfully. Some participants find these activities quite scary, but it is these deeper, scarier, spiritual works that they come back for month after month.
Trust. Trust the process. Some one once asked me about meeting for worship ‘why don’t you make sure that something happens?’. She had been to meeting once and ‘nothing happened’ so ‘next time I’ll take my knitting’ she told me. I forget exactly how I replied, but it was along the lines of that isn’t the way it works. If it is unprogrammed worship we have to sit in silence, be open and wait, wait for the Spirit to move, and that movement may not show outwardly. What happens is not ours to determine, but if we tamper with the process we will lose that openness to possibility. Thinking about it later I was reassured that this enquirer had said ‘next time’ even if she did intend to ‘take her knitting’.
Trust. Trust the process. I must also trust that taking my practice, any inner stillness I can achieve, any understanding that comes to me, out into the world with me, will work. Trust that the Spirit will be with me, not just in meeting, but all the time, and if I listen, if I am open, if I am aware, I may be guided to act in alignment with the purposes of a greater whole. Then, maybe, I’ll begin to truly ‘walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone‘. Trust also, that if I keep practising, I might manage this for more than five minutes.
