The following is a Vitality email sent February 20, 2026. To sign up for Vitality, click here.

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At Central Committee, as we moved to unity, it felt like a convergence. It was spiritual. It was visceral. The only time I’ve felt spiritual clarity to that great of an extent was the time that I flew in a plane to New Orleans.

-Chase Salazar

Sensing Alignment

This weekend, FGC’s new Governing Board will meet near Dayton, Ohio. We are starting a new chapter! The Governing Board is made up of volunteer Friends with many gifts who help to steer the direction for FGC. The Board was formed in October.

Recently, I spoke with Chase Salazar, a traveling Quaker minister who serves on the Governing Board. While we were sharing about our personal lives and spiritual lives, he began to tell me about what a spiritual experience it was to participate in FGC governance. Chase served on Central Committee last year. He talked about the sense of unity, sweetness, and powerful certainty that moved through him at one point in business meeting. He could tell: “We have aligned with Spirit here.”

What did that feel like? How would he describe it?

Parts of his experience at Central Committee were fairly routine. He was “reading reports, going to the [business meeting] session, and reading reports after.” At some point, though, business meeting began to shift. “The procedural elements had moved to the backseat,” bringing the body to a deeply spiritual place — a gathered meeting.

“We had finished the scheduled discussions of a committee report. The group was asking: ‘So what does this all mean for where we are going? Let’s take some silence.’” And in the silence, he said, he felt a visceral, physical feeling of things coming together. “I knew that we had aligned with Spirit – I could feel it. It felt like a rising tide had reached a certain point and it was tipping over.”

Convergence

“The only time that I’ve felt that kind of spiritual clarity was the time that I flew in a plane to New Orleans,” Chase said. “As we flew over the Delta, I jolted awake, maybe because of the spiritual energy, and saw it. I saw the convergence of water.” He knew that he was looking out at the Mississippi, and as he gazed at the powerful river below, he felt its spiritual energy. Chase explained: “The Mississippi was important to Black people. My dad’s from that region, and it looms large in the Black public memory, and for my family.”

Then he added, “Attending Central Committee felt like looking at that water. It felt like jolting awake and looking down.”

Imagine if all decision-making bodies, spiritual and secular, could feel an alignment like that.

How different would things be in our world?

Please hold the Governing Board in your prayers this weekend as Friends meet once again to discern Divine will, right action, and communal clarity.

Johanna Jackson

Communications Coordinator