Thoughts about Business Meeting; Spiritual Preparation

Thoughts about Business Meetings

The business of our Monthly Meeting continues even during these times when the COVOD-19 virus keeps us physically apart from one another. The challenge of seeking God's will is always with us. Now that we meet in virtual meetings for worship and business, we are tempted to think it will be more difficult. Yet as we reflect, the required disciplines are the same when we are together in the same room or when we are together in a virtual zoom meeting. Friends business meetings are at least as important as our meetings for worship for corporate discernment of how the Divine Spirit will guide our faith community. There are many good references that introduce one to Friends distinctive way of doing business and they are all worth reading or attending if provided in workshops at Friends gatherings or locally at Pendle Hill. The effectiveness of the practice when fully entered into has been admired by many organizations outside of the Society of Friends and for a while in the early 2000's it was proposed as model for commercial business to imitate.

There are structural (if you will) aspects of the meeting for Business and there are there is the spiritual foundation that allows the structure to be of service in the search for the faithful response to God's leading will. A rough outline of the structure:

• A clerk that sits aside and listens and discerns the sense of the Meeting
• Participants
  • some who will present a topic for discernment
  • some who will consider what has been presented and offer questions seeking clarity or requesting/offering additional information to help fully understand the topic
  • some who hold all in prayer in their hearts of love

• Phases of the business meeting

• centering/letting go of self
• presentation of topic
• time of clarification
• obtaining a gathered understanding of the topic
• consideration of topic as received
• additional questions
• growth of acceptance of proposed action or suggestions of an alternate path forward
  • discernment by the Clerk of the unity or disunity of those gathered with the proposed action
  • Presentation of minute of action by the Clerk
    • Acceptance of the minute or acknowledgment of the lack of unity on the proposed minute
  • If approved, a breath prayer of thankfulness
  • If not approved, the holding over of the topic while Friends consider why they could not come to unity, revelation of new path or yielding (standing aside) to the original, or acknowledgment of the need for prayerful work to be continued search for unity in understanding God's will on the topic (holding over)

These aspects of business meeting structure rest upon how successful each individual is in entering into the first phase of the business meeting - centering/letting go of self.

How do we know that we are ready to enter into discerning God's will on a topic of business? Bill Tabor, a life-long member of Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative wrote about his five "Gut" feelings that he came to know as the indicators that he had come into that "inward space" where self-yielded to spiritual listening and faithful obedience to Divine will has occurred. The realization of now being ready for business he likened to stepping into a stream. The gut feelings also served as a signpost that he had stepped out of the stream and hence needed to return to that first phase of prayerful preparing before continuing to participate in business discernment.

Bill's five gut feelings are not a step 1,2,3 ... guide to successful centering. They are challenging and joyful inward transformations that occur as one is attentive and prayerfully yielding. The gut feelings are joyful because they are nurtured and experienced with the individuals of our beloved community. Love abounds as the gut feelings grow. The belly of love is what our best business meeting decisions are birthed from.

1. Joy in being together

"joy of coming together and being with these familiar faces. It is the joy of being again with the blessed fellowship .. "

"It is the joy at feeling the organic connection with ... these people, joy at feeling our linkage with them through the Spirit and through our common work."

2. Joy at being with God

"the joy and awe and comfort at being once again in the presence of the Great Friend ... the Healer .. the Forgiver... who can give such joy and peace"

"Admittedly, it is difficult to lay aside one's dep and passionate involvement in some concern to come before the meeting, but it can be done in the presence of the Great Friend"

"We are in the presence of the Absolute Other, something far greater than ourselves, yet something which is our Friend, bring us into alert, honest communion.”

" we move into an alter state of consciousness where we become amazingly relaxed and amazingly alert at the same time"

3. Joy of Assurance

"as we rest in that Presence .. we feel our selves cradled, supported, held up by those everlasting arms"

"it is the deep assurance of being filled with the water of life ... At this point there may be no words , only a sense of unity"

"It is as if we are entering a stream ... which is as real as stepping into a stream of water, so there is no doubt we are surrounded by that Stream of Living Unity."

4. Joy of Trust

"a deep feeling of trust, which we experience as the silence deepens and the power grows around us"