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7 Butty Place
Hamilton, Ontario L8S 2R5
www.quaker.ca/hamilton
quakers@hwcn.org
Telephone: 905.523.8383
Nov 14 Don
Nov 21 Robbie M
Nov 28 No one!
Dec 5 Christina
Dec 12 Betty P
Dec 19 Louise
Dec 26 Andy
We need a Friend to arrive at 10:30 to open the Meeting House and to provide a welcoming presence, on a regular basis. If you are moved to offer this service, please speak to the clerk, Beverly Shepard. In the meantime, we encourage anyone who has a key to come early.
Meeting for Worship for Business: Thursday Dec 2 at 7:30
Celebration of Hanna Newcombe's work with Peace Research
Institute-Dundas Sat Dec 4, 2-5 pm at the Meeting House
Jane Zavitz Bond potluck on Archives; date to be announced (a Sunday
afternoon in late January)
Meeting retreat (weekend, residential) ( with Margaret Slavin) April
2005
On Oct 18 we had a potluck to say farewell to Rick and Tam, who have now moved to Winnipeg. It promises to be a place from which Rick can pursue an academic career, and Tamara may undertake further studies. It is also close to Rick's family. They have been a vital presence and will be missed by Hamilton Meeting.
rickmccutcheon (at) yahoo (dot)ca
tamaraflemingmail (at) yahoo(dot)ca
We were informed recently that Bruce Smith had died in June 2004. He attended Hamilton Meeting sporadically for a number of years. For the past several years he was living in a nursing home in Burlington due to a chronic illness, and unable to attend Meeting. Our last contact with him was about a year ago.
Dave K. wrote in October to inform us that he has decided to attend the Theravada Buddhist Society in Toronto on Sunday so won't be coming to meeting again for the foreseeable future. He and Jan would like to thank everyone at meeting for allowing Jan and him to worship with us and he wished us all the very best. We wish them well in their spiritual journey.
Here is what I said at Dan and Heather's wedding Oct 10th in NYC
We will share a brief period of silent worship, after the manner of Quakers, looking deeply within ourselves to find, in an inner quiet, our feelings of gratitude for this wedding, for Dan and Heather's future lives together, and for our lives.
Before our minute of silence begins, I will mention that there is also a Quaker marriage certificate, that Father Barrie will read out to us, shortly. At the reception, each of you, as witnesses to this wedding, are asked to sign the certificate.
In a fairly short time, I will break the silence with a few words I have chosen to speak on this happy occasion.
When Betty and I were looking for our wedding rings, we saw one that was particularly appealing: a pattern of leaves between the two rims of the ring, and she said, "Leaves are eternal." We chose them. Why should leaves speak so deeply to us?
First, they ARE eternal. They grow, nourish the tree, and though they will wither and end their individual lives with the cycle of the seasons, we may be certain that new leaves will always grow again, and in this way they will be there eternally.
Second, leaves are a metaphor for the love that grows and nourishes two people in their marriage, allowing them to touch the eternal for their adult lifetime.
And third, the experience of married love is too profound and precious to be spoken of in poor plodding literal words. We need metaphor to help us towards what is not quite say-able, or fully known.
I invite you to think of marriage with the metaphor of trees (as well as leaves). Two people whose wedding promise to cherish each other can be imagined as two trees growing next to one another, their roots set in their promise to each other, sharing the sun, the rain, the wind, and their growth. They are separate beings, not identical, but each grows towards its own maturity, in the supportive company of the other. They have both risen from seedlings, and, together, will in their turn give rise to new life.
We love you both, and wish you full and rich married life.
Since my appeal in September we have received very generous support from Friends. Nevertheless, indications are that expenses for 2004 will exceed income.
The treasurer's report is attached to the end of the minutes of meeting for worship for business. I would like to reiterate what I said in September: "our budgeted spending on Social Justice donations and subscriptions to the Canadian Friend are at risk. Last year I issued about 40 charitable receipts. Spread over 40 donors, this year's income target represents about $600 per donor. Of course some our Friends lack the financial ability to contribute so much, consequently we can reach this average only if some Friends contribute substantially more and /or if more Friends/friends make monetary contributions. I ask Friends to consider if they are contributing the right amount to support the life of the meeting."
Columbian (medium roast), Midnight Obsession (dark roast), Espresso and Decaf Espresso are available at the Meetinghouse. All coffee is sold in pound bags on a wholesale plus shipping cost basis. Slight variations in price are due to shipping cost variations. To buy coffee or to make a request for a type of coffee, please talk to Glenna.
As always, minutes of this month's meeting for worship for business are in the Reading Room.
We recognize a variety of ministries. In our worship these include those who speak under the guidance of the Spirit, and those who receive and uphold the work of the spirit in silence and prayer. We also recognize as ministry service on our many committees , hospitality and childcare, the care of finance and premises, and many other tasks. We value those whose ministry is not in an appointed task but is in teaching, counseling, listening, prayer, enabling the service of others, or other service in the Meeting or the world.
The purpose of all our ministry is to lead us and other people into closer communion with God and to enable us to carry out those tasks which the Spirit lays upon us.
Britain Yearly Meeting
Quaker Faith and Practice, section 10.05
Submitted by Mona Callin
By Cynthia Bourgault
Cowley Publlications, © 2004
This is my second book review on the meeting of Chnstianity and Buddhism.
I just finished my second read of this wonderful little book. It was a gift from Vera Isaac, whom some of you will remember at Meeting before she and Stan moved to Vernon. It is a lucid and poetic exposition of a prayer practice which Quakers would find very sympathetic; indeed, Bourgault says she got her start in contemplative practice as a child attending a Quaker school. It is also a useful comparison of Eastern meditative practices with Christian contemplation.
Centering Prayer is largely the work of Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk who was visited by many young Catholics in the 1970s asking directions to the nearby Insight Meditation Society, the motherhouse of Buddhist meditation in the USA. He and Father Thomas Meninger wanted to find a Christian path for spiritual growth and found it in the contemplative practices of the Desert Fathers in the 4-5th C, and in Eastern Orthodox practice, and the 14th C "Cloud of Unknowing".
Centering prayer is founded on the idea that God is here and everywhere, but it is our "false self" that gets in the way of a direct relationship. The False self is our thinking self which operates in the service of security, power, and esteem. She says that humans suffer from a "tragic case of mistaken identity", identifying with the false self rather than with our self in God. During a prayer period the false self surfaces as the thinking mind; in centering prayer one sits in "intentional silence", aiming one"s heart at God, and as each thought arises, it is gently let go, usually with the aid of a "sacred word", like God, love, still, trust. Bourgault talks about how this practice "brings the mind into the heart" and develops a "magnetic centre" in our being which can be felt physically during the practice, with the letting go of thoughts. This magnetic centre grows in strength until it is recognized as a mutual yearning, yours for God and God's for you.
During busy non prayer times, "Welcoming Prayer" can be practiced, by noting the rising of afflictive emotions before they have become passions, and focusing on the physical aspect of the emotion, welcoming and riding its energy, then letting it go, the goal being to maintain an uninterrupted Presence throughout the storm of feeling.
Centering prayer is a practice which uses silence to understand the false self, but it leads to a life of engagement, because God is everywhere, and especially in community. She talks a lot about self-emptying love as circulating between the individual, the community, and God and Christ.
She takes some pains to separate Centering prayer from Eastern meditation practices, and from "Christian meditation" founded by John Main, saying that the other practices focus more on clarity of mind, and the development of a consistently present inner observer. Where meditation focuses on mental concentration and higher states of consciousness, she says centering prayer focuses on the development of the heart. In my own experience, in Buddhist meditation there certainly is a focus on concentration, an inner observer, and the development of the "factors of enlightenment", and sometimes more focus on what she calls "unitive consciousness" than on the development of love. But it seems to me that they both lead to the same kind of "heartfulness", known to Buddhists as loving kindness and compassion. The Dalai Lama says, "my religion is kindness". I think the point that Bourgault would make is that it is one thing to develop compassion, it is another to participate in a reality whose substance is love.
Despite this issue, I found the book to be a most useful and enjoyable exploration of the similarities and differences between centering prayer and meditation.
Last updated: 12 November 2004
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