The Old Ways of Knowing: The Meeting for Clarity

Last night I had the opportunity to gather with a group and discern together how God is moving. Quakers call this the a meeting for clarity or a "clarity committee". The purpose is to open ourselves together to listen to God. The person who has the query--the deep question of their soul--invites the group into the question. The group asks questions of clarity and understanding. With silence and prayer, we hold these questions in our soul open to the Holy Spirit. The premise of the meeting is that God Is Present. Certainly, this belief that God is with us is core to the Church. However, I often find that we act as if God is not or that we have to beg God to show up or plead with God to reveal Himself. God IS Present...Immanuel...God with us. So as sit together in the presence of God we listen to the Holy Spirit. We offer up what we hear with humility, recognizing that we are only vessels and are not infallible people that get to hold the corner on the truth. Instead, we offer what we sense, we release it to the discernment of the group. Then, as we listen together we see what words, scriptures, images or questions that grow among us--the organic movement of the Spirit flowing in us and around us. This is Holy space. I left the meeting last night without a sense that God had moved with lightning and flashes. Instead, God spoke through the Old Ways of Knowing God. The ways that are as much a part of the church as oxygen is of air. The way of recognizing that God's spirit does move in us and we can sense a call to be obedient and we know the peace that passes understanding. The Old Way of waiting unless we have peace on a way forward. The Old Way of remembering that God does not hide His will from us and when we seek it with our whole hearts, God will show it to us. The Old Way of believing that God does not have narrow slots for us to fit into, but wide open spaces for us to experience fullness. The Old Way of realizing again that God is not living in scarcity theory--if we don't get a particular thing right then we have lost our way. The Old Way in an ancient path of dependency of God and of recognition that this is God's work and not our own. And we can rest in that and trust the Holy Spirit to guide and to lead.
I am clearer after this meeting. (Hopefully my friend is as well--I believe so). But I am clearer about listening to God and being able to believe that God is moving and speaking to me.
In that, I find clarity.