Meeting for Worship with Attention to Healing

Healing has been a Quaker tradition since the time of George Fox. Learn more in this Friends Journal article about the history and practice of this profound work, with its invitation to share your own experience of Meeting for Worship for Healing.

For most of the time over the last twenty-five years, there has been a monthly Healing Meeting at Live Oak Friends Meeting. Even when we had no meetinghouse home, a small group of us met at Holly Hall Retirement Community regularly.

Now with the restrictions of Covid-19, we meet online. Contact healing@friendshouston.org for the Zoom link to join the meeting.

Generally two to five individuals come together simply to spend time holding concerns in the Light. The concerns may be for members and attenders of LOFM who are sick, or experiencing emotional pain or difficult circumstances in their lives. We also hold in the Light situations that we are aware of that need Light, both local to our community and in the world at large. For instance, we have brought a world globe and placed it in the center of the group as we hold our planet in the Light with prayers for peace. We often hold our meetings’ clerks and committees in the Light. Many times we hold world leaders in the Light. Recently (for several months in a row), we have spent time holding various media and news organizations in the Light.

What might I expect if I join the Meeting for Worship with Attention to Healing online on a 3rd Saturday morning?

We begin with a Welcome and Check-In round giving attendees a minute or two to share their present experience, acknowledge any personal distractions which may be present for them and center themselves. The Welcome and Check-In is followed by News of Friends.

News of Friends is an opportunity for attendees to share news of friends, conditions and concerns on which they would like to focus the Meeting’s Healing Light Attention and Care. News of Friends received by note, email or online since the previous meeting are read by the clerk at this time.

News of Friends is followed by two to five minutes of Silent Worship.

Silent Worship is followed by Centering Meditation and Healing Light Prayer.

Healing Light Prayer round is the reading of the list of names compiled during News of Friends. Only the names are read. At the reading of each name all the attendees focus on a total experience of wholeness both with and for the person or condition (i.e. world peace, media integrity) named. Attendees may add any additional persons or concerns that come to mind after the list has been held in Healing Light.

Healing Light Prayer is followed by Silent Worship, Meeting Close and Farewell.

When and where do we meet?

Every third Saturday of each month is our regular time to meet. We hope to gather again in the Little House (where our Children’s educational rooms and our Library are located) after COVID; for now we gather online at 11:30; and we are finished by 12:30 pm.

On several occasions we have traveled to hospital rooms or hospice bedsides to spend time with Live Oak Friends, or visitors from other places who are in Houston because of our medical center.

If you have a person or a concern that you would like to hold in the light,
please email the details to healing@friendshouston.org