by Bill Taber

These are excerpts from Pendle Hill Pamphlet #406 The Mind of Christ: Bill Taber on Meeting for Business, ed. Michael Birkel. You can purchase the full pamphlet from Pendle Hill Bookstore at the above link or the e-book (Kindle) from Amazon.

I once had a conversation with a visiting Quaker scholar from England. To my surprise, I found that I was discussing Quakerism with this scholar by patting my stomach – my “tum,” as he said. We agreed that one of the important aspects of Quakerism is its gut feeling.… Let us then reflect on a set of feelings and perceptions that I have come to call the “five gut feelings” of the meeting for business.

Joy in being together

It is the joy of being again with the blessed fellowship and the community of the redeemed. Or, if the word “redeemed” sounds too evangelical for you, it is joy at being with the community of the freed ones, people freed by the power of the Light of Christ, freed in some measure from prejudice and fear and loneliness, freed from slavery to the unthinking assumptions and drives of whatever temporal culture surrounds us. It is joy at being with other people who have experienced some measure of spiritual transformation.

Joy at being with God

This is the joy and awe and comfort of being once again in the presence of the Great Friend… the Healer… the Forgiver… the Transformer… the Restorer… the Giver of Inward Peace and Refreshment… the Inward Teacher… the Source of all good things.… And so we sit for a time attuning ourselves to this Presence, which is at once so very personal… and at the same time so vast and impersonal…. As we sit there, in growing attunement, our folder of business meeting details lies untouched and, hopefully, forgotten at our side, for the secret of the successful Friends meeting for worship for business lies in the individual Friend’s ability to lay everything aside while becoming attuned.”

Assurance

We feel ourselves cradled, supported, held up by those everlasting arms. We may feel ourselves loved, bathed in light, dwelling timelessly in the Light, baptized into a living, healing Presence. It is the deep assurance of being filled with the water of life of which Jesus spoke. At this point there may be no words, only a sense of unity…. We step into the same stream that the apostle Peter knew, the same stream that Mary the mother of Jesus knew, and in some mysterious way, we share with them across twenty centuries of time.… We do well to recognize that there are boundaries to this Stream, what I call boundaries of safety in the infinite and trackless mazes which are possibl e in the varieties and states of consciousness.

This altered state of consciousness of gut feeling three is what the New Testament describes as being in the Mind of Christ. The assurance of gut feeling three comes from being a living part of the Body of Christ and of sharing in the Mind of Christ.… It is from this state of consciousness that both the gifts of the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit seem most easily to arise.… A business meeting in touch with the Mind of Christ may seem to go more slowly, but it may actually get more done in the end.

Trust

There grows upon us a trust in the immense Power at the heart of the universe, which is also in our own hearts. What some would call faith, I would here call trust – a deep trust in God… as Person, as Love, as Power, as Light. Above all, there is a deep trust in the process, the process by which God is at work in our individual lives. And this translates into a deep trust in the Friends business process being used in this very meeting, knowing that, through the Mind of Christ, one has a deep trust in the meeting and in what it does to us and what it does with us.

Excitement

Every time in which we enter the room in which the business meeting is about to be held, there is a mounting sense of excitement as we come face to face with the utter unpredictability of God at work through our lives. As we enter, we never know what will happen! Those who have known the power of that Living Stream in their own lives know how risky it is to go in that spirit to a business meeting, because they never know how it will affect the course of their lives forever, perhaps to take up a cause, or cross the ocean, or painfully to give up some cherished dream or concern. Yet in all that excitement, there is trust, trust.… Perhaps there should be a sign over the door: “Beware of entering this meeting – there are no back seats here!” or “Beware of entering this meeting – it can change your life forever!” Even the clerk – especially the clerk – should enter with this faithful, joyous excitement, this willingness to face the unpredictable, the unknown, secure in the Mind of Christ.

(c) 2010 by Pendle Hill. Used by permission.

Michael Birkel is a retired professor of Earlham School of Religion. Bill Taber was a recorded minister of Stillwater Meeting in Ohio YM and taught Quakerism at Pendle Hill for about 15 years.