This section is devoted to prayer and personal spiritual practices.

The Discipline of Prayer is a 1948 Pendle Hill pamphlet by Frederick Tritton.

Ten Questions on Prayer is a 1951 Pendle Hill pamphlet by Gerald Heard.

The World in Tune is a Pendle Hill pamphlet by Elizabeth Gray Vining describing many different types of prayer.

Intercessory Prayer (aka “Holding in the Light”)

Many Friends meetings across the U.S. have begun setting aside time for intercessory prayer at the final portion or soon after the close of worship. This is often referred to as “holding a person in the Light”—a term or concept that may be easier for Friends uncertain about the meaning of praying for others. Whatever the language that is used to describe this practice, it has led to naming our own needs and those of others we care about much more frequently than happened in our meetings in the past.

Marcelle Martin has written about this subject in Holding One Another in the Light, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #382, in 2006.

Peter Blood reflected on this practice in We Are All Held in Love: Reflections on the Practice of Holding in the Light in the March 2024 Friends Journal issue on healing prayer. In 2000, Blood wrote an earlier Journal article on this subject On Praying for Others—and Ourselves.

Meetings for Healing

A Meeting for Healing is  meeting for worship with an intention for prayer. Unlike receiving requests to hold someone or a situation in the Light after meeting, Friends actually take time to pray together for the concerns raised in a meeting for healing.  Although healing prayer has been part of Quakerism since its earliest days, meetings for healing were initially developed by Richard Lee of Red Cedar Meeting in Lake Erie YM. Other Friends who have helped develop and spread this practice include Elaine Emily of Pacific YM, Buffy Curtis of New York YM, Richard Simon of Ohio YM, Jennie Isbell-Shinn of New England YM, and many others. These have been held at many yearly meetings, Quaker retreat centers, and local meetings. Here are some articles describing this practice:

Quaker Healing Prayer by Richard Lee

Meeting for Worship for Healing: A Friendly Guide by Richard Lee

Friends as Healers is a 2001 Friends Journal article by Bobbi Balin & Buffy Curtis describing the first of a number of gatherings held at Powell House on Friends interested in spiritual healing of bodies.

Introducing Meeting for Healing by Elaine Emily of Pacific YM

What Is a Meeting for Healing? by Buffy Curtis of New York YM

Meetings for Healing from Homewood Meeting in Baltimore MD

Contemplative Prayer

This describes the wordless prayer of the faithful—a turning of one’s being towards God. It has similarities to meditation, but is more directly focused on God, a living Person at the heart of our lives than is present in many forms of meditation.

The Catholic monk Thomas Merton wrote a short but wonderful book on this subject called Contemplative Prayer. This is also sometimes referred to as Christian mysticism. Selected quotations from Contemplative Prayer are also available.

Francis Hall’s Call to Contemplation, published posthumously in Friends Journal May 1982, emphasizes the significance of this practice in our modern context.

Rest, Spaciousness, and Sabbath

Jews and Christians have been setting aside a day of rest for millennia. The only holiday that Friends celebrated for their first 200 years was the sabbath, since no other “holy days” appear in the Christian Bible.

Many Friends today fill our lives to overflowing with activity. The need for creating space in one’s life apart from one’s usual activities becomes ever more urgent in this 24/7 world of electronic devices. Some Friends seek to create times of the day, times of the week, or special retreat periods free from usual pressures and activity.

Colin Saxton has been reflecting recently on this subject given the high levels of fear and anxiety many are feeling in these times:

Peter Blood gave a Monday Night Lecture at Pendle Hill on Hope & Rest in Challenging Times. Watch the video on YouTube.

Annie Patterson gave a plenary presentation at the 2026 Quaker Institute at Pendle Hill on “Rest as Resistance”.

Here are some valuable books on this subject:

Prayer without Ceasing

This is a form of prayer that is practiced throughout one’s day, while engaging in one’s ordinary daily activities.

The Joy That Is Set Before Us is the conclusion of the 1956 William Penn Lecture by Quaker peace educator Elise Boulding.

Brother Lawrence (1614-91), a French Carmelite monk, is well known for a collection of his writings published posthumously, The Practice of the Presence of God.

Dolores Leckey is a Catholic writer who wrote a book in 1982 called The Ordinary Way: A Family Spirituality about how one can practice a way of spirituality within the context of family life and intimate friendships. You can buy a used copy online or read the bookline using a digital reader such as via Archive.org.

Walking Prayer

The Delight of Being Alive: A Walking Prayer Meditation for Healing describes the daily practice used by Indigenous Friend Gail Melix (Greenwater).

Journaling

Examen

Fasting

Body practices

There are a wide variety of ways of opening up our lives to God through things we do with our body from yoga to t’ai ch’i, sacred dance, etc., see the section on Embodiment.