On Secular Consensus: Searching out a Balm of Spiritual Unity

Secular Consensus to Spiritual Discernment: Reclaiming the Quaker Business Process

A modern age of rapid digital communication and corporate efficiency has taken over us. Friends know the rush of modernity, in Meetings of South Jersey —and indeed a wider world—we may face subtle persistent “erosion.” Patricia Loring profoundly articulated this in her seminal work, Spiritual Responsibility in the Meeting for Business, we are constantly at risk of substituting our Sense of the Meeting for the secular tool of consensus.

Loring, of Hartford Monthly Meeting (NEYM), reminds us that while secular committees seek a middle ground through negotiation and dispatch, Friends are engaged in a far more radical act: seeking the will of God. This is not a matter of “winning” or “manipulating” an outcome, but of a collective “giving over” to a higher leading. How hast thee given over to Spirit and found truth?

A Labor of Gentling Tenderness

Loring’s insight remains startlingly relevant for contemporary Friends. She notes that our business process is often slow because it requires us to “sift ourselves… for ego [and] self-will.” This resonates with the words of the parable-weaver and Friend Ursula Le Guin, who once noted that “the only questions worth asking are the unanswerable ones.” In the Meeting for Business, we ask the unanswerable: What is required of us now? How has Truth favored us?

Early Friends understood this as a physical and spiritual centering. As George Fox exhorted in 1658, “Friends, go not to the world’s ways… but keep in a power of God.” Yet, in a 21st-century context, contemporary Quaker author Parker J. Palmer adds layers of modern psychic clarity, noting that “the soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, and yet exceedingly shy.” If we rush our business with “secular dispatch,” we scare away the very Spirit we intend to invite.

Clerking as a Collective Act

Perhaps the most transformative takeaway from Loring’s pamphlet is the idea that everyone present is clerking. While the Clerk sifts the spiritual dimension, every Friend must practice discernment. This prevents the Meeting from becoming a “set of empty forms” and transforms it into a “holy communion.” How does thee give over power to the collective in worship and life?

When we allow for our “restless impatience” to fall away—as Loring describes in her Pendle Hill anecdote—we find that peace and order actually lead to a more profound “dispatch” than any secular strategy could achieve. A balm of gilead needed in times of rush wants more than ever.

Queries for Personal and Corporate Reflection

1. Preparation: How does thee prepare thine heart and mind before entering a Meeting for Business? Does thee arrive with an “unalterably set” mind, or is thee open to being “searched by the matter” at hand and in Spirit?
2. Our Secular Influence: In what ways has thee inadvertently brought secular values of efficiency or partisanship into our MfW, Business, and/or spiritual discernment? How can thee practice “relinquishing control” during debate?
3. Welcoming the Silent Prophet: Is thee truly listening with thee “eye of faith” to those whose views differ from thee? Does thee recognize that “the most improbable person may be the prophet of God” is elevant, Opening, Quaking, arriving in this moment?
4. Unity vs. Uniformity: How hast thee remained in unity and love with Meeting be it Business or Worship even when a personal leading for “Point A” is not corporate leading for the whole body? How can thee Open or break open into not knowing joyfully?

Resources for Deeper Unity

To further explore this “understanding of how to find unity,” we recommend the following organizations and resources:

• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM): Offers extensive resources on Quaker Business Procedure and the role of the Clerk.
• Friends General Conference (FGC): Provides workshops and toolkits on Deepening the Meeting for Business.
• QuakerSpeak (Friends Journal): Features contemporary video interviews on The Quaker Decision-Making Process.
• Pendle Hill Research Center: A source for pamphlets and study guides specifically focused on the spirituality of Quaker governance.

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Footnote on Content:

In alignment with 21st-century Quakerism, this review incorporates contemporary perspectives from Paula Christophersen and Kins Aparace on “searching together,” alongside the historic and sage structural wisdom of Patricia Loring´s pamphlet.