Spiritual Enrichment, Exploration, and Dialogue (SEED)
Exploring Quaker Spirituality:
An Eight-Week Journey with Friends
Begins in October. Dates, times, and format to be determined by the group that forms for this journey together.
If you’d like to learn more about the spiritual principles of Quakerism while getting to know several fellow seekers, consider joining our next “Exploring Quaker Spirituality” (EQS) group. Register below and you’ll be included in future organizational messages as we ramp up to another installment of EQS beginning in late September.
The heart of EQS is Geoffrey Durham’s What Do Quakers Believe?, a small book readily available for a modest cost through BookFinder, Amazon Prime and other book sellers. Our series of seven weekly, one-and-a-half-hour meetings will be based on the short chapters in Durham supplemented by related QuakerSpeak videos and — most important — our own thoughts, insights, and discussions to make personal meaning of the material we encounter.
Uncertain whether this is for you? Check out the book (via links above) and take a peek at a previous meeting schedule and plan here.
Fourth Sunday Second Hours, approx. 11:45 am-12:45 pm.
Tacoma Friends fourth Sunday Second Hour is often devoted to spiritual enrichment and exploration. These sessions are both in-person and via Zoom using the same link as Meeting for Worship. Upcoming topics are:
- October 26: Visioning Tacoma Friends Meeting’s use of the building and grounds we steward.
- November 23: Using Spirit-led Quaker advocacy to inform legislation at both the state level through Quaker Voice on Washington Public Policy and the national level through Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Send additional topics you’d like to explore to tacomafriendsmeeting@gmail.com
Sessions are conducted in the manner of Friends, variously embracing silence, worship sharing, Quaker Dialogue, respectful open discussion, and more. Optional reading or viewing for some topics may be suggested but are not required.
To attend, simply stay after Meeting for Worship and join either on the Zoom link or in person at the meeting house. There will be a short break with refreshments between Worship and Second Hour.
Fall Quarter Common Read
Active Hope by Macy and Johnstone
You and all are invited to join our TFM Fall Quarter Common Read, “Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience & Creative Power” by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone. There are no requirements, nor expectations for TFM Common Read, just an invitation to read the suggested book on your own in your own time, noting, and perhaps journaling on those things that stand out for you, raise questions and/or resistances. On December 7th, beginning at 3 pm at the meeting house and via zoom will be a time for Quaker Dialogue about the book. A Zoom link will be provided closer to the discussion. All are invited to attend whether you’ve read any of it or not!
Here’s what FGC (Friends General Conference), Quaker Books has to say about the book:
“The challenges we face can be difficult even to think about. Climate change, political polarization, economic upheaval, and mass extinction together create a planetary emergency of overwhelming proportions. Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face this crisis so that we can respond with unexpected resilience and creative power. Drawing on decades of teaching an empowerment approach known as the Work That Reconnects, the authors guide us through a transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality, and holistic science. This process equips us with tools to face the mess we’re in and play our role in the collective transition, or Great Turning, to a life-sustaining society.”
The authors state that “the purpose of this book is to help you address the issues you’re most moved by, guided by what’s heartfelt and rings true for you!”
Please feel free to contact tacomafriendsmeeting@gmail.com for more information.