{"id":7849,"date":"2013-03-17T20:22:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T03:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/?p=7849"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:31:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:31:32","slug":"the-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2013\/03\/17\/the-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, to sink into silence. To breathe. To wait.<br \/>\nNo rituals, no incense, no chants, no words. Just silence<br \/>\nand a straight-backed wooden chair. <\/p>\n<p>The silence is alive. Traffic zips down the highway.<br \/>\nChairs creak. Birds gossip. Someone coughs or sniffs.<br \/>\nBut if you really listen, you can hear the sunshine singing.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the entire hour passes in silence. Other times<br \/>\na few rise to speak, to share whatever they felt led<br \/>\nto share prompted by their discernment.<\/p>\n<p>To wait in the Spirit, in Love, connecting with<br \/>\nand through each other. The tender embrace of silence.<br \/>\nOpening the door within. Welcome, quietude! Welcome.<\/p>\n<p>After the hour someone shakes another&#8217;s hand,<br \/>\nsignaling the end of silent worship; then handshakes<br \/>\nand smiles ripple through the room.<\/p>\n<p>The invitation comes to share what we did not feel truly prompted<br \/>\nby the Divine to share in worship. Announcements are made.<br \/>\nAn invitation is given to refreshments and conversation next door.<\/p>\n<p>That is the Meeting of Friends. <\/p>\n<div class=\"photopost\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mindfulone\/43702992\/\" title=\"garden chair by Mindful One, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/24\/43702992_5f6018760b.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"garden chair\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, to sink into silence. To breathe. To wait. No rituals, no incense, no chants, no words. Just silence and a straight-backed wooden chair. The silence is alive. Traffic zips down the highway. Chairs creak. Birds gossip. Someone coughs or sniffs. But if you really listen, you can hear the sunshine singing. Sometimes the entire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-spirit"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7849"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11926,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7849\/revisions\/11926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}