Gunpowder Friends Meeting

03/20/2024

Trust the wait. Embrace the uncertainty. Enjoy the beauty of becoming. When nothing is certain, anything is possible.

--Mandy Hale

08/30/2023

For the past couple of years, each Fall Gunpowder Friends share a book. From this year’s “one book,” Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm, Kazu Haga

I have known too many people who have been traumatized in one way or another in social justice spaces. From large organizations like Amnesty International to the smallest, most grassroots groups, people are getting harmed by a “woke” activist culture that has become toxic. We can bring down the entire system and have a worldwide revolution, but if we haven’t healed our traumas and learned how to be in authentic relationship with each other, we will corrupt any new system we put in its place.
On the other side, there are many communities of healers, meditators, and community builders who are doing the vital work of healing trauma, bringing us back to the present moment, building and restoring trust between people, and cultivating love for all of humankind. Yet, we’ve seen too often, those communities are disconnected or not in solidarity with people who are risking it all to fight for justice. We can heal every person’s trauma, but if we haven’t begun to dismantle the structures still in place that perpetuate injustice at the systemic level, we’ll replicate the conditions for new traumas to constantly be created.
I have a deep yearning to be in a community that is engaged on both fronts. A community committed to personal transformation as well as social and structural change.

03/16/2023

02/20/2023

To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is trusting that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us according to God's love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. --Henri Nouwen

06/15/2022

Friends, I would like to facilitate a monthly Worship Sharing Zoom group. The proposed format is as follows: we will settle into silence, then will read a short passage (about a page) from a mystical/non-dual author, settle into silence again, then do worship sharing on how the passage did, or did not, speak to us. I will draw selections from authors such as John Woolman, Cynthia Bourgeault, Pema Chodron, Thomas Keating, Kabir Helminski, Henri Nouwen, Howard Thurman, and others. The session would last about an hour, depending on how many Friends are present. If more than 7-8 Friends join a particular session, we can opt to extend the session a little longer to allow everyone the opportunity to share. No advance preparation or attendance commitment is required.

I propose to hold the sessions on First Fridays at 6PM; however, some other Friday, or a Wednesday evening, would be feasible, and a slightly earlier or later start time would be feasible. If you are interested in participating occasionally or regularly, please send me an email at [email protected] and let me know your date/time preference.

Thank you!
Tracy Haidar