Join Me In Holding Each Other & This Great Nation in the Light
It’s a stunningly simple Quaker idea that’s easy, simple, and profound
I sank into bed.
It had been a long week, followed by a beautiful, difficult weekend. My brother-in-law died suddenly last Tuesday— and the shock continues. On Saturday, we gathered in a small group to celebrate his life, to recall his handsome smile, and to comfort those closest to him.
In bed that night, I closed my eyes. I thought of my sister and her children. I gathered them in my mind. I saw them suspended in a giant open hand bathed in the golden light of love. I kept them there, holding them in the light.
I held them there even as I succumbed to sleep.
Crash course
Holding in the Light is a practice that comes from the Quakers. I stumbled on this spiritual practice in a roundabout way.
During my first group meeting for my doctoral studies, our cohort of thirty gathered for orientation weekend. We met, gathered, listened, and were introduced to faculty and to each other. We also took a crash course in Quakerism.
My graduate program was at George Fox University, a Quaker school. I knew George Fox was a small private Christian school with a reputation for personalized instruction and strong teaching. I’d attended both private and public schools my entire life, and didn’t really give the denominational status a huge amount of thought. It’s a Christian school, I thought. It will have good people.
And it did. Quakers have strong faith — and unique practices. That orientation weekend, we were divided into small groups to learn a bit about Quakerism. Dr. Barrett handed out articles, one to each person in our group of five. She smiled as she handed me mine. I glanced down. Immediately, the title intrigued me: “Holding in the Light.” I began to read.
George Fox and the Quakers
George Fox was an intense, impassioned man. He was also a rabble rouser. Disgusted by the hypocrisy he saw in the church at the time (mid-1600’s England), George Fox believed if you proclaimed you were a Christian, you should actually live and behave as one.
He also didn’t see the need for an organized church, priests, liturgies, rituals, or sacraments. He argued that God didn’t want (or need) churches, referring to them as “steeple houses.” He saw ministers as obstacles to Truth because each human has innate access to Spirit — and owns a personal path and relationship with God.
These revolutionary views rankled the English authorities, who saw Fox’s views as attacks on both class and the establishment. He was jailed 8 times. Despite this, George Fox continued traveling and preaching. Though he didn’t intend to form a new denomination, by 1691 George Fox’s Quakers numbered over 50,000.
Even today, Quakers are a mixed and various bunch. Some call themselves Christians while others do not. Some gather in meetings while others put silence and reflection first. They maintain the Bible is a holy book, but that other readings and words can also aid on ones personal spiritual path. But all maintain that each person contains the light of God, and has a direct connection with God (or Spirit or Creator). They call each other Friends.
“Rather than rely on priests or professional theologians, each believer is encouraged to take seriously the personal disciplines associated with spiritual growth. Out of lives of reflection, prayer, faithfulness, and service flow the statements of belief, both in word and in deed.”
— from Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice
Quakers are strongly guided by conscience. They are adherents of equality and justice. Quakers were some of the earliest abolitionists. They were strong advocates and actors in many social reform movements, including women’s rights, prison reform, and civil rights.
Perhaps one simple unifying belief Quakers share is this: our outer life should reflect our inner Light. And we should fight for a better, more just world for all.
Holding in the Light
For Quakers, prayer is conversation. Such prayer can be with words, thoughts, images, whispers, or simple meditation.
If a someone is sick or struggling, Friends may hold them in the Light.
It’s a simple practice: “To hold a person in the Light, imagine them being held in God’s loving presence and offer prayers and love for them.”
Some recommend picturing the person in need bathed in the golden light of Spirit. Some imagine them held in a giant, open palm being offered up toward the light. Some encapsulate their loved one in a golden bubble of light.
Some Friends describe the experience:
“When I Hold people in the Light I am most comfortable visualizing them wrapped in an actual warm light. To me it represents God’s love. If I know the person, I “see” them. If not, I find my mind still sees a light and I know that God is, and will be, caring for that person.”
“I like to think of “holding in the Light” as being “holding in Love.” The Light to me represents God’s love and some of its qualities, and so when I think of holding someone in the Light I picture them surrounded by visual, bright Light, but also surrounded by something with warmth and a soft texture.”
“Hold the person up to the light so that we may see illuminated all that there is to the person.”
The simple steps to holding in the Light
- Picture your person/people/group.
- Hold them (if you wish) on a platform, in an open palm, raised up or suspended.
- Envision them bathed in a golden glow of Light or Love or Spirit.
- Hold them there as long as you wish, in silence or in prayer or in presence or beyond time and space and being.
Tonight, I’ll hold you in the Light
At George Fox University, I took my classes. Wrote my dissertation. Graduated. But I took away not just a degree but a spiritual practice that sticks with me to this day.
When I have friends or family who are sick, sad, or struggling, I hold them in the Light. When I read of conflict and warfare, I try to remember to lift those affected to the Light of Spirit. And when I feel like there is nothing I can do to help or assist, I take the issue to the Light.
This weekend, I was saddened by the loss of my brother in law. I feel sorrow for my sister and her family. It’s hard to watch those we love go through pain. So last night, I pictured them held in a giant palm bathed in the consistent warmth of Light.
And tonight, I’ll do the same.
I’ll also hold this struggling nation, this great country, those with whom I both agree and disagree, all of us, all Americans, up toward the Light.
There is much dissension. There is political strife. There is great suffering and sickness. There is division and dissent.
But, in the end, we are united by our common bonds of affection, our inherent unity as citizens, and as Americans.
Tonight, I will hold us all, united in a populous, diverse, and disparate group held in the giant palm of democracy and equality, up to the Light of Truth, Goodness, and Spirit. I will envision the golden glow of Love shining down on us all.
And then I’ll close my eyes and sleep.
“The first step of peace is to stand still in the Light.” — George Fox
