Pages tagged "New Years Gathering"

Friends:  Western Young Friends New Year's Gathering is the spiritual retreat that I look forward to the most every year. Having time to worship and look inward, reconnecting with old friends, meeting wonderful new people, and having the space to listen and be heard, to follow those emotional threads, is so important. It's something that I too rarely get in my busy life.

Dear Friends: I decided to attend Western Young Friends New Year’s Gathering from December 28, 2012 to January 2, 2013 after attending Pacific Yearly Meeting Annual Session in the summer of 2012, not wanting to wait one full year before I saw all my friends again. I feel a stronger connection with the greater community of the Religious Society of Friends than I do with Honolulu Friends Meeting alone.  

In the flurry of dozens of goodbye hugs before going home, I said to one Friend, “Well, I guess it’s back to the real world now.” He answered, “Oh no, no. This is the real world. The rest of life is what’s not real.” I had to agree.

Dear Friends: