Goose Creek is a warm and welcoming community where we support each other in our shared journeys of the Spirit. We believe, in the words of the Quaker writer Thomas Kelly, that “deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return.” In our worship and in our daily lives we seek to remain always with our hearts turned toward that Divine Center.
Quakerism is not defined by creeds or doctrine. Rather it is a lived spiritual practice where we seek God in our experiences and live out our faith in our shared world. We believe that there is that of God within each and every human being – adults and children – regardless of faith, race, nationality, sexual orientation, or life experiences. We are called to answer that Divine spark, that Light Within, both in ourselves and in others.
We welcome all seekers, find deep kinship in our shared humanity, and value our differences.
Please join us for Meeting for Worship
Sundays 9:45 am
Children always welcome!
Queries for Eleventh Month
Listening
When is it hardest for me to be ready to listen?
To what extent do I open myself to the risks of listening?
How have I been changed by deeply listening to another, to God, to nature?
How does my own perception affect the way I understand what others say?
Voices
“The fathomless depth of the listener who can go beyond words, who can even go beyond the conscious meanings behind words and who can listen with the third ear for what is unconsciously being meant by the speaker, this fashion of attentive listening furnishes a climate where the most unexpected disclosures occur that are in the way of being miracles in one sense, and the most natural and obvious things in the world, in the other.”
— Douglas Steere, 1955
“Never before did there seem so many things to be done, to be said, to be thought; and in every direction I was pushed and pulled, and greeted with noisy acclamations of unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them, and to answer some of them, but God said, ‘Be still, and know that I am God’. The came the conflict of thoughts for the morrow, and its duties and cares but God said ‘Be still’. And as I listened, and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound, I found, after a while, that when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still, small voice in the depths of my being that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power and comfort.”
— John Edward Southall, c. 1900
