Through the process by which Quakers attain the sense of the meeting, transformation occurs. We are changed. We feel, in a literal way, the loving Presence which hovers over us. It manifests in the love we have for one another. We form invisible bonds among ourselves which transcend the petty and make the next sense of the meeting more desirable and more readily attainable. We are participants in each other’s well being. Later we may stop to wonder whose idea evolved into the sense of the meeting. But we can’t remember. Often the person through whom the idea came cannot remember. We sense that the sense of the meeting came through us and for us, but not from us. We are amazed that it works – exactly as it’s supposed to. Over and over we are amazed; it is appropriate that awe and transformation coexist.

Whether we wish to admit it or not, the sense of the meeting is a Quaker equivalent of Communion. We absorb and are absorbed by Light. We reach, if only momentarily, that place beyond time where we taste tranquility. We have slipped beyond issues and answers to a place where peace and love are the same words. We are immersed in a mystical moment even though we might not consider ourselves mystics. We take to ourselves the gift of experiential faith which the early Friends promised us. And we make decisions which feel good to us long after they cease to be germane. For a Faith that eschews outward ritual, the Quakers possess a powerful one; and it works.

The world yearns for transformation…. Quakers … keep alive the hope of transformation.

–Barry Morley in “The Great Testimony” from Pendle Hill Pamphlet 307: Beyond Consensus: Salvaging Sense of the Meeting