Women of Power and Presence: The Spiritual Formation of Four Quaker Women Ministers

by Maureen Graham

Overview

These four women came from different backgrounds and they lived and ministered in different contexts. They differed in their understandings of self, God and society. What these four shared, however, was a faith and practice based on a religious experience of the inward presence of God. To this sustaining and guiding presence they committed their lives. Such a commitment led them to live active lives as effective moral agents. They spoke, wrote and acted with power and presence. They knew themselves transformed, and their words and deeds were transformative socially.

What was it about the religious experience of these women that allowed them to overcome social attitudes and practices which encouraged passivity and subordination? What were the psychological processes through which they were empowered to act as effective moral agents? What can their lives say to those of us who stand in their tradition and seek to be faithful ministers in our time?

Product Details

BN ID:	2940156766338
Publisher:	Pendle Hill Publications
Publication date:	12/01/2016
Series:	Pendle Hill Pamphlets , #294
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	130 KB

About the Author

Maureen Graham is currently completing her training as a pastoral counselor in Claremont, California. She joined Friends in St. Andrews, Scotland, the land of her birth, where she worked as a research psychologist. After receiving a Ph.D. in psychology she moved to the U.S. in 1983 to study at Earlham School of Religion and graduated with a Master of Ministry degree in 1986. She then served Friends in New England as co-director of Woolman Hill Conference and Retreat Center in Deerfield, Massachusetts, before moving to California last year. Her current work allows her to integrate her interests in psychology, spirituality and religion as she works with individuals toward healing and transformation.

Maureen has a long-standing concern for the spiritual and psychological empowerment of women. In her own journey, she has found the practice of Quaker spirituality with its emphasis on waiting in the silence to be of profound importance in coming to know herself and act with integrity. As a pastoral counselor she seeks to enable others to find that source of inner power and presence which brings healing and new life and frees us for creative work and loving relationship. Standing in a tradition of Quaker women ministers—women who knew the transforming power of the living God—Maureen seeks to embody that knowledge in her own life and work.

The ideas in this pamphlet first came to fruition in a class at the School of Theology at Claremont entitled “Theology and Emotion in Historical Perspective.” Maureen wishes to thank Professor Ann Taves and the class participants for their enthusiasm and help in clarifying her thinking.