On some­what sim­i­lar themes, I talked to Peter Blood-Patterson this week about “hold­ing in the light,” the pop­u­lar con­tem­po­rary Quak­er phrase for prayer. His arti­cle, We Are All Held in Love: Reflec­tions on the Prac­tice of Hold­ing in the Light appears in the March issue of Friends Jour­nal, the theme of which is “Prayer and Healing.”

From the video description: 

Peter Blood-Patterson dis­cuss­es the Quak­er prac­tice of “hold­ing in the light”, which involves shar­ing prayer con­cerns dur­ing meet­ings. The phrase orig­i­nat­ed in the late 1960s but became more com­mon­ly used among Friends in the 1990s. It allows com­mu­ni­ties to care for those expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties through entrust­ing them to God’s love. Peter explores what “the light” rep­re­sents for Quak­ers his­tor­i­cal­ly and today. He also reflects on how the prac­tice has helped him release con­trol and rec­og­nize the lim­its of what he can fix.

Bonus: I dug up the first instance of “hold” with “Light” in Friends Jour­nal, a 1969 poem by Bar­bara Reynolds called Bal­lad for a Friends Meet­ing that describes an upwelling min­istry in wor­ship and sug­gests “hold­ing it to the light” as one ris­es to share it.