The body of Christ, old Quakers say, is not a metaphor. It is a living climate, an organism in which we function. They dwell together in a pool of divine presence, which blends all souls into unity. Any person dwelling in such a body is changed. Sometimes gradually, sometimes instantaneously, perceptions of the world and people widen.
Life moves far beyond the simplification of outward affairs into a higher responsibility to Love.
One of the outcomes can be a sensitizing of gifts for discernment or sensing of states. Repeatedly Quaker ministers, practicing surrender to the call to speak in meeting, learn the difference between having a sense of a person or a meeting's state and being told by the Light to speak. Corporate discernment is a practice that aids the whole community in deepening. While much of my call was true as a Quaker minister, I could never rest among Friends. I believe I needed a community with a clearer archetype of healing in it.