{"id":2068,"date":"2026-09-15T13:25:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T18:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=2068"},"modified":"2026-09-15T13:25:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T18:25:02","slug":"seeking-an-experience-of-the-divine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=2068","title":{"rendered":"Seeking an Experience of the Divine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Barbara Markhoff<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the years I have heard occasional stories from people who feel they have had some kind of direct experience of God or however they named it. I have heard descriptions such as God saving someone\u2019s life who almost got electrocuted in a bathtub, seeing an apparition that the person was certain to be God nearby, or just the intense feeling of God\u2019s presence on a regular basis.&nbsp; I have experienced nothing of the kind and have felt envious of those who have had such visceral experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Waiting for that \u201cstill small voice inside\u201d that Quakers open themselves up to during Meeting for Worship is not the big God experience I have always hoped to know.&nbsp; But recently, during MFW, I had an epiphany that anything that comes to us \u201cout of the normal\u201d (as defined individually), is, in fact, an experience of the divine.&nbsp; Even that epiphany was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, after MFW I looked in an online thesaurus for words like epiphany and saw words such as a moment of awe, inspiration, revelation, insight, sudden realizations, deep clarity, enlightenment, awakening, eureka\u2014just to name some.&nbsp; I now believe that I have had experiences of the divine because I have had moments that several of these words aptly describe. This has left me with a sense of peace deep inside and I no longer feel the need to have a more dramatic knowing of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Accompanying Painting created by Jill Berentsen-Bottum<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>recently, during MFW, I had an epiphany<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sept-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2069,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions\/2069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}