Going Back

Going back to the silence when you've been away for a while is difficult.

I live every moment of my life surrounded by noise - I listen to music as I walk, to podcasts as I do my house chores... even working in a library is never really quiet.

The silence of a Quaker meeting lets your mind wander and you end up in the strangest of places. Whatever it is that leads you there - your subconscious, God, the inner light - it's important to just sit in it for a while. It's sometimes disconcerting, travelling by silence, but the journey is important.

On Length of Ministry

At my Quaker meeting there is a friend who often asks, when he's spoken during meeting for worship, if his ministry was too long. He is quite verbose - I jokingly replied this Sunday past that if he spoke for less than five minutes, I'd worry that something was wrong, to which he burst out laughing.

He's got me thinking, though - how long is too long? I have not yet felt moved to speak in meeting, so I have no personal basis for comparison. Some people's ministry is very short - a few words, a reading of a passage from Quaker Faith & Practice that they find relevant to us all that day - and some is longer.

I think that while succintness and plainness of speech is prized among Friends, it is important that when we are moved to give ministry we share all of what we need to say - no more and no less. To deprive the meeting of your full ministry because you feel you have spoken too long would be a real shame, and I'd rather sit and listen to you for a while than miss out on what you have to say.

To those reading this - what are your feelings and experiences with ministry? How long do you think is too long?

Advices and Queries: 1

This is the beginning of my series about the little red book, Advices and Queries. I will be examining each of the different writings in turn, seeing what they mean to me and how they are relevant in my experience of Quakerism.

Advices and Queries is a small book of statements that is available for Quakers to read and consider, both in and out of meeting for worship. It is not doctrine - it is more a packet of seeds for Friends to plant in their minds and choose to water or not depending on what fits them best.

The first of them is this:
1. Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.

I think this is one of the Advices that I struggle with. I am still personally undecided about the existence of a God - I believe more in forces of nature, or possibly just our own human spirituality, and what I think I experience during meeting is the feeling of human connection rather than much in the way of external power. I try to apply the word God to that experience for the sake of easier reading of Quaker writing that still uses more traditionally Christian language, but I can find it a little uncomfortable, particularly as I know other people will apply a much different meaning to it. The Light is a phrase which fits better for me, but in all honesty I don't think the perfect word has been invented to describe it yet - a sentiment I have heard more than a few people express.

As a result of this, I interpret this Advice as referring to listening to my own intuition - which is still something I struggle with due to years of mental illness leaving my trust in my own judgement more than a little strained. Part of my personal journey is reclaiming the parts of myself that I have lost to my illnesses, so in that respect this is a meaningful paragraph that makes me think introspectively a great deal.

What I take from this advice is motivation to pay more attention to my gut feelings, and learn to reconnect with the instinctive parts of myself that I spent so many years actively suppressing. Whether the promptings in my heart come from an external God, or the Light, or my inner self, or something entirely different, I believe they are there for a reason and it is good for me to learn to listen to them again, inside and outside of the meeting.

Look Again

At a Meeting for Worship that I recently attended, a Friend gave ministry regarding an oak tree situated next to his home. He had walked past this tree every day, often multiple times a day, for nearly fifty years, and had only noticed that morning the unusual size of its leaves. He then went on to talk about how when we become used to something it can blend into the background of our lives, without us seeing its unusual properties and any significance they might have. 

The conclusion I drew from this was that it is important to occasionally take a step back and re-examine that which has become overly familiar. I think back to the amount of times I walked past the Quaker Meeting House throughout my life - it sits on my town's secondary high street, opposite the library that I have frequented my whole life. For many years I passed it on a weekly basis, never knowing how much it or the organisation it represents would come to mean to me on a personal level. From the outside it is a building of great ordinariness - not standing out at all from the town around it, until you take a second look and see what makes it unique. 

Quaker Lingo

Quakers use a particular vocabulary. This is a brief and continually expanding glossary in which I will attempt to explain these terms in a beginner-friendly way. Please bear in mind this is specific to the Quakers in Britain!

Attender: Someone who regularly goes to Quaker meetings but is not a formal member.

Britain Yearly Meeting: The national organisation of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain.

Business Meeting: A specific kind of Meeting for Worship where Quakers attempt to discern the correct path for decision-making. All Quakers are equal, so everyone is given equal weight. (edit - my previous definition included the word unanimous, which Quakers do not use. I'm still learning! Please look at the comments for a good addendum to this one.)

Centring/Centring Down: The state of tranquillity most Quakers acquire or aim for during Meeting for Worship. Generally regarded as a connection to the inner light.

Clearness Meeting: A meeting where an individual asks support from Friends with an issue in their life. An example may be the decision to become a Member, or making a career change. 

Clerk: Someone who oversees Business Meetings and records minutes of the will of the group. They also look after the inner workings of the meeting.

Meeting for Worship: When Quakers gather together in silence for stillness and contemplation, attempting to connect with... each other, or God, or the inner light... or whatever you want to call it.

Quaker Faith & Practice (QF&P): Although Quakers do not follow a specific creed or holy book, QF&P is still important to many Friends. It is a book that is written by Quakers for Quakers, updated every generation at the Britain Yearly Meeting. It contains Quaker perspectives on many different topics.

Weighty Friend: A Quaker who is heavily involved in the Society, who takes part in a lot of events and assists a lot with organising things within the Society.

Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM): The association of Quakers and people associated with Quakers in Britain aged 18-35. Can also refer to the thrice-yearly weekends away hosted by the organisation.