Why I love Meeting for Worship
Bob Johnson first attended Quaker Meetings over forty years ago. He tells us why he’s still going
Much to my surprise, I now love the silence in Meetings for Worship. I was four when I first went to Meeting – it was in the large Meeting room in war-torn York and we were seated wriggling on the back row. I looked out over the vast room at all these grown-ups and wondered what was really going on. I couldn’t make it out then and I’m not that much wiser today. Normally I expected adults to rush round, chatting, reading newspapers, drinking tea and generally doing things – yet here was an amazingly large number of them, apparently doing nothing. Weird.
‘Meetings for Worship’ – isn’t that a bit odd for our twenty-first century? Aren’t we all much too scientific, even postmodern? Well, the ‘worship’ side of things is still a mystery to me, and one with darker undertones, reminiscent of totem poles, rituals, even rain dances. But ‘Meeting’ – ah, there’s the key – that I can understand and agree with. Whatever else may be going on, there can be no denying that these apparently silent human beings are sitting down meeting each other. They may be meeting something else, something invisible, but I can’t see that, so cannot really know. But I do know they are meeting.
And they are meeting in silence – afterwards and before, they chat, but here, they are quiet. And the reason for this is well established in Quaker lore – ‘the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life’. Words are invaluable for communicating, but there are some places where they just get in the way. It so happens that these things are among the most important. They have something to do with the Spirit – itself an elusive concept, which the tighter you try and grasp it, the more it slips through your fingers. But it’s there and we can nurture it. Not always and not invariably, but when conditions are right something happens in the silence which doesn’t happen anywhere else.
I cannot describe what it is in words – because that’s not what words are good at. And I cannot ‘prove’ it in any ‘scientific’ way – but I can experience it, and I’m learning what helps and what doesn’t. Words such as ‘respect’, ‘getting to know one another better’, ‘honouring one another’, ‘seeking to raise up the good in each of us’ – all of these point to a central core, which cannot ever be strictly defined. Indeed that’s its chief asset; you can never know what it will do next, how it will manifest itself or where it will lead. Like life itself, it moves forwards, it grows, it blossoms – but only in living hearts who are open to it.
Of course it can easily be frightened off. There are a myriad of ways to freeze it or snuff it out. You can dismiss it as superstition, as a ‘Sunday morning social club’, but you can also explore it. You can also approach it in a spirit of enquiry – asking what it’s about, what it’s for. Then you can open your eyes to the miracle of living creatures, the inexplicable aspects of spontaneous creativity which only occur when people are alive to the possibilities. A method of voyaging where few other human activities venture – into our very souls, whatever that might mean. Seeking to glimpse a human soul is not weird – it’s miraculous. And who can’t benefit from bona fide miracles?
Bob Johnson is a member of Hampshire & the Islands Area Quaker Meeting.
Quaker Meeting for Worship
A European Quaker view of worship
An American Quaker view of worship
Bob Johnson
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In this week's
online edition...
cover
Dear visitor
Judy Kirby, editor, the Friend The poetry of silence and the prose of action
Kevin Franz The spiritual path for me?
Ron Kentish What about Hitler?
Geoffrey Carnall Why I came to the Meeting house
Sibyl Ruth Why I love Meeting for Worship
Bob Johnson Recharging our Quaker batteries
Harriet Hart Loving the Spirit of the Age
Laurie Michaelis Give Jesus a promotion!
David Boulton Jesus and me
Paul Oestreicher Restorative justice
Marian Liebmann ‘Our Lives’: working in disadvantaged communities
Rowena Loverance Conciliation behind the scenes
Oliver Robertson Far more than pacifism
Rosemary Hartill On being a Quaker artist
Rowena Loverance
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