It’s been over 25 years since I first stepped into a meeting house, and I’m still trying to figure it out. 

What is a Quaker anyway? 

The name actually started as an insult that a judge spat at an early Friend. We took it up as our name. Does it mean dressing like this guy?  Hale, hearty, healthy. When Henry Crowell bought the company, he used this guy as part of the national advertising campaign. 

There’s an old joke among Friends that we came to the New World to do good and ended up doing well instead. 

So how does the being a Quaker part play out in daily life? Well, for starters, it means that a meeting for worship, whether in a meeting house or on Zoom, is mostly silent. We’re waiting, as it were, for messages that might be animated from that divine part of ourselves. I try to think of it as the little inner voice that is always present but can be pushed aside by big feelings, beliefs, or ideas. 

This silent meeting can be off-putting to those joining a meeting for the first time and expecting someone to lead them. There’s another  Friendly joke about a newcomer who comes to a meeting that’s quiet the whole hour, waiting, and growing frustrated. She asks, “When does the service begin?” And a Friend quips, “Well, as soon as worship is over.” The service to one another, that is. 

My first experience of Quaker meeting was in the sun-drenched Brooklyn Meeting House on Schermerhorn and Adams Streets. It may be silent in the meeting house, but you still get horns, sirens, and voices from outside. But after a week filled with rushing to and from work, being in meetings with lots of talking, pumping music into our ears, staring at our screens, binge-watching shows, reading words on a printed page? Sitting in silence is a break from the tsunami of life’s events that we swim through. The collective practice of silence sought and held together is stronger than what you might summon alone, though that too is a worthy practice. 

So Quakers practice silence and listening for messages from one another together. If you feel led to speak, you stand and share your message.  That means that every meeting for worship is unique. You never know who will speak, or what they’ll say. 

This listening stems from our belief in continuing revelation. When I hear revelation, the first thing that pops into my head is that last book of the New Testament—the one that we pretty much skipped over in Catholic school but that is filled with prophecies of some divine being’s return to Earth. It always scared me a bit. Don’t worry. All this one means is that new messages, new truths, new ideas are coming all of the time. And as one of my friends likes to remind me, baked into this idea is that past ideas can be wrong. This one will be my favorite Quaker idea. We are all sources of truth. We all have something to offer. There are no texts because we are the texts. 

The messages offered in that spirit vary in form and content. The idea is that they’re supposed to emanate from that still and divine part of you. They’re not supposed to be prepared or based on that story you heard on NPR. 

Here are a few that I jotted down that spoke to me: 

“Choose to be bold, and give yourself over to joy” 

“Hold space for both the failures and kindnesses of others. Forgive.”  

Recently, I joined a Quaker book group to read Colm McCann’s Apeirogon. I see the book’s fragments as a collection of messages. Rami, one of the fathers whose daughter died in a bombing, explained: “We cannot imagine the harm that we are doing by not listening to one another. And I mean this on every level. It is immeasurable. We have built up the wall, but the wall is really on our minds, and every day I try to put a crack in it.” (Page 227.) I can’t think of a better reason to sit in silence and listen.

The founder of Quakerism, George Fox, thought the idea that a minister was necessary to broker a relationship between you and God was absurd. Almost 400 years later, I am inclined to agree. Fox drew his inspiration from the Bible—the idea is that when a few people are gathered, so is the Divine. Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” 

You don’t need a building, you don’t need a book, you don’t need a song. All you need is a bit of quiet and a friend. Together we find our way. 

Beyond silent worship in the meeting house there is the idea of “letting your life speak,” so we might pursue professions where we are in service to others: teachers, social workers, administrators. The phrase lends itself to interpretation: your life can speak through music (Joan Baez), the arts (Bradley Whitford, Helen Mirren), or you could even grow up to be President (Hoover, Nixon). So banish any ideas you have of pure Quaker perfection. We also thought that solitary confinement was a good idea. 

So being a Quaker is about how you show up at work and in life. How you treat people. How you run a meeting. How you show up at a protest or organize a protest. 

Brooklyn Friends Meeting Community Dinner

One of the activities that Brooklyn Meeting has organized since the late 1980s is something called “Community Dinner.” It’s a meal, prepared by volunteers on the last Sunday of the month for anyone that needs it. A church doing a soup kitchen is hardly a new thing, but what’s different about Community Dinner is that it’s run like a restaurant. Each table has a server who takes orders for guests. There are regulars. Unlike a restaurant, once everyone is served, we’ll also grab a plate for ourselves and join the meal. I’ve gotten to know people that I never would have met otherwise and share a meal. C wants to tell me about ideas for the menu. He works in a deli over on 4th Avenue. R is always asking after my daughters, who sometimes also join the dinner. O asks, “Where’s my hug?” It’s just as simple as sitting down and breaking bread together. 

These regular rituals, the expectant silent waiting and listening.  The practice of showing up for one another. For me and I suspect for many others, meeting, the weekly practice of sitting in a cradle of silence waiting for the spark of messages, is an essential recharge for my spiritual battery, and that’s why I return to meeting week after week, always seeking.  Curious about a meeting? Learn more at nycquakers.org.