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Quaker Meeting.
The experience was extremely satisfying, actually---I did not expect it. Usually churches make me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious---and conspicuously out of place.
After I worried that I might not be able to deal with keeping still for silent worship for an entire hour, I was rather startled at how quickly that hour passed. I was quite sorry when it ended.
I have had experience with silent meditation---I read The Secret of the Golden Flower when I was still in college and I certainly have tried from time to time to apply it---but I’ve never been good at it. My brain carries on chattering nonsensically in the background and if I just let it go on, I soon find my thoughts, such as they are, degenerating into what Kingsley Amis refers to in one of his novels as ‘thought substitutes.’ My theory is this: if you shut the left brain down---if you can get it to shut up at all without actually going to sleep or losing consciousness---the right brain then kicks in and starts pumping out the weird images that symbolize what you would be thinking if you were thinking at all. Anyway, that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen in today’s meeting.
I was surprisingly unselfconscious for someone who is basically awkward and uncomfortable with strangers. It helped that the existing Quakers don’t make a fuss over newcomers or visitors. They just smiled and nodded and accepted our presence without the sort of kerfuffle that makes me feel all hemmed in by social obligations.
The local meeting is in the process of building a new Meetinghouse, and they have sold off their previous premises to pay for it, so right now they are meeting in the homes of various members or sometimes in a local synagogue. Today, we went to the home of one of the members. It was the sort of place that I find really appealing----an elegantly laid out but very simply furnished place with huge windows looking out onto the tops of the liveoak and palm trees that grew along a gorge or river bank running down to a creek. The living room and the slightly raised dining room that gave on to it seemed quite large enough to hold the 25-30 people who were present, but really I was barely aware of my surroundings other than that intense, deeply saturated green outside the windows. All of the palm leaves were shining in the sun. Much further down I could see the creek shining in the sun. The whole room was filled with that greenish light. It was the perfect place for my first experience of silent worship.
I was so tired from my most recent bout of insomnia that I just drifted in and sat down in the first available seat---which it turns out is exactly the procedure. People were already sitting there by the time I arrived. It was as silent as a room full of people could be. It was also quite warm. As I’d dressed in the Floridian’s usual expectation of shivering uncomfortably in the air conditioning after getting well and truly humidified, I was initially distracted by the discomfort; I even felt a little faint, what with the heat and the tiredness. But after a bit I forgot all about it.
What was it like? I don’t know how to describe it. The little handbook on silent worship says to try to focus on the inner light----that piece of each person that is supposed to be part of God----but not to worry if your mind wanders, you get distracted, have to move around, or don’t really get fully into it. At first, I was preoccupied with my physical discomfort.
After I settled down, I deliberately spent some time reflecting on the pain and panic that have so often plagued me since my late husband’s aneurysm, and certain circumstances surrounding his death; and with my constant anxiety about the future. I can’t say I arrived at any specific resolution, but after a bit, the panicky feeling subsided. I began to feel a little dazed. And after that, something happened. It was something very small----no blinding flashes of enlightenment or anything---but it was slightly frightening but also immensely reassuring. Something happened. I won’ t try to describe it because if I do, I will sound like a lunatic; as I said it was really small. I felt, not exactly confirmed, but encouraged in this particular path. After that, ‘silent worship’ seemed easy.
The silence was broken three times by people speaking out. A lovely young woman spoke out eloquently about her confusion over how to address a painful development in her life. Two men I couldn’t see from where I was sitting also spoke. One talked about Cindy Sheehan and her crucial role in ‘speaking truth to power,’ a phrase I’d heard but not really understood before he said that. Another talked about his concern for a friend. All of these interruptions were accepted in silence. People spoke when they were moved to speak and it was swallowed up in silence. I liked that very much.
In the end, there were introductions all round, ‘unspoken messages’---i.e., things people wanted to get off their chests but hadn’t felt prompted to say during the worship----and announcements concerning activities and so forth. For example: they are putting together some sort of communal tool-sharing plan. It sounds so mundane, but when I think about it, I can see how much money people could save if they need, say, a carpet-stretcher (“I’ll never use it again,” said the young man who was donating it) or some other expensive piece of equipment. It’s environmentally responsible as well as economically intelligent.
“Are they poor people?” asked my mother, ever vigilant on my behalf and clearly trying to conceal her concern that I am getting drawn into some sort of commune full of opportunistic types who will prey on me for my material goods (not that I have any to speak of; I don’t even have any tools to donate). No, not poor, but they do seem to follow the Gospel injunction to share what you have with others. One of their tenets is that you hold material things in trust and that you need to be able to let them go. Also, to quote the man specifically, if you have two coats and your neighbor has none, you give one of them to your neighbor.
I suppose this side of being Quaker might be much harder for me if I had ever accumulated a lot of possessions, but I haven’t. At one point in my life, circumstances were such that I lost nearly everything I owned----it tore at me a bit back then, but I managed not to let it upset me, and in the end it wasn’t as hard as I expected. I don’t need much---I’ve never wanted much more than to feel sure that I'll go on having a (rented) roof over my head and other necessities for carrying on as I am.
It's too soon to be sure---I'm as lazy as the next person---but I think this might work out for me.
UPDATE: 7-31-2006. Sadly, no. I parted on the best of terms with them---in fact with every intention of returning---but on reflection, I really didn't feel that I felt in. (For one thing, while I enjoy silent worship, I found other types of meetings rather tedious, with people waiting for the spirit to move them. For another...there were points on which---after a time---I didn't agree. But they were lovely people and I am glad to have had the experience.
RELATED POSTINGS.
“Infinite & Unforeseen.” The Cathars, the Quakers, T.S. Eliot, & Me
Chaotic Simplicity
Quaker Meeting
2:30:08 PM 
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