A Quaker meeting creates a space of gathered stillness.
We come together where we can listen to the promptings of truth and love in our hearts, which we understand as arising from God.
Our meetings are based on silence; but this silence arises out of waiting and listening.
There may be silence for quite some time, perhaps half an hour or more. But that does not mean nothing is happening.
Nearly everyone at some time seems to want to find God in themselves, even those who find it hard to believe that God exists. Using a different image or concept such as ‘spirit’ or ‘light’ can be helpful.
We come to meeting because we feel the need to worship. It is important to us. Meeting for worship starts as soon as the first person enters the room and sits down. It helps if the meeting can settle a few minutes before the appointed time.
Go in as soon as you are ready. Sit anywhere you like.
Children may be present for a time at the beginning or at the end of meeting, and have their own activities in another room.
You may find it easy to relax in the silence and enter into the spirit of the meeting, or you may be disturbed by the strangeness of the silence, by distractions outside or by your own thoughts. Don’t worry about this. We all find it difficult to settle at times.
When we return again and again to the still centre of our being, we can know the presence of God. Try, if only for brief periods, to be quiet in mind, body and spirit. Bring whatever is pressing on your mind to the meeting. It can be a time of insight, revelation, healing or calm.
The silence may be broken if someone present feels called to say something which will deepen and enrich the worship. Quakers call this 'giving ministry'. We don't have priests to speak to us.
When Quakers speak in Meeting it often comes as a surprise to the person to find themselves on their feet and speaking.
Anyone is free to speak, pray or read aloud, as long as it is done in response to a prompting of the spirit which comes in the course of the meeting. This breaks the silence for the moment, but does not interrupt it.
Listen with an open mind to what is said. Each contribution may help somebody, but our needs are different and can be met in different ways. If something does not make sense to you, try to reach the spirit behind the words. It's possible the message isn't for you, but for someone else.
Each of us brings our own life experience to meeting. Some people will have a profound sense of awe and wonder because they know God is present. Others will be far less certain. It's all good.
Knowing and accepting ourselves
When I left school I set out into the world determined that nothing as small as the Society of Friends would hold me. ‘I want the real world’, I said. ‘Friends are good people, aunts and uncles and cousins, they are friends of the family to whom I must always be polite. They do not drink or smoke or swear, they do not lose their tempers. They do not love money, they do not worship success (well, only a little bit), they do not compete, they do not gamble, they do not fight. They do not do what they want to do. If they want to do something very much they deeply suspect it is not the right thing to do. But I am not like that at all. I would like to drink and smoke, to make money, to be successful. I want to fight and to win; I want to please myself, to enjoy myself, to be myself. I am talented and clever and malicious; I will escape, for I am clearly not a Quaker, and find out what it is I am. I am no-one’s daughter and no-one’s granddaughter’, I said defiantly, ‘I am myself.’ And I marched down Shaftesbury Avenue waving my banner with only a casual glance at Westminster Meeting House.
What I am telling is a classic story but we must admit that every cliché contains profound truth and a story is classic because so many people recognise it as true. ‘Father’ I said, ‘give me my inheritance and I will go out and seek a fortune.’ So I took my inheritance and went out and spent it. When it was all gone I came to myself and, finding myself somewhat diminished, faced with demands I found difficult to fulfil, I went to meeting.
‘Here I am’, I said.
‘That’s all right.’
‘Just for a bit of a sit-down.’
‘Whatever you need.’
‘You mustn’t expect anything from me,’ I said, ‘I can only bring a need.’
‘Whatever you have.’
Dorothy Nimmo, 1979
from Quaker Faith and Practice