Thanks to everyone who posted their thoughts on Quakers and Prayer on my Facebook profile. I used many of your suggestions during my talk at Church of the Redeemer, which seemed to go well. I won’t try to recount everything I said here, but I will share a few things I figured out along the way.
After the usual disclaimer about how hard it is to generalize about Quakers, I started with “that of God in everyone” and the Quaker belief that we are all always connected to God and can feel that connection at any time and in any place, though we are not always attentive to it. Prayer, I suggested, is any attempt to pay attention to the Divine. It may take the form of speaking to God from our heart, like Mary Pennington in the wonderful story Marshall Massey posted. Singing or reciting a prayer may also kindle that connection for us, though I shared Bill Taber’s warning that we should use words “only when we are profoundly and alertly awake.” For unprogrammed Friends, silence is a common way we become alert to our connection, though silence by itself is not automatically worship.
Prayer can take place in a house of worship, in a home, or in a kayak, which is one of my favorite places for it since a wonderful meeting for worship last summer when my family was visiting a Friend in the Adirondacks. My son seemed unusually centered as his kayak drifted around a pristine lake where we were the only humans and where our connection to each other and the Divine felt as supportive and fluid as the water beneath us. I shared a few other experiences of worship as well, such as one time when a message I gave spoke in an unexpected way to a visitor and another when a message I had judged as trite spoke profoundly to a dear friend (an experience that made me more humble about judging other people’s messages).
Although I had explained at the outset the diversity of our theology and practice, the questions still focused on issues for which it’s hard to give a pithy answer: So are Quakers Christian? Do you read the Bible? How do you educate children in your meetings? Although these questions were not unexpected, they were striking given that at least two-thirds of these Main Line Episcopalians raised their hands when I asked how many had been associated with a Friends school. One man came up to thank me afterwards, saying that his child had gone to a Quaker school for ten years, and he never could figure out what Quakers believed. He said he had learned more during my forty-minute talk than in those ten years. As a former School Committee member for my children’s Quaker school, I wonder how many of our families would say the same. Given that many in my audience seemed to resonate with my message, I am wondering today how we can share what is alive and meaningful in our form of prayer, both in our schools and in the wider world.
I would say a better job needs to be done educating people about all Quaker ways. I find that in my own church, much is often not explained to newcomers, leaving them to draw their own conclusions or walk away puzzled and scratching their head. As I write this, I think of the scripture which talks about hiding your light under a bushel and when we won’t talk to people about our faith and practice, in a way it reminds of this scripture. Why wouldn’t we want to educate others?
Although I know that Friends schools can and should do a better job of describing how Quakerism informs ther learning communities, my response to the gentleman who said he learned more with you in 40 minutes than in 10 years at a Quaker school, might be, "Did you ever ask?’ How many non-Quaker families really investigate this while their kids are at a Friends school? Not many, in my experience. Just this past year at the school where my daughter goes, they held an information session on Quakerism , the second of such this year. Only one non-Quaker showed up, out of hundreds of parents on campus for conferences. The other 5 or 6 folks were members of Quaker meetings who showed up in support or to see how the school would present Quakerism.
Learning about Quakerism from a culture that refuses to proselytize means that it’s a two-way street. I mean, how did any of us learn about it if we weren’t born into it? We are called Seekers for a reason.
Keep up the great work, Eileen. I am enjoying your book. — Amy
Thanks, Amy and Pat. You both make good points, and not necessarily contradictory.
Glad it went so well, Eileen. And I too have been wondering how many parents of kids at the local Friends School might attend a presentation about Quakerism (1) if it was directed to them specifically and (2) if it was presented by someone not connected to the school!
Blessings,
Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up
Its amazing how many people are involved in quakerism who know nothing about it. I think the kind of presentation that you gave should be compulsory for Quaker schools across the nation.
Danny – Kindle Cases