Every so often we get a call at Reno Friends Meeting from someone wondering if the Quakers are Mennonites or perhaps part of the Amish faith. I used to find these questions amusing, as if people thought we drove buggies, dressed in simple clothes, or wore colonial-style hats, like the guy on the Quaker Oats box. But it turns out the question is not that silly.
Sometimes I wonder what Christmas would be like if we got rid of presents.
We would have more time to sing carols and deck the halls with boughs of holly. Instead of spending Christmas Eve madly wrapping our gifts, we could gather around a wassail bowl with close friends and family and swap memories and aspirations. We would have time to step out under a starlit sky and imagine angels appearing to the shepherds as they tended their flocks. We could edge closer to the stillness that abides in the dark cold of midwinter, and take time to appreciate the warmth of the candlelight when we come inside.
Spiritual experiences can come in many forms. They don’t have to be sudden and spectacular upheavals; they can also be small lessons based on an everyday experience or a thought or statement which may be mindfully contemplated. The latter may be what some call the educational variety of spiritual experiences since they come in small bits over time. What may be challenging is recognizing spiritual experiences and growing in their understanding when they occur – or just being open to them.
As many of you know, Rhonda Ashurst and I have been writing blogs for Reno Friends Meeting for some time, as well as editing blogs from other folks in the Meeting. I started the RFM Blog in 2014 as a way to share ideas about Quakerism, explore difficult topics, and seed the zeitgeist with Quakerly principles and testimonies. Rhonda joined me in 2019, writing blogs and bringing her wisdom to the table to help shape and edit submissions. We’ve been led by spirit, but also by our editing and writing experience and the journalistic principle of keeping it fresh: to that end, we’ve published a new blog nearly every month for ten years. We are proud of the collection of Quaker blogs we’ve shared, but we are also tired. So we are reshaping the RFM blog.
Over time, Rhonda and I found that the best blogs emerged when one of us (or someone else in the Meeting) felt a strong leading to take on a particular topic. These blogs were easy to write – they flowed from our hearts with an urgency we couldn’t always explain. They also seemed to tap into something deeper; they were blogs we felt we needed to write, something that had to be said and shared. They were the blogs that most often seemed to move our audience.
The first time people attend a Quaker Meeting, they often find Silent Worship mystifying. It looks like nothing is happening: there is no minister guiding the worship, no liturgy lending structure, no music filling the soul. In short, there’s no apparent reason why everyone has gathered. There are just Friends, each head down in his or her own private silence.
Everywhere I turn today, I encounter the issue of integrity. Our political climate and deep divisions keep raising questions about integrity: who has it and who doesn’t, whether journalists have integrity or are manipulating the truth, and whether candidates are lying or obfuscating. Integrity, it turns out, may be one of the most compelling issues of our day, and an important topic to consider as we head into the next national election.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ~ AA Serenity Prayer
In a blog a few months ago, I made the Case for Silence in a Quaker Meeting. Today I want to make the Case for Words.
When Quakers worship, the silence inside the Meeting House occasionally is broken by someone who rises to share a message they feel moved to say. These messages are usually simple, and most have a universal element, since messages should be shared only if they offer something to others. So, yes, we Quakers worship in silence, but we also listen – to God, to each other, to our own hearts – and share that with the community around us.
I walk through what was once a lively forest, now reduced to charred standing skeletons devoid of branches, needles, shade. This was once a welcoming vibrant forest retreat, but now I am hypervigilant, watching for a strong wind as swaying snags threaten my head. There is life here—beetles furiously chewing in the snags, woodpeckers hammering to pry them out—but it is hard to focus on these small signs. Surrounded by these visual reminders of forest trauma, I am overwhelmed by the grief and shock of this rapid change to the forest ecosystem—not just the loss of our forest community, but also of homes burned, towns burned. It stirs my memories of people living in tents on the roadside because they had nowhere else to go.
Few people love a meeting, but most organizations hold meetings because they have essential business to accomplish. Quaker Meetings are no different: once a month, most Quaker Meetings hold what is formally known as “Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business.” To be honest, a Quaker Meeting for Business is unlike most meetings I’ve had to attend in my life, either for work or with community organizations. And the key to the difference is in the formal name.