Come home to within
Many people, today, are ‘seekers’. Quakerism can offer them a spiritual home. Beth Allen shares a personal letter to an imaginary seeker.
Dear Lee I was touched when you told me last Sunday that, as you sat in your first Quaker Meeting for Worship a few weeks ago, you felt you had come home. Many of the early Quakers used to say to newcomers ‘Come home to within’ – it was William Penn who first used the phrase – and you can unpack so many layers of meaning in this encouraging invitation.
In our quiet worship you are given time and space to sit with yourself and with God – ‘the God of your understanding’ – in a relaxed way, at home in your own heart, and to reflect. In the wordless worship you can be inwardly truthful to your own thoughts and where they take you. In the privacy of silence you can think the unthinkable, try out new ideas – or ideas you had not been able to formulate before. There’s no pressure to say or do anything you aren’t comfortable with – in fact, if anyone is uneasy in the silence, they are free to leave; respect for each person’s inner journey is a vital element in the Quaker way, and a Quaker Meeting is not everyone’s ideal home.
We help each other into our shared silence. The way you sit quietly encourages others to become peaceful. Perhaps, like me, you’ve noticed that one of our members is obviously used to Buddhist practice and meditation – I find that her attentive stillness carries me into quiet. And another learnt his method of contemplation in a monastery, and he too helps the rest of us just by his way of being there. We all, newcomers and experienced Friends alike, contribute to the depth and quality of the hour of worship. So it’s a shared home as well as a bunch of individuals each on our own path. Quakers speak of a ‘gathered Meeting’ – you’ll feel this as we all sense that together we are drawn into a deep and rich stillness and, when we surface, we know we’ve been through something profound together.
It’s homely too, as we are ordinary human beings. It’s good to get to know one another in everyday things as well as at the deeper levels – in fact we value this integration of the supposedly superficial aspects of our lives with the depths of worship.
The stillness of the worship may crystallise into spoken words. You can trust that they have come from within, but if they don’t speak to you, just let them go; they will fade like a ripple on the surface without affecting the depths. The words come from that stillness within these people on this day; they are not prepared or appointed, but prompted by the spirit, which has gathered us all.
We worship as we do because we know that each one of us can go within to meet the inner light, the divine spark, God, the springs of love – so many descriptions but one experience, wherever we are. In the popular caricature of Christianity ‘at home with God’ means a long way in the future, perhaps after death; we know our home within now, peace, truth and equality simply now, within and among us.
So open the door again; come home to within.
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