Candles at Brentford and Isleworth Meeting. Photo: Bessie White.
Meeting by candlelight
Bessie White describes an experiment in worship
Our eighteenth century Meeting house still has small brackets along the panelling. which we assume held sconces for lighting. The candle holders, however, did not survive – they were presumably redundant after the introduction of gas and, then, electric light.
Our Quaker Life representative had inspired us to look for new ways and times of worshipping. Having tried a Meeting for Worship with the dawn (four-thirty in the morning in May) we decided our next venture should be one by candlelight. So, how many candles would we need, where should they be put for best effect, and were we being rash to do this in our listed building?
With some advance experimentation, candles of different sizes were placed on the table, on chairs at each side of the room, and on the steps up to the elders’ bench, and set in a variety of glass bowls, jam jars or small holders. Flickering battery tealights along the window ledges added sparkle.
Entering a darkened room, lit only by candles, changes the way people move. They come in more slowly, tentatively, noiselessly. The well-known room has a different atmosphere and smell. It feels different. People navigate slowly to a seat in the dim light, anxious not to disrupt the silence, or disturb the steady flames.
The worship was deep and hushed. People moved less, breathing was stilled. The subdued lighting encouraged concentration and prevented any possibility of reaching for reading matter. The ministry referred to a poem: ‘Together we make a brighter light… darkness is not the last word.’
Comments afterwards referred to the depth of the silence and the value of this time of peace at a busy period of the year. ‘To whoever thought of this event, thank you!’ was another comment.
On the practical aspects, we discovered that a security light outside, activated by the wind or garden wildlife, brought an unexpected short burst of brightness to one wall from time to time. A light on the nearby school produced an image of one of our eighteenth century windows reminiscent of moonlight.
However, just as one learns to tune out extraneous noise in a morning Meeting, so it’s possible to dismiss visual intrusions in the same way. Our spirits were elsewhere.
Danger points were not the Meeting for Worship itself, but the chatting afterwards. Would that long scarf swing near the still-lit candles on the table? (It didn’t and the candles were moved.) Perhaps the tea towels in the bucket of water were a wise precaution, after all.
Fourteen people attended our six o’clock evening Meeting – a similar number to our normal Sunday morning. There are requests to repeat it before the days lengthen.
