Orkney seaweed-eating sheep Photo: Jennifer Batten
Quaker Meeting for Worship on North Ronaldsay
Meeting in Orkney
The Orkney Islands have a population of less than 20,000 and two small but dedicated Local Quaker Meetings. Two are necessary because travel between the islands makes it impractical for all to meet together more than occasionally, so one group meets weekly on Mainland (Orkney’s largest island) and one meets daily on Westray with regular attendance varying from two to seven. Numbers are usually larger in the summer, when a wide selection of visitors attend.
Recently a young Quaker arrived to work at the bird observatory on North Ronaldsay, the most northern of the inhabited islands. So Mainland Meeting decided to take itself to North Ronaldsay and have Meeting there. As it turned out, only two of us could go, so that made three Quakers. But six of the islanders turned up, none ever having been to a Quaker Meeting before!
After a brief introduction we settled into silent worship. Paragraph 17 from Advices & Queries was read, but apart from that the silence was unbroken. There was no fidgeting and nobody fell asleep – it was a centred Meeting. It lasted fifty minutes but could have gone on for a full hour. Afterwards, over coffee, there were many questions, and we finally left after two hours.
A similar Meeting took place on Papa Westray when Westray Friends met there. Papa Westray is a small island north-west of Westray. Again a number of islanders turned up and there was a very successful Meeting for Worship. On this occasion there were also several children.
To be outnumbered by people who have never attended Meeting for Worship before is quite a daunting thought at first – most people find long periods of silence uncomfortable. So to find a number of people able to settle into silence so well and really seem to appreciate it was inspiring. There is not the busy-ness on the small islands that most of us suffer from, and I wonder whether it was Quakerism that came to the islands or the islands’ peace that came
to Meeting.
Visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/jen-the-wren to see more of Jennifer Batten’s photographs, including our cover image this week.
