Quakers?
Fran Handrick finds herself surrounded
For the first fifty-seven years of my life, to my knowledge, I had never encountered a Quaker. Now I find they are everywhere. I almost feel as if I am being pursued!
Even in the recent Christmas holiday I was given two books: one of them was a biography. The writer turned out to be a Quaker. The other was by a woman, who I have read before, who turned out to be an early Quaker.
As a research student at the University of Birmingham it was thought that my topic, though nothing to do with Quakers, would fit well into the Centre for Post Graduate Quaker Studies. So I regularly find myself at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, in a group of students who are themselves Quakers and who study Quakerly topics.
It was a completely new world to me. At first it was very scary. I learnt that Quakers used English in a completely different way to me: same words, different meanings. ‘Elder’, in my dictionary, is a noun and is either a pernicious weed or senior citizen, but here it seemed to be a verb. There was something that I had never heard of and that seemed to be a national event, it was called Britain Yearly Meeting. It was strange to think such an auspicious sounding event had passed me by for all these years. I felt as if I’d entered a parallel universe. The Peace Testimony sounds fascinating, but what on earth is it?
Then there was ‘The Silence’. I come from a tradition at almost the opposite end of the spectrum. I am a Pentecostal in an American Pentecostal denomination. We speak in tongues, often and sometimes loudly, and sometimes we do it out loud and all together. Some of the men shout far louder than is necessary. It can get very noisy. But I’m used to it. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable. How will I ever get used to this silence, doing nothing for minutes on end? I have sneaked a peek at people whilst they are being silent. They look comfortable enough, at peace with themselves even.
Me? I’m not a little envious. I just wait for it to be over in case I make a noise or my stomach rumbles or I drop something. I notice that I fiddle even when I’m trying to be quiet. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to go to a Meeting where they sit in silence for an hour. At the same time, I am deeply impressed with just about everyone I meet. They have informed views on topics I’ve never thought about. There is a respect for individuals. People go out of their way to help. Service seems paramount.
I feel there is an acceptance of people and no judging. I’m really not used to that. It has come as a shock but I have realised it is far less stressful than my own tradition. I begin to wonder if I can influence my church to be as accepting and nonjudgmental?
I am not ungrateful for this intervention, you understand, now that I’ve become a little more used to Quaker ways. I like it and I can see its attractions. There are times when I feel myself warming, as if to a theme, and wondering to myself, ‘What would Quakers think of that?’ or ‘How would Quakers react to this?’ So many things I have never thought about and so many things I have been sure of now challenged in so many ways.
