Return of phrase: Philippa Somerset’s Thought for the Week
‘I am once again afraid of the long and open silence.’
I first stepped into a Quaker Meeting two years ago, half way through my A-Levels and in desperate need of stillness. I had just lost members of my family, one tragically young, and came to Meeting in search of time to understand my grief, and in hope that I might find some reassurance in a Quaker faith.
I did find help, but it was the silence of Meeting that was most crucial in this, rather than solely faith or belief. Having grown up through rapid technological change and digital modes of consumption, I have been fed noise and stimulation almost constantly. I came to rely on this base level distraction in order to focus, in order to ‘switch off’ – in order, it seemed, to just exist. Meeting for Worship was a rare place of total separation from this, a way of retraining myself into a more peaceful way of thinking and living. It was in this silence that I found space and time to process my grief.
This year, prompted by lockdowns and a Covid-marred move to university, I found myself falling into low moods and anxiety. Away from home and overwhelmed, I fell back into the reassuring din of noise. There was barely a moment in which I was not relying on audiobooks, radio, or television to distract me from spiraling thoughts. Online Meeting for Worship was difficult to fully enter into while alone, and so I slowly fell out of the habit.
Between lockdowns, finding a place at a new Meeting was difficult. Socially distanced and masked, conversation with people you have never met before has its challenges. After a few peaceful but odd-feeling Meetings, I stopped attending, promising myself I’d return once we could meet with fewer restrictions. My home Meeting continued online. I kept in touch with emails and newsletters but barely attended Zoom Worship, which, alone in my room, felt lonely.
I’m now home for the summer, struggling towards better mental health, and with an opportunity to attend blended Meeting in person. Yet, all too easily, I let small inconveniences and excuses stop me. I am once again afraid of the long and open silence. I think back to the first Meetings I went to, much needed though they were, glancing at the clock, surprised at how little time had passed, waiting for other people’s ministry, never quite ‘centering down’ as I did once the silence became familiar.
I ask what we can do to ease a return for those who now find themselves unused to Meeting. Keeping in contact held the door open for my return, and meant I knew what Meetings were happening. Shorter midweek Meetings, and online Meetings where cameras can be turned off, have both acted as gentle returns to worship for me. I’m growing once more towards their stillness.
I look towards my return to in-person Meeting for Worship with some trepidation, but ready to face the silence and embrace the peace of Meeting, that absence of numbing noise, whatever it holds.
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