'Our door to silence is always open to everyone who wants to come...' Photo: Mattia Notari / flickr CC.
Room for more
Roger Babington Hill muses on the theme of Quaker Week
The theme for this year’s Quaker Week, which runs from Saturday 29 September until Sunday 7 October, is ‘Room for more’.
Friends have a distinguished history of caring for the disadvantaged. For example, they played a major role both in the ending of slavery and in the rescue, in the 1930s, of Jewish children from the horrors of the Nazi regime.
But Quakers certainly do not claim a monopoly of giving service to others. This is just as much an essential part of the religious life for members of the many other Christian denominations, as it is for the followers of all the major religions, such as Judaism, Islam, Taoism or Buddhism. Compassionate service for others is a core principle that underlies how to lead a good and useful life, both for those who have a religious commitment, and for those who do not.
The theme of ‘Room for more’ is also one that resonates in our inner life. Quaker worship is based on silence. Silent worship can be found in most other religious and spiritual traditions, for example in the monasteries of Christianity, Taoism and Buddhism, and in the Sufi school of Islam, but in these it is thought to be something special or esoteric, and attendance is often closed to outsiders.
One of the distinguishing features of Quakerism is that our Meetings for Worship are accessible to all.
Our door to silence is always open to everyone who wants to come. Silence is the essential quality of our worship – it is its distinguishing feature. In our hour of worship, while individuals may stand to speak briefly, we have no shared creeds or prayers to recite, no psalms to sing, and this gives us a freedom and a space to explore what is new and challenging. Worshippers in other traditions value the cohesion that is given by a common spoken ritual.
We find that silence enables us to see more clearly, and embrace more fully, the new ideas and tasks that are presented to us.
Our shared silence gives us a chance to welcome those who wish to worship with us without demanding that they subscribe to any creed. We do not require a history of baptism or confirmation. Those with an affiliation to another religious tradition are equally welcome, and they are not expected to leave it aside but rather to share its richness with us.
Waiting in silence we have room for the new, room for more.
This is a revised version of a ‘Thought for the Day’ to be broadcast on BBC Radio Devon in the first week of October.
