osodecanela | Silent Friends.........

I became a Quaker 30 years ago.

In reality, I should say I officially joined the greater Quaker community 30 years ago. It was not a conversion as much as it was putting a name to that which already was. I had embraced the mysticism of Quaker philosophy and worship much earlier. The first time I walked into Meeting for Worship, I felt as if I had come home.

The Quaker tradition is rooted in Christianity. It's one of the peace churches, with central testimonies of absolute equality, truth, community and non-violence. There is a belief in a continuing revelation, and that anybody and everybody can be in touch with the divine. That's the basis of absolute equality. There is that of G-d in everyone. If that's true, how can anyone be treated as less than anyone else? It lead early Friends to turn away from priests and set worship services, from social hierarchies and all the 'trimmings' that go with that. Plain speech, (i.e. the use of thee, rather than you) is a part of that. In the era in which Quakerism began, English had both formal and informal forms of address, just as the romance languages still do today. Thee was used when addressing people you were intimate with, and those of similar social status; you remained reserved for plural, but more importantly for single individuals of higher social status. It's long grown archaic in modern English, with one of the few vestiges of the acknowledgement of social hierarchy being the use of the 'royal we'.

But I digress.

The original Friends worshiped in silence, rising to speak when moved by the spirit. Many of us still seek inspiration the same way, though in the past 360 years, we've suffered schisms as a group and some have taken on set worship services, with miniters and hymn singing, things early Friends would have thought, well unthinkable. Pastoral Friends as they are known still hold to the central beliefs of peace and equality.

This post is not yet finished. I need to leave this computer - and edit will follow.