The Canadian Friend

November-December 1997

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 An Innocent Abroad: Rediscovering the Silence

K.R. Maddock - Toronto MM

As a Canadian Friend my experience was limited pretty much to the unprogrammed Meetings at home and in England. I was warned that when I went to the Earlham School of Religion, a Quaker seminary in Indiana, I would be exposed to very different forms of Quakerism. In that part of the world they preach, they read the scriptures, they sing! I braced myself and tried to set off with an open mind. As Patrick Henry Writing Scholar at Earlham for the spring semester of 1997, I already felt very privileged and welcomed by the Richmond community. My host for the period, Clyde Johnson, was particularly accommodating, and provided comfortable lodgings in his home, just across the road from the college. Although a recorded minister of Indiana Yearly Meeting, Clyde has a very unusual form of ministry, opening his house to college students, seminarians and many other people from the community, including a Roman Catholic spiritual director and members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

It is a safe house, a quiet place where people can meet, enjoy Clyde's avalanche of books or sit quietly and pray. Over the years, he has entertained many illustrious Friends and visitors, including Douglas Steere, Henri Nouwen and Madeleine L'Engle. Residing in the upstairs apartment, but only rarely seen by visitors, are two venerable cats - guardian spirits whose names are Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton.

The first weekend, Clyde invited me to accompany him to First Friends, his home Meeting. This, I thought, was like plunging in at the deep end. I had seen pictures of the imposing red-brick church that once served as headquarters for Indiana Yearly Meeting. It was said to represent the high-church of Quakerdom, boasting a liturgy complete with robed choir.

However, my expectations were diminished upon arrival. The ceiling of the imposing Meeting room had recently been condemned by a building inspector, forcing Friends to meet in the library. Although Pastor Alan Kolp and a small, unrobed choir with piano accompaniment did their best, they were almost drowned out at times by a radiator that beat a discordant rhythm throughout the service. In spite of this, I was struck by the period of silence and open worship that followed the homily. This was a familiar touch that I was not anticipating. And the vocal ministry heard during that fifteen minute interval was similar to that heard during unprogrammed worship.

After the Meeting, I was made to feel very welcome by a number of the members. But, since Clyde was anxious to get to the College Meeting which was soon to begin at the Stoutt Meeting House on campus, we didn't stay very long for tea. More about that later.

The second programmed Meeting I attended was West Richmond, located closer to the campus. While these folks meet in a building that is reminiscent of a YMCA from the outside, the Meeting room is designed like the sanctuary of a Protestant church, wooden pews arranged semi-circularly around a raised platform.

Their Meeting, led by the casually-dressed pastor named Josh Brown, seemed more family-oriented. It included a children's story time that cut deeply into the sermon time when I was there. There was also a call to worship, enthusiastic hymn-singing led by a choir of college students, and an open-worship period. Josh Brown later told me that he only preaches once or twice a month, a preference that may be influenced by his own upbringing in an unprogrammed Meeting. After the service there was a wonderful opportunity to sit in on an adult study group which was discussing the elements of worship. When Josh asked which elements were most important to them, one elderly woman immediately piped up, "The silence!" Other suggestions were forthcoming, including music, Bible readings and the children's story. It took a little prompting from the pastor, however, before someone mentioned that they liked the sermons as well.

Again I felt very welcomed... and within a week received letters from Josh and two members of the Meeting whom I had met after worship.

The third Monthly Meeting in Richmond is Clear Creek, an unprogrammed Meeting which is based in the Stoutt Meeting House, a more traditional Quaker structure located on the Earlham campus. Apart from the fact that the Meeting room is big enough to be an auditorium for concerts, with high windows that let in an abundance of sunlight, I felt right at home in the simplicity of this setting. Historically, Clear Creek grew out of the Hicksite tradition and experienced tension with the other Meetings from time to time. But relations among them all seem cordial at present. Clyde's ministry, in particular, is supported by them all.

But Clyde's favourite Meeting, as he confessed to me on that first weekend, is the one the college students organized for themselves in the Stoutt Meeting House later in the morning. They seem to prefer a more programmed approach that lets students participate in planning, singing upbeat gospel songs, reading from contemporary translations of the Bible and delivering some highly original sermons addressed to the concerns of youth. The first time I attended, a young woman who came from a Unitarian background spoke about her struggle to reconcile her universalist values with the passionate evangelical warmth demonstrated by many of her friends. She spoke with such integrity and enthusiasm that we couldn't help being blessed by her presence.

Having been steeped in the unprogrammed manner of worship, after leaving behind the complex liturgy of the Protestant church, I was slightly disoriented by the surprisingly wide variation in forms of worship. I have become aware that silence can be as much a cluttered, outward form as any hymn, prayer, reading or sermon. And the experience of the gathered silence can be very fragile when interrupted by spontaneous mini-sermons and "popcorn" ministries. So I tried to learn how Indiana Quakers respect the silence, framing it within the context of a worshipful and participatory experience. At the best of times, singing and inspired preaching enable the worshippers to enter into a deeper personal experience of God. But, with or without liturgical support, I became aware that the inward experience is ultimately a grace which we can only prepare ourselves to receive.

Framing the silence in an unprogrammed Meeting may mean little more than gathering more intentionally at an agreed time on First Day mornings, taking care not to disrupt others with late arrivals. It may also involve learning to take the worship experience with us as we leave the Meeting room, before lapsing into the business of the Meeting and daily life. In Richmond, the agreed time for the three Monthly Meetings is 9:30 in the morning. Richmond Friends may be earlier risers than most Canadians, or perhaps they have less distance to travel. But the earlier time does seem to say something about the priority of worship in their lives.

After I returned to Toronto, someone asked me if my understanding of Quakerism had changed as a result of my exposure to programmed worship. My instant response was affirmative. Yes, my understanding has broadened to include a spiritual connection with Friends whose preferred style of worship is different from my own. Since we all follow a tradition that submits to the initiative of the Holy Spirit in common devotion, the forms and differences seem to diminish in importance. After experiencing the diversity of Friends' practices in Richmond, Indiana, I feel that I now have a richer and deeper appreciation of the silence in our own Meetings - and their potential for being true gatherings in the Spirit.