Coming to stillness
Many people describe their experience of Quaker Meeting as ‘coming home’. Some may feel this straight away during their first meeting, others find it gradually. People speak of a sense of acceptance or belonging, a feeling of rest and comfort, or being at peace with ourselves. In whatever way we experience it, that sense of being at home is what keeps many of us coming back. As we sit together, usually in some kind of circle around a table with flowers and books on it, we are creating a safe place where it is fine to just be ourselves, in the company of others. We may have come to sort out our thoughts, or to find calm in the middle of uncertainty or to simply wait and see what arises. Probably we have come for all those and other reasons. Quakers rarely talk about what we do in a meeting because we have the freedom to think and be whoever we are. It is also a time to be with others and invariably as the meeting continues, we are drawn towards each other in a collective stillness.
Partly because we don’t often talk about it, what happens in a Quaker meeting can be a mystery to visitors. Sometimes we find ourselves in a dry, empty place and at other times, we are enriched and moved. As the stillness deepens, I find refreshment and nourishment. I may discover new paths and insights, or questions and challenges. This is a stillness where there is movement, as described by T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets when he writes about the still point of the turning world. It is where I encounter the mystery of life, feel at peace with the whole of myself, and see my life in a wider perspective. When a collective stillness enfolds the meeting, I feel accepted and supported by a sense of connection and upholding that stays with me during the week. At best my concerns and worries meld together with my joy and love of life, so I feel stronger. This is why I come to meeting.
For some this deep stillness comes naturally and effortlessly. However, many Quakers find it is a help to start with meditation practices learnt from different sources: Buddhism, Yoga, Tai Chi, Sufism, Christian prayer. In a Quaker meeting, these practices can be a bridge from the everyday activities of thinking and doing into the silent stillness. Whatever feels right on the day is fine.
One way to prepare for stillness is to think about walking through open doors. In his pamphlet, ‘Four Doors to Meeting for Worship’ William Taber describes the journey into and out of the stillness as stepping over 4 thresholds, from entering the Meeting House to leaving it at the end of the meeting. Our outreach group made 4 posters using the idea of open doors. The posters show through the first door into our meeting house where people are welcoming one another and through the next door into the meeting room they are sitting in a circle. The third and fourth doors take us out into our garden and beyond.
When the first person steps through the ‘2nd door’, and sits down in the circle, they are starting to create the stillness and the Quaker meeting has begun. I still start with a centring practice after many years of coming to meeting because I enjoy that transition. On the hearth at home stands a clay sculpture of four figures holding hands around a central candle. It expresses with beauty and simplicity that sense of being together in the presence of light and love. In Meeting those figures are a reminder that I am here to be present with the whole of myself, to reach out with love to everyone in the circle and to welcome the spirit in our midst. Sometimes I intentionally feel my feet on the floor, I imagine my arms stretching round the circle to each person and I breathe in the life of the universe as symbolised by the flowers on the table. I send my breath across and around the room. I am ready to wait.
Isaac Penington, one of the early 17th century Quakers wrote about our breath being our prayer. Patsy Rodenburg who taught at some of the world’s leading theatres showed actors how to reach everyone in the audience by imagining their breath and their words flowing out right to the very back. It is the same with silent breath. Intentionally breathe into your roots and you feel more grounded. Breathe in and out to the space around you and it will come more alive. Breathe softly with kindness and watch love flow. Breathe your deepest longings into the world and help create your vision on earth. It is one way to pray, silently in the stillness. When I centre myself in this way my thoughts give way to new understanding received in the waiting. Near the end of Four Quartets, Eliot writes ‘And all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well when… the fire and the rose are one’. I am not at all sure what he meant; to me it means that when the energies of passion, anger and fear join with the energies of loving kindness and pleasure we are whole. In the wholeness that I experience in the stillness, I see more clearly what it is for me to do.
Afterwards I walk out through the ‘4th door’, knowing that for all the mistakes we make, human beings still have the power to come together to learn and heal. In that knowledge lies my hope and my path.
Ruth Tod - Henley Quaker Meeting