Messages

  • “These stuffy old Friends are really talking sense”

    “I read that I was supposed to make ‘a place for inward retirement and waiting upon God’ in my daily life, as the Queries in those days expressed it. At last I began to realise, first that I needed some kind of inner peace, and then that these apparently stuffy old Friends were really talking sense.

    If I studied what they were trying to tell me, I might possibly find that the ‘place of inward retirement’ was not a place I had to go to, it was there all the time.”

  • What undergirds Quaker worship

    “Underlying and undergirding the unprogrammed worship of Friends is prayer; the prayerful corporate waiting which takes place in any meeting when it has centered down. As we go deeper and deeper, prayer is our task as individuals and as a group.”

  • Everyone present contributes to Quaker meeting

    “Every member of a Meeting, whatever his formal status […] contributes to the Meeting. Sometimes this contribution is spoken; generally it is silent.”

  • What Quakers do in the silence

    “Many religions include short moments of silence in their services, but for Quakers, silence is the heart of worship. The room goes still as we let go of everyday busyness. Individuals may rise occasionally to share a message out of the silence, but for the most part quiet reigns.

    And yet, inside our heads, thoughts dance and twist about. As anyone who has tried to meditate knows, silencing one’s thoughts can be a challenge. Everything from grocery lists to worries about loved ones parades through the mind. Sometimes the procession makes a clatter; other times, a steady whisper of thoughts. But either way, it can be hard to settle.”

  • Silence outside of Quaker meeting

    “The essence of the value of silence, for Quakers as well as for monastics and others, is to free ourselves from influences other than from God. Silence, then, can open ourselves to God and let us truly listen to the Living Christ.”

  • When there was silence in heaven

    “May our minds be gathered to it, let our name and our profession to religion be what it may, and may we experience this divine communion of saints, and deeply ponder God’s unbounded love in solemn silence, for there is no power of eloquence can sufficiently acknowledge the obligation and reverence we owe his infinite majesty”

  • Doing God’s will as if it were my own

    In calm and cool and silence, once again
    I find my old accustomed place among
    My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue
    Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung,

  • It’s not about getting God’s attention

    “God is always talking to us. God is always reaching out to us. Every time I stop to listen, I hear that God has already started. It’s not a case of getting God’s attention, but it’s a case of getting my attention.”

  • Inner silence is the same as the love of God

    “Inner silence, calming the agitations of our hearts and minds, letting go of all that is stubborn and grasping, is essentially an expression of the love of truth. To be dispassionate, not to let one’s own needs or prejudices or emotions color one’s actions, is essentially to put truth before everything else. To love truth in this way is to love God, who is Truth. Thus the practice of inner silence is the same as the love of God.”

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