ABOUT

Me & My Friends

Tolerance — for me, it is the word that comes foremost to mind when thinking of the Quakers. In my opinion, along with peace and simple living, it is the hallmark quality of the “Religious Society of Friends” (as they prefer to call themselves). They believe in the goodness of man. They believe that there is good in everyone, God in everyone. And they are very accepting of other people's beliefs. No wonder they are so well regarded these days.

A Friends church service is unique. Their “meeting for worship” consists of silence, broken only by those speaking as they are inspired by the light within them. Anyone can speak. And basically anyone can say whatever they'd like. There is no program. There is no preacher. There is no priest. The highest level one can attain in a Friends meeting house is “clerk.” It is the denomination of equality and tolerance.

I know these are the characteristics that appealed to my father and mother when they first started attending Friends meeting on Hill Street in Ann Arbor in the mid fifties. My father embraced the silence where he could loose himself in his own thoughts, while my mother embraced the message of peace.

And tolerance was the word at meeting. I remember turbans and head scarves. I remember the accents of European war refugees. I remember odd misfits and students. So my parents, too, were accepted just as they were.

It is the cynic in me (and I have no proof of it), but my opinion is that my father needed a church when he moved back to Michigan with his new family. He needed a church home, any church home, for the sake of his own mother, the devout Methodist, the preacher's daughter, living nearby in Dearborn.

So Friends it was. I was young, maybe four, when we first started attending. And after a time, when my brothers and I were old enough to go to meeting after Sunday school (oh, sorry, “First Day” school), I liked it. I grew to enjoy the silence, a room filled with silent people.

By the time I started attending meeting regularly in the early sixties, we had moved from Ann Arbor, from a large, noisy meeting, to Grand Rapids, to a small, quiet meeting. In Grand Rapids, we could go the full hour with maybe only two people speaking, maybe Mrs. Dungan talking about the birds she heard that morning, or Mr. Wenck sharing his concerns about the war in Vietnam.

So silence was the norm: creaking chairs, faint sounds of breathing and stomachs growling, maybe Mrs. Dungan's birds chirping outside. And it was just as well, because silence was where the real Friends work was done. But for me it was not usually praying or thinking about God. It was mostly daydreaming, anticipating the afternoon activities, maybe planning and operating an imaginary railroad. And when I was bored, I could always count the ceiling tiles or floor tiles.

And although I liked meeting, my favorite part was always when it ended, when someone (usually the clerk, Mr. Dungan) decided the hour was up, and we all shook hands, to the left and right. It was that wonderful sound we would wait for, when the silence was broken, when all the chairs creaked at once and each Friend murmured “hello” to their neighbor. My younger brother and I would anticipate this happy moment for many minutes before it happened, with our arms crossed, our hands in the cocked and ready-to-shake position, subtly at either side.

But that's not true. The real joy of meeting, truly my favorite part, was the hymn singing. After we shook hands, copies of the Friends Hymnal would be passed out, and we would sing maybe three or four hymns. Nothing set. Anybody could make a request. And, with everyone singing and either Mrs. Wenck or Mr. Ford playing along at the upright piano, the Quakers would make a Joyful Noise.

Next up — God Encounters — Encountering God beyond the Quakers.