Chapter
6
The Quakers
The Quakers
Be still and know
that I am God. -- Psalm
46:10
A few days
later, early one Sunday morning, Jeremy was walking along the outskirts of
Newhope, Tennessee looking for a place to worship when he noticed a water tower
poking up through some trees. It was
such a curious sight that he stopped and stared, and after a few moments felt
drawn to it. He made his way into the
trees, and had wended through a couple hundred yards when he came into a small
clearing where the water vat was mounted atop a sturdy fifteen foot base. It was very cleverly engineered, with two
pipes extending down, one ending in a shower head controlled by a short rope,
and the other in a faucet.
He was
impressed, and his widened eyes surveyed the rest of his surroundings. There was a modest structure that looked like
it could be a three or four room home.
The water tower, which was uncovered to catch the rains by which it was fed,
was at the corner of a small lawn.
There were two long picnic tables which appeared able to accommodate
about thirty people or so. There was a
grill low to the ground over a fire pit, and a compost heap beside a small
vegetable garden. The air was very soft
and peaceful, and he was about to take a seat on one of the benches when he
noticed a flame flickering in one of the windows. He moved closer and saw that it was a candle
sitting upon the top of a wooden cross.
He wandered
around the side to the front of the building, and saw the three words painted
in large letters beside the door that explained everything: Quaker Meeting House. On the other side of the door hung a small
sign, upon which, in beautiful calligraphy, was printed: Peace and Light Within: All Welcome.
Sunday Worship 10:30.
As it was nearing
that time he decided to wait and join, and was about to return to the back and
take a seat at one of the tables when a woman approached and said: “Good morning, friend, and welcome. Are you here to worship with us?”
“I am,” Jeremy
replied, offering his hand.
She shook it and
answered: “Welcome. My name is Minnie Quipp.”
“Jeremy,” he
replied. “Thank you.”
She opened the
unlocked door and beckoned him to follow her in. “So what do you know about the Quakers?” she
asked.
“Very little,”
he answered. “Truthfully, nothing.”
“It’s actually
quite a lovely faith,” she explained. “If you’d like to lend a hand I’ll give
you a little primer while we set up.”
There was a main
room furnished only with a bookcase and twenty five or so chairs.
She looked in there
then led him to a room at the back, which he quickly recognized as a
nursery. While they straightened up the
tiny desks, the scattered toys and the playpen, she explained: “The Religious Society of Friends was founded
by a man named George Fox in England in the sixteen hundreds. It was more than a century after the
reformation, and with the variety of
Protestant denominations, and the continued corruption in the Catholic and
Anglican churches, he decided to start preaching on his own. He believed that just as no two snowflakes
are alike, and no two diamonds identically cut, so does each person have a
unique relationship with God, and that priests and preachers telling you what
to think and how to worship only got in the way of the individual’s relationship
and development.
“He was
particularly taken with the scriptures where Jesus refers to the disciples as
his friends, when he says, ‘Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I
command you.’
“His message
caught on, and he quickly attracted followers, who referred to themselves as
‘Children of the Light,’ and ‘Friends of the Truth,’ which was later just
shortened to Friends. George Fox and
many of his followers were imprisoned by the church on numerous occasions for
blasphemy.
“How did the
name originate?” Jeremy asked. “Why are
you called Quakers?”
“George Fox
claimed it was a term of derision used mockingly by a judge, when Fox told him
to ‘tremble at the word of God.’” She
led him back to the main room and they started setting the chairs in a rough
circle. “Anyway, we just refer to each
other as ‘friends,’ and we worship together by sitting in silence for an
hour.” She glanced at the clock. “Which hour commences in five minutes.” As if on cue, the congregation began filing
in. Besides himself and Minnie, there came
in eleven men, eleven women and seven children.
They quietly
said hello to one another, then seated themselves in the circle and when the
clock struck ten fell silent. Some
looked up, some looked down, and some closed their eyes in meditation and
prayer. After fifteen minutes two women
led the seven children into the adjacent room.
Jeremy didn’t feel anything extraordinary nor revelatory, but he spent
so many hours of his life in silent contemplation that it only seemed like he
had an audience for what was a normal activity.
Nobody was moved
to stand up, speak out, or do anything but sit, and at eleven o’clock one man
stood up and the rest followed his lead.
They remained in a circle, and one woman said: “Please hold Susan Martay in the light, as
she recovers from her painful surgery.”
A few people softly
said, “Amen.”
Then a man
said: “Please hold Francis Vytano in the
light, as he struggles to support his family.”
A few people
softly said, “Amen.”
Another man
said: “Please hold Charles and Elise
Tertulli and their children in the light, as they struggle to pay their
mortgage.”
A few people
softly said, “Amen.”
The man next to
Jeremy turned to him, offered his hand, and said, “Welcome, new friend. My name is Richard. Who are you?”
“Jeremy,” he
answered.
“I hope you
feel comfortable, because we are glad to
have you,” Richard said.
Minnie came
across the circle, took Jeremy’s hand and said:
“We will be having lunch out back in a few minutes, and you will be our
guest.”
“How could I say
no?” he answered.
After a couple
minutes of mingling, the group made its way outdoors, with Minnie leading
Jeremy by the hand. He was surprised to
see all the food on the tables and a fire crackling in the pit where little
more than an hour before had been nought but the empty serenity of a Sunday
morning.
“Where did all
this come from?” he asked.
“It’s pot luck,”
she explained. “Everyone brought a
little something and dropped it out here on their way in to worship.”
He
marveled. “I wish I had something to
offer.”
“I’m sure you
will,” Minnie replied. “There’s more to
a meal with friends than food and drink.”
Mere moments
later several women had everything readied and began serving. Jeremy fixed a plate and sat down with Minnie,
and several others.
“So where did
you come from and how did you find us?” Minnie asked.
“Well, I came
from Massachusetts. I’m actually an
ordained Roman Catholic priest, but I have a lot of questions about my
church. I guess you’d call it a crisis
of faith. I’m wandering around looking
for…I’m not sure what. I guess just
looking.”
“Well, we’re
delighted that you found your way to our humble house of worship,” Minnie
piped.
“As am I,” he
answered. “It was purely by accident,
but quite a happy one.”
“Howso?” Richard
inquired.
While motioning
to it with his hand, Jeremy said, “I noticed your water cistern sticking up
through the trees from the distance, and was drawn to it by curiosity.”
“I never foresaw
it attracting worshipers when I erected it,” Richard said, “but I’ll take the
result.”
“The rainwater,
the compost, the garden,” Jeremy observed.
“I admire your respect for the earth.”
“As goes the
earth, so go her children,” Minnie said.
“So we consider tender regard for nature an indirect form of
self-respect.”
“There is a
Native American expression I’ve always tried to live by,” Richard said, then
spoke it: “Every step upon the earth
should be a prayer.”
“I’ll drink to
that,” Jeremy said, raising his water glass in toast, “and I’ll take it one
further: People should walk around on
their knees.”
“Many of us
already do,” Richard observed.
“Hands raised to
God with the knees bowed upon the earth,” Jeremy said. “Our father and mother…another meaning of the
fifth commandment.”
“I’ve never
considered it that way,” Minnie confessed.
Jeremy
said: “The full commandment is: ’Honor
thy father and thy mother: that thy days
may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. ‘ And Jesus said: ‘And
call no man your father upon the earth:
for one is your Father, which is in heaven.’ Who then can be the mother, but the
earth? Jesus also said, ‘Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ The spirit comes of God, and the water is of
the earth—of that father and mother are we born.”
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness
thereof,” Richard added.
“And he lends it
to us, and we should treat it as sacred and precious,” Minnie finished.
“Jesus also said
the tribulations preceding the end of the world would be like a woman in
travail,” Jeremy continued. “A mother
who is about to give birth to the church, the Lamb’s bride.”
Minnie’s friend
Marilyn had been listening in, and said:
“If you’re interested in the Father Mother divinity relationship, you
should go visit the Shakers. There
aren’t very many left, but there is a small group of them living together in
Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. They maintain
an authentic a Shaker village there, and some women got together there to
revive the religion.”
“You don’t
say….” Jeremy wondered aloud.
“They got their
name because they were ridiculed for being ‘Shaking Quakers,’” Minnie
explained.
“It’s just a few
hours from here,” Marilyn added. “We
drove through there last month.”
“Then it’s
decided,” Minnie declared.
“What’s
decided?” Jeremy asked.
“We’ll take a
ride there tomorrow,” Minnie said.
“Because unless you’ve got somewhere better to be—or anywhere for that
matter—you’re sleeping in my guest bed tonight.” Before Jeremy could even consider the offer,
she sealed it. “Done.”
Jeremy swallowed
a sigh of resignation and accepted his fate with a smile.
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