(See my other blog for more general musings about prayer.)
What I understand Quakerism to say about prayer is that we can encounter God at any time, in any place, or in any circumstance. I get that from the Quaker refusal to designate any particular time, place, or person as the primary conduit of the Holy. And I get that from my favorite quote in the banner above: “There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to thy condition.” What I understand this to mean is that we will be spoken to, whatever our condition. This means that there is no human condition in which God cannot speak to us. God can use any form - verbal and non-verbal, sensory and non-sensory, intuitive or tangible.
George Fox seems to me to be saying not that a mainline church service is necessarily wrong but that repetitive or required acts of worship have a tendency to dull our spiritual awareness. He disliked any priest who based his authority on something other than the Power of the Lord, but George absolutely believed that the Lord gave tremendous Power to the words and acts of someone who is animated by the Holy Spirit.
What this means for silent worship is that we can be in prayer when we sit in expectant silence, but that is not the superior way. Indeed, silent worship, too, can become a spiritually dead structure. Silent worship or prayer is not superior to other forms of worship and prayer.
What sets us apart as a denomination is that we are not surprised when we encounter God outside of the Meeting’s agreed-upon times and places of worship. As people who take the priesthood of all believers more literally than most denominations, we believe that any person or even any living being can be a “priest”, someone who draws us into an awareness of God’s presence.
So although many of my deepest times of worship have occurred while sitting in expectant waiting in my Quaker Meeting, there are many other instances, too. Here are some of them:
Standing at the top of the Sears Building in Chicago, looking out on the city lights one night, I felt one of the most powerful urges to call upon God that I have ever felt.
A dozen Young Adult Friends were in the swimming pool one late night at Norway Yearly Meeting annual sessions, when quite spontaneously we fell into a deep worshipful silent communion.
While working at Swedish Hospital, an elderly Catholic gentleman asked me to give him communion and turned down my offer to call a Catholic chaplain. He said that being served communion by a Quaker would speak more powerfully to him of the nature of God, which is to transcend all human-made boundaries. When we both took the bread and wine in the name of Christ, the Spirit bound this woman, the gentleman, and Christ together with Eternity.
Listening to a sermon, when ideas that were separate suddenly come together or when an AHA! occurs - and new Truth is opened to my understanding.
During the World Gathering of Young Friends in Belgium in 1991, we had a silent meal at the centuries-old Catholic monastery where the gathering took place. I sat in the dining room, soaking in the presence of other Quaker men and women from all over the world, and tried to attune myself to my table companions in particular and know what they might need without them speaking or gesturing. We were One.
Tears of deep joy trickling down my cheeks as I understood the Christmas message in a new way in looking at my then two-month old daughter: The mystery of strength made perfect in weakness; salvation through giving oneself over to Life - both its joy and its suffering; and how God’s very essence can be revealed by human form.
Researching something in the Earlham College Library one day, I lifted my eyes up from the reference book to see a cherry tree in blooming pink splendor, and the Power of God filled my very core, so all words and thoughts fell away.
Sitting in private prayer one day, deeply remorseful over a mistake I had made, I suddenly was filled with the pride-stripping awareness that I was a human - neither better nor worse than a co-worker who had inhabited my thoughts for months because of her unrelenting insistence that I was a bad person. In prayer, I felt united with her in human-ness and was liberated so I could forgive her and attach my awareness to more wholesome projects.
Holding a dying woman’s hand, sadly being the only one to stand with her, I held her in the Light as her breathing slowed and then ceased.
Being a Quaker allows me not to be surprised - indeed perhaps to expect - that God may appear in any kind of situation and transform that moment into a moment of prayer.
Query for prayerful consideration:
What are my experiences of prayer? What is my understanding of prayer from a Quaker perspective?
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March 13, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Jeanne
What a beautiful testament to the experience of prayer!
I’ve had similar experiences singing in a group of people (Nightingales, a group of people from Northern Yearly Meeting who gather three times a year to sing), being sung to (when I was sick in the hospital during a bone marrow transplant), in my most despondent moments of life (when I thought God couldn’t possibly be present), and when I feel the purest love in my heart.
But I also experienced these things before I became Quaker.
I was a seeker for a very long time (going to various churches starting when I was ten) and looked for a place where these experiences could be seen as “real.”
I had similar experiences in prayer circles in more evangelical churches, but they doubted my experience of God outside of the “houses of God,” saying that I might be experiencing “demons” or “the devil.”
Jeanne
March 13, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Susanne Kromberg
Jeanne,
Thank you for letting us read your moving stories of worship and prayer in good times and bad.
Thank you also for stating so clearly that the experience of God’s presence can come to each and every one of us, Quaker or not.
What sets Quakers apart is our tendency to trust those experiences and then to develop ways of discerning - individually and corporately - which experiences are authentically from God and which aren’t.
March 14, 2008 at 5:37 am
forrest curo
What this doesn’t say about prayer… is the traditional prayer of asking for things.
In its elemental form: “Lord have mercy!” or just “Help!”
That has been on my mind since it came up at a recent Quakerism 101 potluck, where I asked “Why don’t we pray out loud in meeting?–maybe once in the 18 years I’ve been coming here?” Because several people seem to think that they shouldn’t ask for anything, ever, at all. And that seems to me like a dead end.
“Don’t ask, don’t expect.” Don’t we expect God to bring us what we really want and need? But how can we know what that is, how can we recognize it when it comes?
It’s one thing, to learn that the toy one urgently yearned to find under the Christmas tree… was after all, just another toy. But it’s something else, to think “If I ask for it, I won’t get it!” or “How dare I hope for anything!” Which is where I think they’ve gotten stuck… and where I need to remember not to step myself!
And if I keep asking for more wisdom, I may occasionally remember that I don’t yet have it all! (God has ways of letting me know!)
March 14, 2008 at 6:59 am
Susanne Kromberg
Forrest,
You’re absolutely right. That is one form of prayer I inadvertently neglected to mention. And it is strange to me that I forgot that one, because as a chaplain I ask God for things for the patients/families in the name of Jesus many times a day. And I do it in my own prayer life, too.
I suspect many liberal Quakers (I’ll confess to it being my initial response) might be tempted to respond - well, the Quaker way to ask God for something is to “hold in the Light”, and it is best to leave it to God to decide what I should and shouldn’t have. But when I examined my response more closely, I discovered it was just a rationalization. I find myself agreeing with your sense that perhaps we don’t dare to ask or to hope out of fear of being disappointed.
What beliefs lead us liberal Quakers to be afraid that God wouldn’t give us what we need? Based on my intuitive sense of changes in liberal Quakers’ beliefs in the past 50 years or so, I’m guessing it’s a combination of these three: a) many of us don’t believe that God is an entity that gets involved in that hands-on a way in our lives, b) many don’t believe we are deserving (when we stopped talking about sin in our Meetings, we also stopped talking about forgiveness, and so we carry huge burdens of guilt), and c) perhaps we’re a tiny bit afraid of getting what we ask for?
Hm… I feel a new blog post coming on - I want to address these things.
Another prayer experience I thought to add after your comment was a time when I was wrestling with the aftermath of being badly burned after doing something I originally thought I was led to do (after learning mroe about discernment, I now know better - I was, in fact forcing my will through despite God’s efforts to stop me). Anyway, at that time I was still under the illusion that I had been faithful and had been betrayed. Needless to say, prayer during those months was dry and dead. I kept on intellectualizing, insisting that I didn’t hold God responsible. But then one day, my full fury with God and my deep sense of betrayal broke through and I yelled some choice imprecations at God. It was one of the scariest things I have ever done. But God didn’t strike med dead! Instead, I was immediately filled with God’s loving presence, sweeter and more precious than I have ever known it.
I later realized that I had only done what the Psalmist often does - I had been real with God, and all God wants from me is to be real. And my choice imprecations were nowhere near as colorful as some of the Psalmists accusations!
Long answer that boils down to - yes, asking is an important facet of prayer. And conversation with God, as in “God, here’s how I feel about you right now. What’s up with you?” is another important part of prayer - being real and intimate, even when that includes being angry and making false accusations against God. There’s nothing God can’t handle - or wouldn’t tolerate in order to bring a lost sheep back into the fold!
March 24, 2008 at 11:16 am
Normandcs
nice work, man