How to Worship Like a Contemporary Liberal Quaker

I read this at a noon service here at Harvard Divinity School:

The silence is like the song.  In the song we are joined because our situated vulnerabilities, those parts of us that we keep mostly secret, bloom from within as melody.  We return to what we basically are, and we do this together, in harmony. 

In the silence we are wiped of our trappings, spiritually naked before each other.  No performance, no distractions.  In this collective nakedness, like in the song, the most basic essence of our beings shows.  Like struggling newborns, we are so vulnerable in this place that it can get scary.  And we wait, desperately sometimes, for something to happen.  So there is a sense of urgency in our worship.  Yet, we exist in this place together.

Thus, with this tradition of Quakerism, we seek in the silence to be joined together in a spirit of compassion.

In this room, there is no laity per se.  Nor are there any ministers, per se.  It’s just us, together, sharing in our everlasting brokenness. 

In the joining you might receive a message.

Sometimes the message is meant for only you, so you don’t need to say it aloud.  Other times the message is meant for others, for the group gathered here worshiping. 

In the latter case, please stand and share the message as you are led. You speak only to improve upon our silence—to speak with compassion to our joined vulnerability, desperation and urgency.  We are gathered here in communion, always in silence, whether or not it is polka-dotted with words.

Please be mindful to leave time for the silence to emerge (or re-emerge) between messages. 

Meeting will end with the shaking of hands.