Beth Edwards
I found a diary entry the other day. It records my first attendance at a Meeting for Worship as 28th April 2019. Since then, I have attended sporadically, and now more regularly (interrupted, of course, by ‘Lockdown’ in 2020/21). Being on the Welcoming and Coffee Rota has helped me get to know more people. I still feel like a novice – but that’s no bad thing as I shall never stop learning. One of the Forty-Three newsletter editors asked me to write something about what the Society of Friends means to me and why I attend Meeting for Worship.
It all begins and ends with God. I’m not sure it was a choice at all that I’ve landed up seeking out the Quakers. It was kind of inevitable. After meandering through many varieties of Christian expression, I do at last feel ‘at home’.
The nature of my ‘voice within’ has metamorphosed over many decades. Currently I am more comfortable with not grasping at any ‘image’, for perhaps all images are only my own projection. There is one thing I am sure of: that I could not live, breathe, survive, without the constant sense of the Other, Love, Truth, always ‘Spirit’ abiding within.
During childhood I attended a Baptist Sunday School. The distinctive thing about the Baptists was the mysterious ‘baptismal pool’, hidden under the floor in front of the central pulpit. It did seem totally right and logical to me, as an adolescent, that since Christ himself was baptized in the river Jordan, as were many disciples, I should follow His example. Consequently, at the age of fifteen I was baptized by complete immersion.
At University I continued my deeply committed, protestant trajectory, ultimately becoming Secretary of the Christian Union. It was in this group that I met my husband, a Calvinist and avid reader of books by the Banner of Truth Trust publishing house. We had many interesting discussions. Here it becomes complicated. I bounced between attending a rally for the ‘Nationwide Festival of Light, organized by Mary Whitehouse, and an inner development of a more ‘liberal’ me. Add to this an ambiguous sexuality, my love of pubs with cask ale, and regular cinema and theatre trips – I really didn’t fit the fundamentalist Christian Union mold.
After marriage I worked and lived in France, where our first child was born. Church did not feature in my life, though I still prayed, developing a more United Universalist theology than previously.
Later, we settled in Norwich and worshipped at a city-centre Anglican church. The curate introduced me to the Myers Briggs personality indicators, Spiritual Direction, and the writing of Anthony de Mello. It made sense; there was a pathway that connected the heart of the individual, their personality, and a loving God, all based around meditation and quiet reflection. I stopped trying to solve everything ‘in my head’ and paid attention to my heart and the ‘still small voice’ within. I also accepted there was no need to struggle for perfection. God’s unconditional love was enough.
A full-time job and being a mum of three meant there was little time for quiet and reflection. One Saturday I booked myself into a Retreat House next to the church for the day, where Julian of Norwich had been an anchorite. The space, peace, and sense of calm in the little cell-like bedroom I was allocated reduced me to tears as at last I could ‘let go’.
Following a move to Oxford I attended the local Anglican church in the parish in which we lived. I became accustomed to ‘The Eucharist’, instead of ‘The Lord’s Supper’ or ‘Holy Communion’ and even took on board the inclusion of Mary and innumerable Saints as VIPs.
One Sunday an Anglican nun, professed as a Solitary, preached the sermon. Her message seemed very pertinent. It had a distinct ecological bent and talked of the world and the Church’s lack of stillness and silence. It was important for Christians to spend more time listening and being still instead of rushing around swamped by hierarchies, countless meetings, cluttered Liturgy and noise.
We struck up a friendship. This theologian, scholar, writer, and professed religious was based in Oxford and had written many books about the need to return to a simple devotion and listening to the silence within. In one of her books (Pillars of Flame) there is an interesting critique of Ordination, arguing for the priesthood of all people. It attuned with my belief that we each take personal responsibility before God without the need for a priest.
In addition to attending Meeting I join with friends to reflect on the sermons of Meister Eckhart, a fourteenth-century German mystic and theologian. His writings remind me that in not striving, not overthinking things, and not constructing any image of God at all, we can let go and make space for the birth of God ‘in the ground of our Being’.
How do I define God? All I know is that it is, for me, only within the context of Eternity, of a belief in a Spiritual Being that words such as Truth, Love, Peace and Holiness have any meaning. I could not imagine being alive without this belief as it envelopes with Love every cell, every living thing, and I have faith this Spirit loves each of us as their “Beloved”.
Within the Quaker Meeting for Worship I have been able to find a home amongst others who in glorious silence wait and trust in this inward Light, which I believe will never be extinguished.
Book references:
Anthony de Mello, Sadhana: A Way to God (1978)
Burrows and Sweeney, Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets (2019)
Davies, O., Meister Eckhart: Mystical Theologian (2011)
Maggie Ross, Pillars of Flame (2007)
Maggie Ross, Silence: A User’s Guide Volumes 1 (2014) and 2 (2018)
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 519 • July 2022
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW
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