A Bare Room
Imagine that you walk up to an old wooden porch and into a church that’s just one large central room. As you enter, dozens of people are sitting in rows facing each other with their eyes closed and heads bowed. Everyone is quiet and the windows are open. You take a seat along the wall. You peek around, and see men and women, from young kids to grandparents, dressed in no particular fashion. There’s nothing special in the room: no podium, no choir or band, not even any posters or large crosses on the wall. Just people sitting and waiting in the silence.
As you settle in, and try to still yourself, sounds you can only hear in the quiet emerge. You hear the lovely rustling of autumn wind in the dry oak and poplar leaves outside. The old woman sitting next to you is slowly and effortfully breathing. The service starts.
As you sit there, you try to calm your mind alongside your body. You may recite a prayer in your head or focus on a verse of Scripture. You breathe gently and feel the wonderful gift of life. Your mind certainly wanders — to what you need to do after service, to something rude someone said to you — but you try to bring yourself back. This time is a time devoted to God. To contemplation of Him and to listening for God’s word.
In time, someone a few rows over stands up. She waits a few moments, then starts. Maybe it’s a spiritual song. Maybe it’s a short recollection of something she’s seen. Maybe it’s a statement about our world, and what it means. But either way, it’s something she feels the Spirit is moving her to say — something that should be said. And when what should be said is said, she sits down. Over time, perhaps other people stand, speak, and sit again.
At an appointed time, the contemplation ends. Each person reemerges from the silence, and church business is discussed.
That’s what it’s like to attend service at an unprogrammed Quaker Meeting. I first experienced it in high school, and have continued, throughout my life, to savor that unique setting for seeking God. This particular example came from Sandy Spring, a beautiful, simple, and deeply spiritual Meeting in Maryland.
There’s a great diversity of Quakers, even of Quakers in the tradition of unprogrammed Meetings. But the design and experience at Sandy Spring and other many unprogrammed meetings is both distinctive and intentional: there’s nothing on the walls because what matters is God. Early Quakers wanted to remove earthly distractions from their contemplation and communion with God. Quakers face each other, instead of a central podium, because early members of the church saw this as an expression of how we are equal before God. We each strive to follow Jesus’s path from our imperfect selves towards his perfection. And there’s no preacher because the Holy Spirit is available to us all, if we simply listen to the still small voice within.
The Depths of Ritual
You’re in a pew facing a raised altar. The woodwork is amazing: delicately carved oak fluted columns, robed saints looking to one another and to heaven. On your left comes filtered blue, red and purple light through windows of apostles and their converts.
As everyone gathers, a vast crowd fills the pews. Kids jostle. Old friends smile. And in time, all turn towards the entrance. A calm and careful teenager carries a massive cross into the room, followed by pastors and church leaders. In the balcony, a choir starts singing with the ease and beauty that comes from years of practice.
As the lead pastor reaches the front, he addresses the congregation: You are forgiven. You are loved. And through Jesus Christ, you can learn to walk in his ways.
Three times, you hear the Word of the Lord, and you offer thanks to God. The pastor helps illuminate the Word, to bring it closer to your life and your world. You recite the creed, give thanks for all that you have been given, and are welcomed into the mystery of the Eucharist.
When you were a child, perhaps this was a time to color in pictures of Jesus or furtively look around at other kids. Maybe you absolutely hated having to sit still and be quiet as people droned on up front.
But now, as an adult, it’s different. The elements of the liturgy are the same every week, and now you know them, and they are part of you. Over the course of the hour, they simply flow out from you, to join with the somber tones of countless others, unified into a powerful whole. From your baptism to today, you are part of a community of believers. You reinforce one another in the faith, looking out for one another, and growing in Christ. Each Sunday, you enter this special place, one that looks like nothing else in your daily life. The ritual, the community, the manifest presence of God and His Church: they all feed you and help you turn to God throughout the intervening week.
For many people, this example will be the more familiar one. This experience is one my family and I share each Sunday with hundreds of members of Grace Lutheran Church near our house. Our church takes the liturgy seriously: not as a burden or an empty tradition, but as a means of making the sacred real and meaningful in our lives. The songs we sing, the rhythm of the church calendar, the shared expressions of our faith are all there to allow us to better focus our hearts and minds on God.
For me it’s hard to imagine church experiences that are more different than the Lutheran and Quaker ones. But both are powerful and meaningful in their own way, and both are intentional. The emotions they evoke, and the spiritual focus they foster, don’t occur by accident. Each is the expression of a thoughtful community of believers, looking to sustain and grow their faith. In other words, each is an expression of spiritual design.