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So the early Friends engaged in silent waiting, humble yet expectant waiting, reverent waiting upon the Lord, that they might be empowered by Him to help one another and to render to Him the honor and the adoration which, as Robert Barclay said, characterizes true worship; that His power might come over them and cover the meeting; that He might bring about the death of the old, the birth of the new man.

It is instructive and reassuring to note how frequently, among the early Friends, the practice of waiting did have the desired sequel. This seeming inactivity led to spiritual action. Out of this chrysalis what a life was born! God found them in the silence. Blessed and renewing experiences came to Friends, experiences which enabled them to be agents of the divine spirit in every situation of human life. It is instructive because it points us, of this day, to a religious practice that is effective. It is reassuring because from it we may have sound hope that, if we rightly and faithfully engage in this and other inward practices, we may reach and even surpass the high level of religious experience and service attained by Friends in the days when the Quaker movement really moved. In our present-day lives and meetings there can be soul-shaking events. The Light can invade us. Truth can take hold of us. Love may gather us. Above all, God himself may become real to us as the supreme Fact of the entire universe.

We of this modern age are inclined to be more lenient in our views of the earthly man. We are disposed to consider him a moderately decent fellow except when under the active power of evil. This makes us more tolerant, less intense. It makes us more likely to indulge our fondness for the earthly world and its things and pleasures, less moved to seek God and His Kingdom. Nevertheless if we examine our experience we shall recognize characteristics of the earthly man that are similar to those seen by the early Friends. The outside world has changed considerably in three hundred years, but man's constitution is much the same now as then in all essential respects.

When compared with bodily action, what could seem more inactive than waiting upon God? The modern world asks, "Where will that get you?" Young people say, "We want action." Yet, as we have seen, it was precisely through this and other apparently inactive means that the early Friends came into a power of whole action that surpasses anything that we experience today. We say we are activists, but often lack the spiritual force to act effectively. They said they were waiters, and frequently acted as moved by God's light and love. I think that we in this age of decreasing inner-action, of ever increasing outer activity, have a profound lesson to learn from the early Friends. We had best learn it now, and quickly, lest the faith and practices of the Friends become so watered that they lose their character and flow into the activities of which the world is full, and are absorbed by them, and Friends cease to be Friends. I do not say we should go back to the old days. That is impossible. Let us move forward, as we must if we are to move at all. But let us build upon those foundations, not scrap them. Let those past summits show us how high men can go, with God's help.

Friends are by no means the only ones who realize that the body-mind presents a problem; that, in its usual state, it is an obstacle to worship and to all forms of the religious life. Friends are not alone in recognizing that when the separated self is uppermost and active, the spiritual self is submerged and passive, and that we are called upon to reverse this. All genuine religious people, whatever the religion, have recognized the problem and have endeavored to solve it in one way or another. Generally speaking, there are two ways of dealing with the situation. One way consists of the attempt to lift the body-mind above its usual condition, so that it may be included in the act of worship. The body-mind is presented with sight of religious symbols. It is given sound of religious music and of specially trained speakers called priests or ministers. It participates in rituals, ceremonies, sacraments. This way may be effective. When it is, the body-mind actually is lifted above its usual state, the spiritual nature is evoked. But when this way is not effective it merely results in exciting the body-mind and gives people the illusion that this excitation is true worship. Or it may result in a sterile enactment of outward forms.

The other way is just the opposite. It consists of the effort to reduce the body-mind below its usual state, so that it will not interfere with worship. All externals are dispensed with. No religious symbols are in view. No music is provided, no rituals, no appointed speakers. The external setting is as plain as possible, so that the body-mind may be more readily quieted. Internally, too, the attempt is to remove all causes of excitement, all of the ordinarily stimulating thoughts, images, desires. The one thought that should be present is the thought of turning Godward, seeking Him, waiting before Him. This way may be effective. When it is, the body-mind is subordinated and ceases to exist as the principal part of man. The spiritual nature is activated and lifted up. When, however, this way is not effective, it merely produces deadness.

In both cases the test is this: Does the spiritual nature arise? Friends have chosen the way of subduing the body-mind, of excluding it from worship except insofar as it may act as an organ of expression of the risen spirit. Having chosen this way, we are called upon to do it effectively, creatively. If we succeed--and we sometimes do--our inner life is resurrected, the whole man is regenerated, and a living worship connects man with God. But if we fail--and we often do--the spiritual nature remains as if dead, and, on top of this, we pile a deadened body-mind. What should be a meeting for worship, a place where man and God come together, becomes a void. There is no life, only a sterile quietism. Sterile quietism is as bad as sterile ritualism.

Sterility, in whatever form, is what we want to avoid. Creativity is what we must recover--aliveness, growth, moving, wonder, reverence, a sense of being related to the vast motions of that ocean of light and love.

WHAT TO DO IN THE MEETING FOR WORSHIP

Definite periods for worship should be established because, constituted as we are, worship does not occur as naturally as it might, and at all times. Unless we set aside regularly recurring times, many of us are not likely to worship at any time. We appoint times and places so that we may do what something deep in us yearns to do, yet which we all too rarely engage in because most often we are caught up in the current of contrary or irrelevant events. Set times of worship not only aid us to worship at those times but at others too; and, of course, the more often we try to worship at other times, the more able we become to make good use of the established occasions.

The meeting for worship should begin outside of the meeting house, on our way to it. As we enter the house, we would do well to remind ourselves of the meaning of worship, the significance of corporate worship, the possibility of meeting with God. Be expectant that this may happen in this very gathering. Lift up the mind and heart to the Eternal Being in whom we have brotherhood. The hope is that by these initial acts we will put ourselves in the mood of worship and kindle a warmth of inner life that will continue throughout the meeting and give spiritual meaning to all subsequent efforts.

Quiet and relax the body. We should try to quiet its habitual activity, to relax it from strain, yet not over-relax it. Though relaxed it should not become limp or drowsy. It must be kept upright, alert, wakeful. What we desire is a body so poised and at rest that it is content to sit there, taking care of itself, and we can forget it.

Still the mind, gather it, turn it steadfastly towards God. This is more difficult. It is contrary to the mind's nature to be still. It is against its grain to turn Godwards. Left to itself it goes on and on under its own momentum, roaming, wandering. It thinks and pictures and dreams of everything on earth except God and the practice of His presence. Even those who developed great aptitude for taking hold of the mind and turning it to God found it difficult and even painful in the beginning. If we expect it to be easy and pleasant we shall be easily discouraged after a few trials. Brother Lawrence warns us that this practice may even seem repugnant to us at first.

The mind of an adult is more restive and all over the place than the body of a child. How are we to curb its incessant restlessness and stay it upon prayer and worship? How restrain its wanderings and point it to the mark? How take it away from its automatic stream of thoughts and focus it on God? Only by effort, practice, repeated effort, regular practice. It requires life-long preparation and training. We cannot hope to make much progress if we attempt to stay the mind only on First-days during meeting. We must make effort throughout the week, daily, hourly.

Once I have centered down I try to open myself, to let the light in. I try to open myself to God's power. I try to open myself to the other members of the meeting, to gain a vital awareness of them, to sense the spiritual state of the gathering. I try so to reform myself inwardly that, as a result of this meeting, I will thereafter be just a little less conformed to the unregenerate ways of the world, just a little more conformed to the dedicated way of love.

I encourage a feeling of expectancy. I invite the expectation that here, in this very meeting, before it is over, the Lord's power will spring up in us, cover the meeting, gather us to Him and to one another. Though meetings come and go, and weeks and even years pass, and it does not happen, nevertheless I renew this expectation at every meeting. I have faith that some day it will be fulfilled. We should be bold in our expectations, look forward to momentous events. We should not be timid or small but large with expectancy, and, at the same time humble, so that there is no egotism in it.

I kindle the hope that, should the large events not be for me and for us this day, some true prayer will arise from our depths, some act of genuine worship. I hope that at the least I will start some exploration or continue one already begun, make some small discovery, feel my inward life stir creatively and expand to those around me.

Having aroused my expectancy, I wait. I wait before the Lord, forgetting the words in which I clothed my expectations, if possible forgetting myself and my desires, laying down my will, asking only that His will be done. In attitude or silent words I may say, "I am before thee, Lord. If it be thy will, work thy love in me, work thy love in us."

"O wait," wrote Isaac Penington, "wait upon God. Be still a while. Wait in true humility, and pure subjection of soul and spirit, upon Him. Wait for the shutting of thy own eye, and for the opening of the eye of God in thee, and for the sight of things therewith, as they are from Him."

Sometimes, while waiting, a glow steals over me, a warmth spreads from my heart. I have a chance to welcome the welling up of reverence, the sense that I am in the presence of the sacred. Sometimes, though rarely, the practice of waiting is invaded by an unexpected series of inner events which carry me by their action through the meeting to the end. I feel God's spirit moving in me, my spirit awakening to Him.

More often I come to have the sense that I have waited long enough for this time. To forestall the possibility of falling into dead passivity, I voluntarily discontinue the practice of waiting and turn my attention to other concerns. I may summon to mind a vital problem that confronts me or one of my friends, trying to see the problem by the inward light, seeking the decision that would be best. I may bring into consciousness someone I know to be suffering. This may be a personal acquaintance or someone whose plight I have learned of through others, or people in distress brought to my attention by an article in a newspaper or a magazine. I call to him or them in my spirit, and suffer with them, and pray God that through their suffering they will be turned to Him, that by their very pain they may grow up to Him.

Hardly a meeting passes but what I pray that I and the members of the meeting and people everywhere may have this experience: that our wills be overcome by God's will, that our powers be overpowered by His light and love and wisdom. And sometimes, though again rarely, I find it possible to hold my attention, or, rather, to have my heart held, without wavering, upon the one supreme reality, the sheer fact of God. These are the moments that I feel to be true worship. These are the times when the effort to have faith is superseded by an effortless assurance born of actual experience. God's reality is felt in every fibre of the soul and brings convincement even to the body-mind.

I would not give the impression that what I have described takes place in just this way every time, or that it happens without disruptions, lapses, roamings of the mind, day-dreams. Frequently I must recall myself, again still the mind and turn it Godwards, again practice waiting. All too often I awake to find, no, not that I have been actually sleeping, but that I might as well have been, so far have I strayed from the path that leads to God and brotherhood. And I must confess, too, that during some meetings I have been buried under inertia and deadness and unable to overcome them. Having meant nothing to myself, it is not likely that my presence meant anything to the others. My body was but an object, unliving, filling space on a bench. It would have been better for others had I stayed away. A dead body gives off no life; it but absorbs life from others, reducing the life-level of the meeting.

As I am one of those who are sometimes moved to speak in meetings, I may indicate how this happens in my case. First let me say what I do not do. I never try to think up something to say. I am quite content to be silent, unless something comes into my mind and I am moved to say it, or unless I sense that the meeting would like to hear a few living words. In this latter case, I may search myself to see what may be found; and by this searching I may set in motion the processes which discover hidden messages.

I never go to the meeting with an "itch" to speak, though it sometimes happens to me, as to others, that I am moved to speak before arriving at the meeting house. Even so, I usually restrain the urge until we have had at least a short period of silent waiting before God. One is vain indeed if he thinks that his words are more important than this waiting. If I have not been moved to speak before arriving, such an impulse, if it comes at all, is likely to arise after I have been waiting a while. It arises within my silence. An insight or understanding flashes into my mind. A prayer or a pleading or a brief exhortation comes upon me. I hold it in mind and look at it, and at myself. I examine it.

Is this a genuine moving that deserves expression in a meeting for worship, or had I best curb and forget it? May it have some real meaning for others, and is it suited to the condition of this meeting? Can I phrase it clearly and simply? If it passes these tests, I regard it as something to be said but I am not yet sure it should be said here and now. To find out how urgent it is, I press it down and try to forget it. If time passes and it does not take hold of me with increased strength, I conclude that it is not to be spoken of at this time. If, on the other hand, it will not be downed, if it rebounds and insists and will not leave me alone, I give it expression.

If it turns out that the words were spoken more in my own will than in the power, I feel that egotistical-I has done it, and that this self-doing has set me apart from the other members of the meeting. I am dissatisfied until again immersed in the life of the group. But if it seems that I have been an instrument of the power, I have the feeling that the power has done it and has, by this very act, joined those assembled even closer. Having spoken, I feel at peace once again, warmed and made glowing by the passage of a living current through me to my fellows. With a heightened sense of fellowship with man and God, I resume my silent practices.

I never speak if, in my sense of it, spoken words would break a living silence and disrupt the life that is gathering underneath. But I have on occasion spoken in the hope of breaking a dead silence. Spoken words should arise by common consent. The silence should accept them. The invisible life should sanction them. The members of the meeting should welcome them and be unable to mark exactly when the message began and when it ends. The message should form with the silence a seamless whole.

If the message be a genuine one, the longer I restrain it the better shaped it becomes in my mind and the stronger the impulse to express it. A force gathers behind it. Presently, however, I must either voice it or put it from my mind completely, lest it dominate my consciousness overlong and rule out the other concerns which should engage us in a meeting for worship. It is good when a message possesses us. Our meetings need compelling utterances. But it is not good when a message obsesses us to the exclusion of all else. This is a danger which articulate people, particularly those like myself who have much dealing with words, must avoid. We miss our chance if we do not use the meeting for worship as an opportunity to dwell in the depths of life far below the level of words, rising to the surface only when we are forced to by an upthrust of the spirit which seeks to unite the surface with the depths and gather those assembled into a quickened sense of creative wholeness--each in all and all in God.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

WHAT MOVES US TO PRAY AND WORSHIP? Sometimes we are moved by a quickened sense of a sacred Presence. Prayer and worship are our spontaneous responses as we awaken to God's unutterable radiance and wonder. Sometimes we are moved by a realization that, left to ourselves, we are inadequate, that apart from God we are insufficient. Realizing that our knowledge is insufficient, we turn to God's light and wisdom. And there are those who pray and worship as a conscious means of growing up to God and becoming firmly established in His kingdom.

WHY DO NOT MORE PEOPLE PRAY? Why do not all of us worship more often? Many lack a quickened sense of a sacred Presence. Though aware of material things, they are inert to the things of the spirit. They wait to be spiritually awakened. Most of us persist in feeling that we are self-sufficient. We feel we are adequate for all ordinary affairs, and it is only when we find ourselves in overpowering situations that we recognize we are not self-sufficient, and may then turn to God. But when the crisis passes we are likely to lapse into an assumption of self-sufficiency.

WHY DO NOT THE LEADERS OF NATIONS TURN TO GOD? Did not the recent war, does not the present chaos of the world show them that their powers and knowledge are inadequate? It would seem that the leaders, despite all evidence to the contrary, still believe that their own powers and politics are enough to prevent war and to secure an ordered and peaceful world.

WHEN WILL THE PEOPLE LEARN? WHEN WILL THE LEADERS LEARN? I do not know, but for the sake of mankind I hope we learn soon. The people of all nations would do well to suspend their ordinary affairs for an hour each day, and, in concert, turn their minds and hearts steadfastly towards God. The purpose of regeneration would be better served in this one hour than in all the other hours of the day.

IS THE MEETING FOR WORSHIP BASED ON SILENCE? No. Friends know that it is not, yet some Friends have fallen into the habit of saying that it is. Jane Rushmore brought out this point in one of our meetings of Ministry and Counsel. She reminded us that the meeting for worship is based on the conviction that we can directly communicate with God, and He with us. Silence, we believe, is a necessary means to such communion. For if we are busy with our own talk, God will not speak to us. Stillness is a necessary condition for practicing the presence of God. For if we stir about in our own wills, God will not move us. In the meeting for worship we try to obey the command, "Be still, and know that I am God." God is the goal. A living silence is a means thereto.

Recently I was visited by three young Friends, thirteen years of age. They had some problems to talk over. I asked if they felt they knew what to do in the meeting for worship. Their happy confidence that they did know was a pleasant surprise, as I have found many Friends, young and old, who are in need of suggestions and guides. I asked these three what they did in the silence. After some hesitancy, one brightened and replied, "I talk over my problems with God." I told her that was a splendid thing to do. For young people of thirteen or thereabouts, it is enough that they talk over their problems with God, or engage in some other simple and sincere exercise. For some older people one or two simple practices are enough. I am in sympathy with those who would worship in simplicity of mind and heart. But others are in need of more, and the preceding chapter tries to speak to this need. Whatever the means used, the important thing is that we spiritually awake and come alive during the meeting for worship even more than at other times.

WHO SHOULD SPEAK IN THE MEETING FOR WORSHIP? Anyone who is genuinely moved to. Age has nothing to do with it, though older people may be more able because of longer practice. Education has nothing to do with it, though education may facilitate verbal expression. The essential matter is the inward prompting, under God's guidance. The Book of Discipline says, "Our conviction is that the Spirit of God is in all, and that vocal utterance comes when this Spirit works within us. The varying needs of a meeting can be best supplied by different personalities, and a meeting is enriched by the sharing of any living experience of God."

WHAT ARE WE TO DO IF WE FEEL GENUINELY MOVED TO SPEAK BUT ARE INHIBITED BY THE FEAR OF NOT EXPRESSING OURSELVES WELL? Attend to what you have to say. Put your mind on that, and take it off yourself. Do not be concerned that your speech may be halting and imperfect. Do not compare yourself with others, thinking that they speak fluently, you poorly. Be concerned to communicate. Summon up your courage and break the ice. Try. If you can once overcome an inhibition, you have broken its hold. It will still be there, but you can overcome it more readily the next time. Keep trying.

It is true that some people seem born with the facility to speak, but it is also true that the ability, like other abilities, is developed by practice. Most of those who speak well now, began with embarrassment, self-consciousness, and an imperfect command of words. Friends can be counted on to understand if at first your thoughts and feelings are not expressed as well as they might be. They will attend more to what you are trying to say than to how you say it. Here again the Book of Discipline gives wise counsel. "One who is timid or unaccustomed to speak should have faith that God will strengthen him to give his message."

WHEN SHOULD WE SPEAK IN THE MEETING FOR WORSHIP? Whenever we are moved to. We may be moved to speak near the beginning, midway, or towards the end. The important thing is not the time but the moving. However, as Rufus Jones once pointed out, it sometimes helps if, once we are really settled, something is said that lifts the spirit, that raises us above our worldly problems and gives impetus to our search for the indwelling divinity.

WHAT SHOULD BE SPOKEN OF IN THE MEETING FOR WORSHIP? This question will be answered for us, inwardly, if we are in the spirit of the meeting, if the meeting is in God's spirit. We may speak of spiritual things. We may speak of daily affairs and events, if these are given a spiritual interpretation. We may speak of world problems, if these are seen in the light of religion. Anything that comes from the heart is proper and acceptable. We will not go wrong if we keep in mind the central purpose of the meeting for worship, and are striving to fulfill this purpose. Let your heart respond to the need of our meetings for a vital ministry. Open yourself and accept, should it come to you, the call to an inspired ministry.

But more frequently some words are spoken. I have in mind those meeting hours which are not dominated by a single sermon, a single twenty-minute address, well-rounded out, with all the edges tucked in so there is nothing more to say. In some of our meetings we may have too many polished examples of homiletic perfection which lead the rest to sit back and admire but which close the question considered, rather than open it. Participants are converted into spectators; active worship on the part of all drifts into passive reception of external instruction. To be sure, there are gathered meetings, which arise about a single towering mountain peak of a sermon. One kindled soul may be the agent whereby the slumbering embers within are quickened into a living flame.

WHAT ARE WE TO DO IF SOME FRIENDS ARE SOMETIMES OVER-VOCAL ABOUT MATTERS THAT ARE HARDLY THE PROPER CONCERN FOR A MEETING FOR WORSHIP? How are we to regard those who do not always speak acceptably to us, or are overlong in their words, or who get up and repeat what we have heard them say again and again? Instead of viewing them as objects of criticism, separated from you, try to feel them as being together with you in a common life, and pray that the Creator of this life may make all expressions living expressions. Do not let your resentment build up, but increase your humility by recognizing that the faults that others display may well be your own.

But again and again before I get through this far in prayer my mind has been drawn away by some distraction. Someone has come in late. Two adorable little girls who are sitting on opposite sides of their mother are almost overcome by delight in something which is much too subtle to be comprehended by the adult mind, the drafts in the coal stove need readjusting, how noisy the cars are out on the highway today, the wind howls around the corner and rattles the old pre-revolutionary glass in the window sashes. Do these rude interruptions destroy the silent prayer? Well, there was a time when they did, and there are times still when they interfere somewhat, but for the most part, I think they help. The late-comers stir me to a resolve to be more punctual myself--a fault I am all too well aware of--and I pass directly on to prayer, glad that they have come today. The little girls remind me of the undiscovered gaiety in every cell of life that these little "bon-vivants" know ever so well, and they remind me too that a meeting for worship must be made to reach these fierce-eyed nine- and ten-year-olds, and I pass on. I get up and open the draft in the coal stove. Sometimes I pray the distractions directly into the prayer--"swift, hurrying life of which these humming motors are the symbol--pass by at your will--I seek the still water that lies beneath these surface waves," or "the wind of God is always blowing but I must hoist my sail," and proceed with my prayer.

WHAT ARE WE TO DO WHEN A MEETING IS UNLIVING? Suffer it. Continue to do your part to contribute to the life. Continue to pray that God will quicken the meeting, shake it awake. Suppose you yourself are heavy with inertia and feel more dead than alive. The only way to overcome inertia is to become active. Since, in a meeting for worship, our bodies are still, the only positive action is inner-action. We have already considered several inward practices that facilitate inner-action. Engage in one or more of these with renewed determination. See your deadness as a challenge and resolve not to be overcome by it but to overcome it. Struggle against it. Persist in the act of turning your mind and heart Godwards. Kindle your expectancy. Wait before the Lord. Think of Him. Pray Him to send His life into you, and into the meeting, and into the people of the world. Should these inward practices prove of no avail, I sometimes fall back on this device. There is always in us some theme that the mind wants to think of, some fear, some desire, some problems, some situation, some prospect. Though the theme is not a fit one for a meeting for worship, I let my mind run on about it. Once the mind is well started on this topic, I switch it and transfer its momentum to one of the practices that prepare for worship.

HOW SHOULD WE COME TO MEETING? Reluctantly? No. Burdened by a feeling of obligation to attend? No. Expecting something dull and tedious? No! If a meeting evokes only dullness in its members it is a dead meeting and ought to be laid down. A live meeting evokes life. Just the prospect of attending such a meeting should quicken us. It were better to come alive doing housework than to become deadened in a meeting house.

Come with the expectancy that, as you make effort to turn yourself Godwards, the life deep within you will arise, and meet you half-way, and call you, and draw you, gather you into God's presence. Come with the hope that the Teacher within will teach you of spiritual things. Come with the expectancy that as you meet with other Friends, in this very gathering you and they will be shaken awake by the impact of God's power, and made to tremble, and become actual Quakers. Come with the prayer that one and all may be "brought through the very ocean of darkness and death, by the eternal, glorious power of Christ, into the ocean of light and love."

WHAT SHOULD WE DO, IN AND OUT OF MEETING, IN OUR PERIODS OF WORSHIP AND IN OUR DAILY LIVES? Practice the presence of God. Practice, as far as we are able, the love of God and the love of man and all creation. But let George Fox declare it to us, as he declared it to the early Friends and to people of all ranks and conditions in two continents. "All people must first come to the Spirit of God in themselves, by which they might know God and Christ, of whom the prophets and apostles learnt; by which Spirit they might have fellowship with the Son, and with the Father, and with the Scriptures, and with one another; and without this Spirit they can know neither God nor Christ, nor the Scriptures, nor have right fellowship one with another."

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