Sitting in silence with a group of people every week can be an intimate experience. How do Quaker worship spaces encourage that?
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Transcript:
I don’t pretend to be a great artist in any sense of the word. I’m just an amateur in some ways, but when I go to a museum and look at a famous painting and it makes me feel a certain way, I think that’s not that different from creating a building that when people walk into it, makes them feel a certain way.
The Intimacy of Quaker Worship Spaces
My name is Paul Motz-Storey. I live in the Denver area, and my Quaker meeting is Mountain View Friends Meeting. I’m a real estate agent, I also manage property and I’m also a general contractor, so I’m a little bit of 3 or 4 different things that I do for my day job.
Construction was something I grew up with. My father had a construction company when I was a kid, so my earliest memories were of being around construction sites and I loved it, and I still love it. I love that notion that you can create a space in which people work and live that makes them feel a certain way.
Practicing Being Still
Well my mother would probably (and probably still does) laugh that I gravitated towards Quakers because as a child I couldn’t sit still. My barber hated me. And to this day, I have a problem with that, I can’t easily sit still for long periods of time. So I see it as a discipline that I have to practice, probably more so than other people, but that in the process of doing it I find great value because I do feel that God is that still, small voice. It’s not yelling at me, it isn’t going to come in over the top of my busy mind. It’s only going to happen if I can be quiet and quiet that noise and listen.
The Aesthetic of Quaker Spaces
So Notre Dame is much in the news, and I remember visiting Notre Dame as a child. I remember the guide that took us around the building said, “You are meant to feel small. That’s the point of this.” You walk in and this soaring ceiling and the light and the scale is intentional. You are meant to feel small. God is big and you are small. The church is big and you are small.
Quaker meetings I think offer a completely different aesthetic. They don’t always particularly look like a church of any type. The scale is small, but it doesn’t mean that God isn’t big. It’s just a different feeling that you as the individual have in that meeting space.
Speaking from the Heart
I think the scale being small is important because it gives you the opportunity, encourages you to speak. Because how intimidating is it (especially for an introvert like me) to speak in meeting anyway, but to speak in a huge cathedral? I’m not going to stand up and talk in that setting. What do I have to say that’s of any important?
So yeah, I think the building matters, and a certain feeling that we are gathered here in a space and in a size and in a format that’s conducive to somebody being able to stand up and speak without a microphone from their heart, from what they feel moved to say without it feeling like somehow it’s a performance, because it’s not meant to be a performance.
Discussion Questions:
- Paul Motz-Storey compares feeling small in Notre Dame with the way it makes him feel to be in an intimate Quaker worship space. What are some spaces that make you feel spiritually stimulated? How does the space affect your worship experience?
- What is the building like where you worship? What are its strengths and weaknesses in encouraging deep spiritual connection?
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
wow! sweet, humble, moving and inspiring.
It’s taken me a lifetime to finally embrace this intmacy that the Quakers do so well!
So great to hear you speak, Paul. Your integrity shows through in every word!
I belong to Flushing Friends Meeting….built in 1694 and has been in continuous use. Its history is part of freedom of religion in America….granted in 1664 by Holland after Flushing’s 1657 Remonstrance. considered to have direct connection to our nation’s Constitution. The Meetinghouse is in no way comparable to Notre Dame….it is a warm and welcoming structure
like many Meetinghouses. The above is just for information .
A problem of members giving messages many times it is difficult to hear because the speaker does not talk loud enough. About 10 years ago…we placed a microphone for a speaker to go to
in the middle of worship room. Obviously that was soon abandoned as a deterrent to the very
thing we wanted. Is there anyone reading this has a solution for many Meetings where this is a problem g
Thanks Joan..working with the hard of hearing for so many years and now finding it difficult to hear myself….Perhaps a little different seating arangement would prove useful.
Folks suffering from poor hearing should be alowed to sit closer to the speaker….that might help.
Also whenever anyone addresses the group and proves to be speaking too softly…merely ask them to speak up in a kind and loving way. They will, in most cases.
I love our meeting room at Purchase in NY; its big window overlooks our historic cemetery and brings nature into the room. We bought a wireless microphone system, and ask the greeter to be a microphone “runner” if someone stands to speak.
Our Meeting (Twin Cities Friends Meeting, St Paul MN) has a microphone setup, and the meeting’s closer for that day announces at the beginning of the meeting that it is available. Anyone wishing to speak is asked to stand, and wait until the closer or some other designated person turns on the microphone and brings it to them. This has worked well for us. Being the designated person to watch for people standing brings a different quality of worship, but valuable in a different way than the usual silent waiting for a message from Spirit.
While I cherish the quietude of Quaker Meeting for Worship, the scale of meeting for worship space varies from little historic meeting houses in PA to 15th St. Meeting house in New York. The sense of waiting worship as discipline resonates with me.
Didn’t a native American say when observing a Quaker worship service, “I love to hear from where the words come”. The story was he could not understand the English spoken but felt the the place from which they came. If someone made me speak into I microphone I would clam up, certainly would loose the presence that made me rise to speak.
I recall a Friend ministering in a quiet voice and another, across the circle saying “Our Friend is not heard”! The minister raised her voice. It also resulted in those present remembering to speak clearly. That one intervention lasted for some ten or so years as newcomers were aware of this custom of considering whether they are heard.