Short answer to the question: Do Quakers
always meet in silence?
Very short answer: Yes. (But spoken ministry is often also
contributed.)
(This applies to British Quakers; in some other parts of the
world
Quaker meetings are quite organised and full of activity - they are
called "programmed" meetings - but even then there is some space for
silence.)
The final sentence of
Advices & Queries number 8
reads:
"We seek a gathered stillness in our meetings for worship so that all
may feel the power of God's love drawing us together and leading us."
The book
Quaker
Faith & Practice has much to say about silence. Two
short extracts follow here. See more under the question about Quaker "
meeting for worship".
2.16: [The
early Friends] made the discovery that silence is one of the best
preparations for communion [with God] and for the reception of
inspiration and guidance. Silence itself, of course, has no magic. It
may be just sheer emptiness, absence of words or noise or music. It may
be an occasion for slumber, or it may be a dead form. But it may be an
intensified pause, a vitalised hush, a creative quiet, an actual moment
of mutual and reciprocal correspondence with God. Rufus Jones, 1937
2.01: Worship is the
response of the human spirit to the presence of the divine and eternal,
to the God who first seeks us. The sense of wonder and awe of the
finite before the infinite leads naturally to thanksgiving and
adoration. Silent worship and the
spoken word are both parts of Quaker ministry. The ministry of silence
demands the faithful activity of every member in the meeting. As,
together, we enter the depths of a living silence, the stillness of
God, we find one another in 'the things that are eternal', upholding
and strengthening one another.
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