My Memories Of The Quakers

I remember well the Quakers meeting house,
and Quaker meetings, I attended as a teenager.
The building was so old the government bade it
be preserved, and yet it was so plain inside. 

Quaker politics were critical of government,
the government of the days I that I knew,
and every other era, from the 1650's onward.
This made them attractive to many,
who were looking for more than to rebel;
they sought a more enduring rebellion. 

Rebelling seemed like the easy part,
what was harder was finding the flow
of meetings where the silence should come
from our insides until we were invited to speak
but then only through the spirit. To the uninitiated,
meetings felt like solving a spiritual crossword
where they did not understand the clues.   

What the meetings make clearer
to the newbies there was how full of noise
our heads were, which the more experienced
were ill prepared to explain, to help them
quietly dispose of the aural clutter,
which the experienced mostly hoped,
would pass if those newbies stayed the course
which they would complete in other places.  

Nowadays I have no family.
I live alone in the country,
and I like quiet more than noise,
and some noises more than others.

I like the Quakers most,
when I met them socially, in town,
where, by pure chance,
they had a spare ten mins
and we could find a quiet spot
to have an impromptu meeting.  

Between me and the screen,
I have now what I lacked then
the more open meeting place
through which to guide myself
past all my own old noises,
towards the quiet that seems restful.

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Keith Nichols and Sue Hethershaw, two very particular people I met at the Quakers, without whom I would not be the person that I am now.