Editor’s Note: Shareletter is attempting to introduce individual members to our community through a series of online interviews. We are grateful to Amanda for her willingness to participate.

• How long have you been a Quaker?

I started attending MFM in the summer of 2022 and became a Member in 2024. When I first came to the Meetinghouse, I was pretty sure that I was here to stay. But I gave myself a year to make sure it was going to stick. Everyone else gave me a year too, and then Friends started asking me to do things to support the Meeting. I’m not sure whether attending, supporting, or joining is the point at which one becomes a Quaker. Perhaps it’s easiest to answer with “recently.” As Friend Kathy Dahlk has taught me to say, I am still a “baby Quaker.”

• What brought you to Quakerism?

Quakers have been on my radar for pretty much my entire life. My family home is the Philadelphia area, where Quaker legacies are ubiquitous. My mother is a proud graduate of Bryn Mawr College, which was founded by Quakers. One of my very favorite experiences doing historical research was in my 20s, at the American Friends Service Committee Archives. The archivist placed great trust in me to handle the records carefully and follow the rules without surveillance. Whenever I go to an archive that fetches the documents for me and watches me while I work, I am reminded of Jack’s assumption was that I would behave properly and well—and that because of the trust in me that he showed, I lived up to his expectations.

For all those positive experiences, though, it did not occur to me to go to Quaker worship. I was a cradle Unitarian Universalist, and both my mother and stepfather went into the UU ministry as mid-life careers. At one point I voiced to my mother my quiet conviction that Quakers were “better” than UUs. She said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Amanda; Quakers are just like us but without music!” I thought about going to seminary and becoming a minister myself. I raised my children in the UU church.

Then something happened during a Sunday service that jarred me loose enough that I thought about leaving, not just the congregation but the denomination. I realized that my aspirations for worship had become sharper than the UU services would ever offer; I also recognized that there were ways I had been holding myself aloof from the congregation that I had belonged to for two decades. I gave myself several weeks to sit with the possibility of visiting MFM; no voice contradicting that sense presented itself. So two months after the triggering incident, I came to Meeting for Worship for the first time.

After about a year of attending MFM it dawned on me during a dog walk that my religious transition was a response to a Leading. And I realized that even before coming here, I had handled it like a Quaker: by testing the prompt carefully and then embracing it fully. Which is another reason to say that I am recently come to Quakerism instead of trying to assign a date.

• What keeps you coming back?

Every week I am excited to come to Meeting for Worship. No programmed order of service or summary of what happened during Meeting can convey the actual experience. From both silent and vocal ministries, I always find that I get the message I need. I know of no other corner of our world which so gently encourages and fiercely rewards being fully present. This is a gift we all make for each other every time we gather for worship.

• What aspects of Quakerism do you absolutely cherish?

I love how the central theology, worship practices, and governance structures are all in alignment. That of God is in each of us; every one of us all together makes worship happen; and we all are responsible for keeping the enterprise going. Quakerism is not an easy or passive religion. Being part of MFM makes me want to be a better person.

• Are there any aspects of Quakerism that you would rather do without?

Well, it seems to me that there are a whole bunch of aspects of Quakerism that I am currently doing without. I haven’t done much if any of the reading I would like to do. I have attended Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business only rarely. I am not involved in most of MFM’s committees. I have heard about Northern Yearly Meeting and the Gathering but have not tried to attend. But it’s not that I would rather not do all those things; it’s just that I haven’t gotten to them yet.

Friends may also have noticed that I don’t shake or hold hands as we close worship. The pandemic made me very conscious of how easy it is to transmit illnesses to vulnerable people. I appreciate how everyone just accepts my bows instead of insisting that I conform.

• There is a continuum of faith regarding the role of God in the world. Some believe that the Divine is active in the world and “has a plan” for everything while at the other end of the spectrum, others believe that there is a Divine Spirit infused in everything but that there is no “hand of God” guiding the universe.  What is your “theory of God” and how does that impact your spiritual journey?

Over the years I’ve toggled among atheism, agnosticism, and panentheism. These days, I seem to be most at home in panentheism, the idea that the divine is everywhere. In my favorite children’s book, Becoming Me: A Story of Creation, the author writes with joy and sorrow, “Sometimes, you realize that you are me. Sometimes you forget that everything else is me too.” I try to keep this universality in mind in my day-to-day life, but reveling in our interconnectedness makes it hard to get stuff done. Worship at MFM has helped me to worry less about the label on my theology than the living of it.

• What do you find most challenging about your spiritual journey?

I believe intellectually, in my head, that we are all one creation. When I interact with people individually and in small groups, mostly my heart can remember that too and allow me do the work on myself to see the goodness in everyone. But when I am disappointed in the shortcomings or bad actions of someone I don’t know personally, it’s very hard to feel generosity toward them. Ironically, my historical work facilitates my ability to see and teach the full humanity of people in the past, whom we can know only partially and many of whom did abhorrent stuff. But with people in the present, I often lapse into thinking that they should just know better and wondering what’s wrong with them.

• Is Quakerism a practice (orthopraxy) or a religion (orthodoxy)?

This is the question I’ve most been looking forward to answering since I started reading Shareletter interviews—even though neither orthopraxy nor orthodoxy are part of my regular vocabulary.

I don’t accept the binary implicit in this question. Americans very often think that a religion is its belief system. I think this assumption is rooted in the Christian doctrine that acceptance of Jesus as savior is what makes someone a Christian—hence the whole religion is the literal faith. But I don’t come out of the Christian tradition. My Christian ancestors began rejecting the church when they were still in Europe more than a century ago. My Jewish family understands that religion is as much about culture as it is about belief and practice; you don’t stop being Jewish just because you aren’t actively going to synagogue or because you feel disconnected from God. The religion I grew up in embraced heterodoxy of both belief and practice.

That’s quite a lot of negatives. To put my answer in more positive terms, I think that religion is belief and practice rooted in a communal context such as our Meeting. Quakerism offers a central belief, a beautiful practice, and a home.

• What advice do you have for someone just beginning to explore Quakerism?

Ooooh, is this is a trick question too? Is it our way to offer advice to other people? It’s my Baby Quaker understanding that we try to root our words in our own experiences and trust that others will do the same as they find their way.

When I first came to Meeting, I told myself quite sternly that I should not say anything in worship for a year. My hope was to gain a better understanding of the ebbs and flows of silent ministry before contributing my voice. I didn’t quite make it to the one year mark before I felt moved to share during worship. But I like to think that I benefited from practicing the discipline of silence during that first year of attending.

1. Anything you would like to add?

Thank you to all the Friends who have welcomed me to MFM. There’s a part of me that still can’t quite believe I’m lucky enough to have found my way here.