By Kevin O’Brien
I am a “baby Quaker”, to borrow a term from Cathy Dalk. I recently submitted my request to Ministry and Council to join the Religious Society of Friends.
I suppose my experience as a joining member is both unique and typical of others’. I began visiting Meeting in Madison towards the end of my college years. A “lapsed Catholic”, and having dabbled in meditation and Buddhism, attending meeting for the first time felt like a cool drink of water on a hot day. Part of me had never forgotten my need for spiritual community, and the silent worship connected with my early experiences with the power of centering inward to escape the binds of my busy, critical mind. There was something especially important about it being a Meeting for Worship, not a meeting for meditation. While difficult to explain, there is still something powerfully important to me about having a personal relationship with Spirit, even if I long ago released the certainty of a personal God.
For the 30 years or so between then and now I was an “occasional attender” of the Milwaukee meeting, often with my wife Lynn, and for a stretch also with our daughters. We had made a commitment to raising our children in a faith, and worked hard initially for that to be Catholicism – the community we both knew best as a common denominator for ourselves and our families. We struggled with the deterioration brought upon the Catholic Church by its greater commitment to hierarchy and patriarchy than to the Spirit, and the hypocrisy of the response to the sexual abuse scandal was the final straw for my wife. After a year of “church shopping”, including time with the Quakers, our daughters decided that they preferred to see their commitment to Catholicism through to their confirmation.
With our daughters now all in or leaving college, and feeling very little connection to Catholicism, I decided that I needed to return to a faith practice that worked for me. I recognize that I need help to see me through the opportunities and inevitable hardships that the last half of my life will bring. I also had a sense of urgency, brought about from the 2016 election, to be part of a community dedicated to justice. Quakerism has always been the faith and practice that felt most like home to me. The past year of returning to more regular attendance has only confirmed that alignment. I recognize that my reaction to the Quaker testimonies – which is a combination of fear and awe – means that this is the right place to be. I hear each of the testimonies, and part of me screams “yes” and part of me wants to run away because I can’t imagine that I am capable of truly living them out.
As I have gotten to know many new Friends, and participate in bible study, Land Workday, and Introduction to Quakerism, I have found that the same thing that initially drew me to Meeting for Worship offers me peace about my slow path of joining this spiritual community. I greatly appreciate that “Quaker time” and my time align well. Because people here truly seek to live Spirit-led lives, they are refreshingly not concerned about how long it takes me to become a member. People are welcoming, Friendly (pun intended), caring – but not expecting my commitment to look or feel a certain way. Thank you all for that!
So I extend myself the grace to take the time I need to join in a way that is right for me now – walking forward, trying different things out, and seeing how I can integrate my life with this community with the other important aspects of my life. I don’t believe God has a plan for us – at least not a 10-point strategic plan that we can read and follow. I am learning to trust that the invitation is to live in deeper connection to the mystery of Spirit that will lead us to and through the challenges ahead, and to a place of enduring peace and happiness. Each Sunday Meeting for Worship I can feel us collectively dropping into the deeper Presence freely available to everyone. I can’t say what my commitment will look like a year, or two, or five from now, but I am grateful to be joining the space created by the collective holding of Light by so many for so long. Thank you.