Quakers really know how to party

I grew up Baptist. I still consider myself Baptist, although my faith within that Baptist context is an organic journey. I crave constant growth and expansion, spiritually. I think on some levels, everyone does.
In college I had an assignment to go to a church that was a different denomination for a Christian History class. I went to a Greek Orthodox church. It was quite a strange and incredible experience that changed my life. I can blog that later. That got the proverbial ball rolling. I began exploring other denominations, and visiting other churches. On paper, I knew myself to be partly Quaker. My beliefs line up with a conservative Quaker view, for the most part. There’s an amazing test you can take on beliefnet.com. You take the Belief-O-Matic test, and it tells you what religious/spiritual belief you most closely align with. After taking the test, I aligned mostly with the Quaker faith.
Not having studied Quakers much, I sort of took a crash course. One of my professors, Dr. Lee, is a Quaker. I went to his meeting house, and it was an incredible experience.
Without explaining too much Quaker history, here is modern Quaker belief in a nutshell: since all Christians are equal through the Holy Spirit, there are no appointed "pastors" or whatnot. Every Christian is supposed to lift each other up in a communal way, without relying too much on a ceremonial or elevated person. Definitely, natural leadership abilities and talents will rise to the surface, and people will take their natural places in society. That’s the idea. A Quaker meeting is not referred to as a "service" in most cases. It’s a meeting. Quakers are also known as the Society of Friends. When they meet on sunday, rather than having a program, music, singing, sermon, or ceremony, they do quite the opposite. They sit in total quiet. It is a time of communal meditation. Anyone can speak, if they feel lead to speak. But otherwise, everyone meditates in total silence. In the Quaker meeting I was in, the room was almost all windows. There was a beautiful panoramic view of the lush green woods. There were skylights, and a gentle cieling fan clicking quietly. Everyone, as their name implies, was genuinely friendly. I was with three or four friends. The seats were arranged in a square fashion, with everyone facing each other.
As we first entered the meeting, I was apprehensive and awkward about sitting still in front of everyone. However, the Quaker Friends at the meeting were long time experieced Quakers, so they didn’t take special notice to us. Some had their eyes closed. Some not. Some were teenagers, some old. Once you enter the room, you must maintain the silence, unless lead to speak. At first, I was distracted and thinking of my surroundings. However, it didn’t take long to enter a deep and genuine state of meditation. God spoke to me in an incredibly deep way during that silence. It’s one thing to be alone, but there’s a wonderful power when you’re meditating with a group of people. There’s a certain energy.
The time drifted and, as cliche as it sounds, seemed to stop. Observing nature, and listening to the inner Spirit, I honestly honed my focus. It was amazing. About 45 minutes or so into it, a woman in the corner suddenly began speaking. She said she had a garden, and she had been trying to make a certain plant grow. It kept being overrun by weeds. She kept trying to pull all the weeds, but they kept overtaking her. Eventually, she gave up and let the weeds grow. When they bloomed, they were an astonishing and beautiful bud. She looked it up in one of her flower books, and found that it was a rare type of plant. She used that as a lesson that God has better plans than we do. Amazing.
The Quaker experience was incredible, and I wish this blog did it justice. If you want to learn more, you can go to beliefnet.com and take the test for yourself.