Monadnock Quaker Meeting House, Jaffrey, New Hampshire

February 5, 2012 (Sunday 6)
Monadnock Quaker Meeting House
3 Davidson Road
Jaffrey, NH 03452
603.532.6203

Church History: Monadnock Meeting was founded in 1957 by Quakers from The Meeting School in Rindge, New Hampshire.
Before acquiring its current building, places where gatherings were held included the offices of a rehabilitation center in Peterborough, the Peterborough Library and the barn at the Meeting School in Rindge. The Jaffrey meeting house, formerly a private home, was purchased in 1993 and remodeled to accommodate the needs of Monadnock Quaker Meeting.

Affiliation: Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) (340,000 Members)

This week I stayed relatively close to home and chose to attend the Monadnock Quaker Meeting  in Jaffrey. Not surprisingly, when I took the Belief-O-Matic test over at beliefnet.com, the results indicated that my beliefs are most compatible with the Quakers. I have always been very impressed (and more than a little intimidated) by the strong commitment to social and moral issues that Quakers are known for.

Sunday’s Meeting: Of all the Sundays I write about during the course of the year, this may be the most atypical. Quakers have no clergy, and their worship consists of extended periods of silent meditation, during which people are free to address everyone as the spirit moves them.

Everyone sat on chairs or benches that formed a circle, and the meeting began with a prolonged period of meditative silence. After a period of time passed, a man stood and read a brief essay from within a book he had been reading, which was a comparison between human-hood and Christ-hood, with the former described as “getting” and the latter described as “letting”. My recollection of this is that people are very susceptible to getting caught up in the day-to-day acquisition of things, experiences, etc., and only by giving up our control (or our desire to control) our destinies are we able to get past this state of human-hood.

After another period of meditative silence, a woman spoke about having seen the movie The Descendants, and she pointed out that so far as popular movies go, it was singular in its handling of a family’s need to make end-of-life decisions for someone who is unable to make those decisions for herself. She pointed out that while the arc of the events in the movie were quite short, many people struggle with the end-of-life issues of a loved one for months and even years.

The third person to speak continued to address the end-of-life issue. A native of Germany, she pointed out how surprised and disappointed she was when she experienced how the events surrounding a death are managed in the United States compared to in Germany, in that here the family has little direct involvement with preparing the dead for burial, and also that it is for some reason typical in America to create an illusion that the person who is dead looks completely healthy, which she pointed out probably makes accepting the death even more difficult for the family, with their loved one looking so much better than they actually did in the time leading up to their death. She spoke about not wanting to live forever, and that she, in her seventies, was acutely aware of the ebbing of her life as time passes. She characterized death as something not to be feared, but more as a new beginning.

Next a man spoke about taking the steps one should take to prepare for their end-of-life, which he called a checklist. He talked about the importance of having an advocate that would aggressively lobby for your wishes, and that one needs to be clear about how they wish their death to be handled. He pointed out that 70% of Americans who are polled indicate that they would prefer to die in their home; yet 70% of deaths in America take place in a hospital.

Finally the first speaker spoke again, and I think he may have been paraphrasing some brief passage or passages in the New Testament, but I am not certain whether that is the case. He mentioned that the Word was made flesh, and also that Jesus said that life was everlasting.

At the end of this meditative section of the meeting, everyone introduced themselves, and many people spoke briefly about upcoming meetings, or about particular projects that were underway. Once that was done, coffee, tea, and refreshments were served, and most of us participated in making hand-dipped candles.

My Thoughts: Prior to attending, I thought that attending a Quaker Meeting would be difficult for me, for a couple reasons. First, without the focal point of a minister, I wondered what I would be able to actually write about. Second, when it comes to meditation, quieting your mind, whatever you may call it … my toolbox is empty. Tell me to empty my mind of thoughts, and that’s all it takes for a flood of thoughts, all of them pretty worthless, to come pouring into my mind.

But third, and more importantly, I’ve lived in the Monadnock region for a little over twenty-five years, and if there is one thing I know about the Quakers, at least as I’ve experienced them here, is that this is a dedicated group of people who definitely live their beliefs. I find their commitment to stand and to be vocal about the principles that they believe in to be more than a little intimidating.

So I’m still a bit intimidated, and my meditation toolbox is still empty. But I would note that a lack of clergy does not mean a lack of focus. Everyone who happened to choose to speak out at this week’s meeting spoke about issues that were meaningful, and provided me with some interesting things to contemplate, just as an effective Sunday sermon would. Unfortunately, my far-too-dry summaries of the subject matter fail miserably to reflect the level of discourse.

Just as a lack of clergy doesn’t mean a lack of focus, the lack of ceremony does not mean a lack of ritual. It may appear to outsiders like me that things might be happening a bit willy-nilly compared to the scripted series of events at a more conventional church service, but I get the feeling that what I experienced today is ritual too.

I really enjoyed meeting with and talking to everyone after the meeting was over. One of the things becoming clear to me already, only six weeks into this blog, is that while there are many different reasons to choose to attend religious services, perhaps most powerful is the need to participate in something that provides a real sense of community. That’s certainly what I saw today.

I would like to thank Jim Giddings, who was kind enough to email me a brief history of Monadnock Quaker Meeting for this article, which I stole from liberally.