Hampstead Friends Meeting House
Photo by Jim Burklo
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?" Matthew 26: 36-40
For just an hour, I sat in silence, awake, in the Hampstead Meeting of the Society of Friends in London. Roberta and I are here visiting family, and I took some time away for silent worship on Sunday morning. I had been to Hampstead Meeting two years ago: it was good to return and see a few familiar faces. The interior of the Meeting House is unadorned – a generic space. In the center of the carpeted room is a little table on which flowers and a Bible and some copies of the British “advices” on Quaker worship are laid. Chairs are arranged in concentric circles around the table.
We sat. It took a few minutes for people to settle into quiet. Some Quaker worship services are disparagingly described as “popcorn Meetings.” While it is expected that a few people will be moved by Spirit to speak briefly, in some meetings I have visited over the years it seems that Spirit is exceptionally active every Sunday, giving silence short shrift. This one has a habit of quiet contemplation – only three folks stood to speak. One shared about the effect of her spiritual practice on reducing her tendency to suffer from anxiety. Another told of a Quaker study group that introduced her to contemplative means of reaching unusual states of consciousness, including synesthesia, in which people can smell colors and taste words. Another rose to share the powerful positive influence of the Twelve Step movement on her life. But the most profound rising of Spirit came when an older woman stood up, picked up her chair, and put it next to an elderly woman who was clearly suffering physical discomfort. She sat down and put her arm around the elderly woman, who sighed and snuggled up to her.
Travel abroad involves a lot of sitting with a lot of other people in rows of seats. We did it in the airport before we departed. We did it in the plane for 10-plus hours. We did it in shuttles and buses and trams and subways. Always we faced ahead, as if aimed at our distant destinations.
In Hampstead Meeting, we all aimed at a very different sort of destination: the here and the now. We all faced the table, a physical manifestation of our shared aim to be present in our spiritual center. Quakers describe their silence as “waiting upon the Lord.” It is a very different kind of waiting than the kind we experienced in airports and train stations. It is more like the active waiting of an attentive server in a restaurant, tuned in to every hint of the patron’s needs. In silence, you attend closely to your thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, urges, and narratives, until you become aware that this attention is divine. It is love. It is the Lord. In the circle, we did this kind of waiting.
In the darkening hours before his crucifixion, Jesus went apart to pray with his disciples. He needed their support. But shortly after beginning his time of anguished prayer, he saw that his disciples were asleep. “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?” Jesus asked. This part of the Easter Week story reminds us that we need each other for encouragement in “waiting upon the Lord.” We need each other to keep us awake in that higher level of consciousness that is unconditional “agape” love. My need for it moved my legs that morning to walk the long hill of the Hampstead high street to sit with Friends. It moves us to seek out other spiritual communities that help us get us to a destination that won’t appear on the “Departures” screen in the airport….