Quaker Meeting House

I had wanted, for some time, to visit the Quaker meeting house in Chappaqua. For a start, it is one of the oldest buildings in Chappaqua and though we had lived in town for almost five years I had not visited it. Also, earlier this year, Graham Turner, the creative director at work had been enthusing about a Quaker school in Manhatten as he had done the rounds looking for a school for one of his daughters, which reminded me of my interest. Additionally, I felt some bizarre, though distant, connection with the Quakers as one of the few interesting things about my home town in England, Hertford, was that it was the home of the first Quaker Meeting house built in Britain. But as well as visiting, I also wanted to go to a Quaker service, or meeting.

One Sunday morning, whilst on a cycle ride, I stopped by the Meeting House and was shown around by a friendly Englishman, who worked for the UN, called John. He told me what happened at the meetings. I thought I would attend one. A week or two later I went.

The meeting room has no obvious alter or focal point. The friend who leads the meeting could sit anywhere. There is no 'set' service. People are encouraged to speak when they feel like saying something, and they stand when they do speak. However, nobody may want to speak at all, as was the case at my first meeting. There was 50 minutes of silence, only broken by the sound of people moving quietly on their seat or a muffled cough. Those 50 minutes of silence were interesting. They were simultaneously duanting and liberating; in the same way that following instuctions or a set of directions - like writing a creative brief with a series of boxes - can be comforting, whereas having to make it up yourself from scratch - like having to write on a blank sheet of paper - can be very challenging. Initially, I didn't know what to do with all this space. Quite quickly, I began to enjoy the openness within which to reflect.

I returned to the Quaker Meeting House twice more before we left Chappaqua. The first time was with George and Ollie, whom I persuaded to come with me. They managed to sit in silence a little before leaving the meeting to go to the kid's 'meeting' which they seemed to enjoy. The second time was the last weekend I was in Chappaqua, after Jill and the boys had gone. I stood up in the meeting to say "thank you". I had only been to the meeting house three times but there was something good happening there and I had been touched by it.

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This post is a revised version of an unpublished post I started in June 2008, whilst we were still in Chappaqua.