When you sit alone, silence seems normal, but the silence of a hundred people feels charged, alive somehow. The Quaker meetinghouse in Washington, D.C., is full this Sunday, as it has been every week since September 11. As we sit facing one another on rows of benches arranged around a central open space, sunlight dapples the floor and birds chirrup outside.
Maurice Boyd, a longtime meeting member, stands to speak. His voice sounds alittle unsteady. "I find my Quaker peace testimony stretched to its limit rightnow." Boyd's hands grip the back of the pew in front of him. "Quakers were ableto resist joining the cry for vengeance in the twentieth century," he says. "Butnow here is Osama bin Laden and people like him, people who want to destroy usand all that we hold dear." He pauses and takes a breath. "I'm in a crisis of thesoul. I don't know how much further I can go along the road--the road of peacefulresistance. I can only ask you to hold me in the Light."
Quakers like Boyd believe that each individual possesses an "Inward Light" orinner voice; listening to that voice in others requires peaceful action as wellas respectful dialogue. Boyd's struggle demonstrates the questions that Quakersthroughout the nation are grappling with within their own faith. His willingnessto speak about his doubts exemplifies the Quaker ideal of openness, quietness,and listening--a deep contrast to the shrillness with which they've beendenounced in recent articles. In Boston, Quaker marchers were baited with tauntsof "loser" and crude gestures. More prominently, Washington Post columnist Michael Kelly called pacifists "evil" and "on the side of the murderers."
The Religious Society of Friends--commonly known as the Quakers--began inmid-seventeenth-century England with an itinerant preacher named George Fox. TheFriends are essentially a mystical sect within Christianity, though today themovement includes many non-Christians, even atheists, who have been attracted byQuaker activism in the fields of peace and civil rights. Fox believed in an"inner light," that of God, in each person, which meant that everyone has directaccess to God and that ceremonies and rituals only served to distract one fromthe inward voice. Many of the 100,000 Quakers in North America today still meetin silence.
The Quakers' belief in equality, peace, and consensus building has gotten theminto trouble over the years. Their refusal to fight or to recognize the militarydraft landed them in prisons on both sides of the Atlantic during the First WorldWar. Even after the federal government recognized the Society of Friends as a"peace" religion and eligible for conscientious-objector status, they still facedcontempt and suspicion for their beliefs. By calling Quakers and other pacifistsnefarious traitors, Michael Kelly and like-minded critics are following a longtradition of trying to silence these already quiet voices.
About 30 people are crammed into the small Terrace Room of the meetinghousefor one of the "worship sharings" that Ken Forsberg, a member of the ReligiousEducation Committee, has been organizing since September 11. At a regular Quakermeeting for worship, attendees sit silently unless they feel moved by the Spiritto speak; but a worship sharing is like a meditative discussion and personalconcerns or worries that would not be shared as part of a meeting are welcomehere. Forsberg speaks up and describes the Salt March scene in the movieGandhi. No one has room to sit comfortably, yet no one fidgets. The thought of the marchers, row upon row, being beaten down by the British soldiers hangs in the air. How, Forsberg asks, does that sort of nonviolence apply to the current situation? Can the Quaker peace testimony shape foreign policy--and should it?
Forsberg, now 37 years old, holds a doctorate degree in government fromCornell University, where his studies focused on international relations. He hasbeen attending the meeting for five years, although he considers himself anatheist--a "nontheist," as he puts it. He has no answers for the questions heasks in worship sharing. Although he feels uncomfortable with the U.S. bombing ofAfghanistan, he does not identify himself as a pacifist. Force may be appropriatein some cases, he says, as long as the motivating factor is love.
"If someone is sick enough to kill people, it's not at all obvious to me thatthe way to be loving toward them is to let them kill people," he says. "Or evenby trying to stop them but not using force--because somehow that's against yourreligion--if using force is the quickest way to get the gun out of their hands.You don't necessarily then shoot them in the head, though. That's not very lovingeither."
Opinions on the new war vary widely among the assembled worshipers. Someonesays that although it "tears him up inside," he sees no way out but the currentaction. Another feels that pacifism is a hard enough ideal to live personally,let alone to impose on others. Many denounce the current campaign in Afghanistanas appallingly illogical in both human and military terms. No one spouts thenaive homilies--"Jesus said don't kill, and he meant it" or "Make peace, notwar"--that many attribute to Quakers.
Whether the D.C. Quakers fall on the side of absolute pacifism or a controlleduse of force, the question is always a matter of practicality, notsentimentality, and of love, not vengeance. And no one questions the importanceof talking about it and listening to one another.
Sara Satterthwaite, another longtime attendee of the D.C. meeting, works atthe Bureau of National Affairs. She was at home on September 11 and had beenlooking forward to getting out in the world and talking with people she knowsabout the horrifying events of that day. But she found that conversation didn'tcome easily.
"One of the first responses I got from someone was about 'bombing them intothe Stone Age,'" she says. "I was at that point still feeling the need formourning or grief--stillness, shock, holding the moment. Those things were there,and the idea of grief and mourning was shared--but there was a tight associationwith 'Let's get them.' I felt first surprise," she recalls, "then disappointment,that I couldn't have the conversations I really wanted to have with the people Ivalued."
A few days after the worship sharing, Neil Froemming, who has attended suchmeetings for five years, described the pressure he feels not to speak out againstthe war. He attributes this socially enforced silence in part to avillage-under-attack mentality. If the village is in imminent danger, there isroom for just one leader, only enough time for one person to make criticaldecisions; the rest must follow along unquestioningly if they are to survive.
Froemming also believes that another factor behind the social pressure not tospeak out is Americans' inability to look at themselves honestly. "You don'treally want to be aware of the fact that you've got it better than otherpeople--and not through any particular virtue of your own," he says, pointing outthat as Americans we "got it better" by using violence to protect ourselves.
Satterthwaite would also like Americans to find the courage to look atthemselves "in the mirror of other countries" and show "the maturity to bewilling to hear what we don't want to hear. I'm not saying we're immature becauseof it," she explains. "We're human because of it. It's very hard to ask someone,'How'd I do?' and really listen."
The language Quakers use to describe their ideals may sound quaint--who looksfor "inner light" in others these days? But whether we find those others acrossthe room or across the globe, the Quaker approach to conflict is one that mostAmericans would like to claim is their own: Respect your fellow humans, listen tothem, and have faith in the marketplace of ideas. Today, as opinions about thewar crescendo to ever higher decibels, the Quakers are one of the few groupssimply listening.
