Quakers in Minneapolis

Friend

Good morning. Good morning.

And Peter wore his nametag and no gloves. Well, good morning.

My parents told me that the first time I ever came into this room, I was nine days old.

There are several of us here who have grown up in the meeting and who are now in our 70s.

I think this meeting creates a sense of home for a lot of people.

When I first started coming here, I was around six years old.

I feel like anyone in the world can come here and feel welcomed because everyone here is accepting of each other. There’s no doctrine. You can come in and be yourself.

The first Quaker to arrive in Minnesota got here in 1851. In 1949, they moved to this building. In ’91, we made it accessible by adding an elevator.

You come into the meeting space and do what we call centering, where you just take deep breaths and calm yourself.

It feels really good because you get to kind of detox from all the stress of the week.

Sometimes being in the silence and sinking into it feels like I’m being held by two hands.

Being able to just sit in quiet and listen for what we call that still small voice within.

The whole group is really focused together, waiting for something.

And often that something arrives in a sharing from a person who feels led to speak.

Can I love myself as much as God loves me?

When a person offers vocal ministry, the people in worship may have been experiencing another version of that within themselves.

There’s a sort of mysticism to that.

There’s a regular group of folks who attend on Zoom, and that’s a really robust system that allows for people who either cannot or are not able to attend in person.

So they can hear what’s going on here in the room and see people.

It’s important to make sure that folks are included and that they feel valued, so that their contributions are offered, included, and appreciated by the community.

On most Sundays, people gather for unprogrammed meeting at around nine.

If people feel led, they speak out of the silence.

And then at 11:15, semi-programmed meeting starts, and the cadence of that is opening music.

More love. More love.

And then somebody in our congregation prepares a message for us.

Let yourself be rooted in this moment. To the right and left of you, in front of you and behind you. We are listening together, breathing in sacred air.

And then silence, out of which people speak if they feel led, ending with a song.

The thing that’s really unique about that is that it provides people different places to enter.

I grew up in a church that was quite fundamentalist. My housemates and I started trying to find community without the baggage of dogma.

And to be here in the semi-programmed meeting, we get to do the singing together, gathering in the name of something deeper and something holy.

I love so much that everybody who comes here might have a slightly different understanding or relationship with what that something is.

There are certain core values that feel shared—commitment to trying to be a good presence in the world.

When we think about raising kids in this world that can feel so disconnected and isolating, this feels like the kind of community we want to be part of.

There is something about Quakers that treats children as whole human beings and really treats them like what they say makes a difference.

We all talk about it until all of us agree.

Adults really want to hear from kids—what they’re doing and what they’re thinking—and take what they say seriously.

That was important to me, and I think that was important to my kids.

Everybody wants to know you. They’re going to make it friendly.

It’s only one hour of your day, but it’s a really nice hour. You get to relax, refresh your mind, think about what you’ve done, and talk to people.

There’s a real sense of family and community.

It’s really special to realize how much people care about you.

And I do think there’s something very special about the way we welcome visitors.

The first time I visited last spring happened to be on a potluck week. I was struck by how welcoming it was to me as a newcomer and how familiar people felt with each other—a depth and a joy to them being together.

At potlucks, you watch people get up and help, like washing dishes. Not only is there space here for me to be fed, there’s also space for me to pitch in and help out.

I’ve been a part of this community for less than a year now, and it’s quickly become essential.

If I want to be a person of hope or service, a person with something to offer in the world, I need a home base like this.

The meeting gives you a place to feel a kind of unspoken communion with other people.

It’s a place where people shake hands with you and it feels like they really mean it.