From: js06+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jason Lee Smith)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker
Subject: Quakerism
Date: 15 Nov 92 16:53:28 GMT
Organization: Senior, Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I've been a Quaker since I was seven-years old. When I was seven I had a
best-friend who was Quaker and he talked me into going to meeting with
him, and I guess it stuck. I haven't been to Quaker meeting, though, in
more than a year, even though there's one just down the street.

My reason is as follows: 

To me Quakerism is the belief in That Of God in all mankind, the belief
in a simple life, and, of course, the way of peace. I stopped going to
Quaker meeting when I began to suspect that there were more people there
who were interested in Politics than in religion. I felt this in
High-School when I was going to Meeting, and that is why I stopped
going. Then, two years ago, the beginning of the Gulf War made me
reflect on my feelings as a conscientious objector, and so I began
attending a Meeting located near my college. 

At first I noticed pretty big turn-outs at meetings. Many were people
who I knew, and knew not to be Quaker. The explanation was that people
had come out to pray for peace, it was one of the reasons I was there, I
thought it reasonable. After one or two meetings, though, they stopped
coming, I'll be charitable and say that they probably didn't think
Meeting was for them -- it is an aquired taste. However, I began to get
the impression that they were using Quaker Meeting as one of the "20
Simple Things You Can Do To Promote Worl Peace," along with going to a
protest march, and signing  a petition. It was something easy they could
do to unload their guilt. And I felt that my beliefs, which I do
seriously hold, had been exploited.

I felt this further, when we received a bunch of students from a
"Contemporary Religions" class who had been sent to Meeting one day to
"see what it was like." Their professor didn't bother showing up.

On Yom Kippur, the Synagogues aren't packed with people who feel
solidarity with their Jewish brothers. On Christmas Eve, Cathedrals
aren't packed with Protestants who've "just always wanted to see what a
midnight mass was like." No one would even think of doing that, it would
be inappropriate. So what makes it right for it to happen at the Quaker
meeting.

Then, the meeting after the Gulf War was over, there was immense anger,
an anger at the number of people who'd died, and a contempt for the
people who sent them. This was understandable, and I felt the same, but
no one offered a prayer of gratitude that the horror was over. No one
even thought to give thanks, that the casualties weren't ten times
worse. In fact, I think they felt more upset when the war was over than
they did when it was done. The week after that, instead of a peaceful
meeting, free of rancor, another topic of contempt had been found.

I gradually began to realize that many of the people who regularly spoke
out, just wanted to feel angry about something. I finally left the
meeting when a man whom nobody knew, would get up and preach at us, for
twenty minutes, out of a gospel which he largely made up as he went
along. The man had a limp and was a little scruffy and had probably
fallen on hard times. He was a black man, and his sermons usually had to
do with how black men (and women) were treated like slaves. He tried to
get the strong resonating tone of Martin Luther King , or Jesse Jackson,
but he couldn't quite pull it off, and that and his subject matter made
me think he was a trifle crazy. Now, at first I thought this was just an
isolated incident. But, every week this would happen, at almost
precisely the same time (five minutes before Meeting ended). That was
when I finally left.

Has the idea of Peace begun to outweigh the idea of Simplicity for most
Quakers? And has the idea of World Peace (or rather, as I believe many
people view it, the complete removal from power of all people who
disagree with us because we're right and they aren't)  begun to outweigh
the idea of Inner Peace. Guns after all, aren't the only way to hurt
someone, and inner hatred and anger, don't always hurt the person they
are meant to. And, finally, if these things have occurred, what chance
is there for a person like me, who agrees with the beliefs of Quakersim,
but not the way he sees them practised?


		Jason


"Detroit is Cleveland without the glitter."

			-Unknown