Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SUNDAY, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408290017 SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY SOURCE: Frances Stebbins DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Long
The Sojourner found no choir, Communion, sermon or Scripture reading typical of other Christian worship.
Instead eight adults and two children sat in an assortment of chairs in a circle, eyes closed, and reflected on their inner spiritual experience.
No word was spoken from 10:30 a.m. until an hour later when Frank O'Brien, presiding clerk of the meeting, broke the silence with a simple, `Welcome, Friends,'' and those in the chairs joined hands for a moment.
A few announcements were made and the group adjourned to a nearby area to drink herb tea before dispersing in a heavy shower 15 minutes later.
What, some would ask, could any Sunday morning worshiper possibly get out of an hour of silence in a shell of an old country church set against a steep pasture in a glade in Floyd, a place remote at best?
A great deal, I discovered, as I closed my eyes with O'Brien, Sandra Winters, Steve Beese, Mary Wiley and her daughter Katherine, Nancy Gilliam and toward the end of the hour, Elizabeth Woodstock and her little boys, Yuri, 6, and Zev, 6 months.That was the congregation or ``meeting,'' as the Quakers call it, a coming together to reflect in silence on God's goodness, his forgiveness, his plans for each believer.
``It's been said, we live in the present,'' O'Brien told me before we all settled into our circle. Quakers, officially Religious Society of Friends, gain their strength from direct experience of God through ``quietism.'' Their service, a pamphlet states, begins when they leave the meeting and follow up on what was revealed to them there.
The sitting in silence gave me time to pray about many matters undisturbed by the pleasant but distracting sounds of the usual congregation. About once every five minutes a vehicle passed on narrow Virginia 615 across a stream from the meeting house. Cicadas whirred, a bird occasionally chirped and in a nearby field a piece of farm machinery emitted a sound that O'Brien said later he didn't even hear. It takes practice to achieve the concentration a practiced Friend achieves.
There's plenty of action in the Floyd Meeting this year. After about three years of regular gatherings in homes, the town library and finally in an abandoned United Methodist chapel, the group has begin building its own meeting house. It will be on Simple Spring Farm just off Virginia 615, two miles northwest of Floyd. The farm belongs to Beese and his wife, Sandra Winters, who came to Floyd five years ago. He practices in the town's family clinic and she runs the farm and commutes to Guilford College in North Carolina twice weekly to teach.
The coming of the couple, originally from Winston-Salem, N.C. and Greenville, S.C., gave impetus to several other scattered Floyd area Quakers like O'Brien who has been teaching at Hollins College for years and lives by choice in Floyd. Gilliam, who has lived in Patrick for 13 years, drives up when she can, she said. Woodstock, 31, and the mother of the two boys, was reared a Maryland Quaker. She wants her sons to grow up with the convictions of non-violence and concern for the oppressed that have marked Quakers since their beginning in 17th Century England.
Recently the group gained two more members, Wiley and her young adult daughter, Katherine. They moved from the Lexington, Mass., area and are excited about being part of a tiny but growing community of like-minded folk.
Because of children like the Woodstock boys, the Quakers decided to build their own meeting house, Beese said. His son of 15, like other young people of the faith, are considered fully participating members of the meeting in so far as they can comprehend its affairs. The reason Woodstock came late to the meeting last Sunday was that she was keeping her children at Simple Spring Farm through most of the meditation time but introducing them gradually to the need for keeping still.
During the herb tea fellowship time, the two men reviewed plans for the meeting house whose materials will cost about $20,000. Members and friends are doing the work themselves, regretting the rains that reduced their working hours last week.
The building will have a meeting room for about 40, a gathering area with a sweeping view of the rolling meadows and plenty of room for the children who will be told stories until they can fully experience the adult meeting.
The present meeting area has no provision for children, no running water and too little space outside to justify its renovation, Beese said. All these - with full facilities for those in wheel chairs - will be provided at the new building. The goal is to get it under roof by cold weather so that everyone can work inside during the winter.
Sunday Sojourner appears monthly in the New River Current. Its purpose is not to promote a particular point of view but to inform readers of a variety of worship styles.
by CNB