I Go To A Quaker Meeting |
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'Quakers' is a nickname for the Religious Society of Friends.
If you want to discover more about the history of the Quakers go to the end of this section. |
| You know that if you want to hear something, the best way is to be still and quiet and not to have too many things around you to take your attention. When you are very still, thoughts may come into your mind which may help you. It might be a comforting thought when you are sad or it might be a reminder of something you ought or ought not to have done. Sometimes you can see a way to put things right or a way to help someone. |
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This is why the people in the picture are sitting silently with their eyes closed in that bare room. They believe that God is telling them how to live better lives. It is more than 'conscience' - the sense of right and wrong - more a sense of direction or 'leadings' as the earlier Quakers expressed it. If they feel they want to do so, they will stand up and tell the Meeting what they have learned. Sometimes they read passages from the Bible or other religious writings, which they think might help others. You will have noticed that there are no children in the room. That is not because children cannot listen in the same way as adults, but because an hour is a long time. So the children have gone to another room to hear stories, act plays, draw, paint, sing and play instruments - all kinds of things. Then ten minutes before the end of the hour they come back to their parents to share the silent time. |
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