Why I am a Quaker

This page will have short essays of the reasons for personal Quakerism by Members of the Meeting. We will hope to expand it with new essays quarterly.

By Elizabeth Bunting

I was baptized an infant in the Methodist Church of my parents; I was confirmed in the Presbyterian Church by my own choice when an adolescent. Fifteen years later, I was reconfirmed and married in the Episcopal Church and it was to the Episcopalians that I brought my five children. I have no doubt that those disciplines gave my life structure and help, but my ever-present questions of self and purpose were not answered by external creeds, rituals nor the ecclesiastical hierarchy. After completing a three-year term on the Vestry of the Episcopal Church, I left that Church and for two years lived 'a self-imposed exile'. This solved nothing.

I had been exposed to Quakerism while a student at Swarthmore College. During my empty exile, something within me suggested I visit the local Quaker Meeting at Willistown. On my first Sunday at Friends Meeting I was welcomed at the door by an old college friend. During worship, I was visited within by a sacred presence that I recognized, and for whom I had been seeking. It came through me without my summons or act. I knew I had been sent and I had come home.

Quakers believe there is some thing of God in every man and they accept each man's quest. I found they accepted mine and extended me their hands of friendship. There was time for dialogue and explanation, and I received extraordinary care and help when a dear friend was confronted with severe physical injury and trauma.

That was it! I had experienced 'way opening,' (a Quaker concept). I requested membership and have been a convinced Quaker now for six years. It 'wonders me' that I waited so long.

By Keith Fox

My first experience of Quakerism was First Day School at Swarthmore Meeting in the 1950's. My mother made me go even though I was in the Boys' Choir at the local Episcopal Church and sang every Sunday for the service. I told her that was enough religion. She however pointed out that I was not in the choir for religion but only for $7.50 a month they paid us. She was perfectly right, but that did not allay my feelings of too much religion.

I then went to George School where Meeting attendance was required two days a week. It was not a great Meeting because the kids never spoke and the faculty and administration used it as a forum to preach. I think I attended Meeting twice during college. Nevertheless something must have taken because when I was drafted to fight in Viet Nam, I told them I would go to jail before joining the Army. They gave me a 1-O classification and I did social work in the South Bronx as alternative service.

Some few years later with my wife, Kathy and then two kids, Eliza and Luke, we moved to Prince Edward Island in Canada. While there, we became friends with an Anglican minister and he persuaded us to join his church. Though we remained Episcopalians after returning to the States, I got to the point where it wasn't doing much for me. I felt it wasn't taking me to my spiritual center and soon thereafter I started going to Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting.

For no reason that I can explain, I almost always settle into silence and wait upon The Light once I get to Meeting. It's not an experience I have anywhere else. I think it is a message that this is where I am supposed to be. I wish my feelings were corroborated by more of my friends feeling the same way. It troubles me that none of my good friends from George School are Meeting members although many of them were from Quaker families with deep roots in the faith. It has made me feel that faith is, in fact, a gift from God, which like artistic or athletic ability is not given to everybody. So on top of everything else I feel about being a Quaker, I am also profoundly grateful.