Quakers vs The Lakers

Okay it has nothing to do with the Lakers. On Sunday I went to the local Quakers Meeting. It's been a long, long, looooooooong time coming.
We arrived late. But that was okay because Bill was there to greet us at the door with a group of late comers who would all go in together so as not to disrupt the meeting.
The Quakers are not talked about anywhere near enough. I assume it is because they are a Western Religion and so lack the Mystic appeal of Hinduism and Buddhism. They sprunged out of Christianity but the way they practice is what interests me. I still have complete faith that there is no god.
There's no quaker trinkets to sell. No beaded necklaces, no quaker bling. No crazy old quaker appearing alongside John Safran on a comedy show to draw people to the service. The Christian Society of Friends is small because like most inherently good practices the belief that they will stand without marketing and sales efforts is wrong.
That being said I don't want to draw the line in the sand to say get on board quakers. Two things are worth pointing out: Ghandi at a stage of self discovery decided to check out christianity, the welcomers at the church service he was at turned him away because he was obviously not Christian in appearance. Christianity possibly lost one of the greatest humanitarians to have walked the earth since Jesus and they didn't lose him by accident.
The other was when Damo raised his concern that his interest was 'disengenuous' (what a fag) the girl said 'I've been coming for three years nobodies ever asked me what I believe'.
There is no creed to the Quaker way infact there is no real Quaker way. The Quakers have been able to do something that almost no other religion has managed. Reflect on itself and evolve.
What did the meeting involve. Sitting in dead silence for about an hour. Not meditation, not anything. But communal silence. I didn't find it weird, I was glad to get a social context where there was no compulsion to fill the void with noise.
Then afterwards we all held hands and that was it.
I could feel the physiological benifits of it and I can honestly say it was a lot more relevant and interesting than a lot of church services I've reluctantly agreed to sit through.
Most importantly it comes back to my fundamental beef with most religions: all texts require interpretation, all lessons need to be interpreted and spirituality is highly personal, yet most religions expect you to seed this role to an authority.
Most of them really empty the practice of the religion of any spirituality at all and engage you in more self validating politics.
Buddhism is good, but the practice of zen is the better part of it to me. There's still rules and laws layed down in buddhism about drinking wine and touching women and having same sex relationships. The Quaker meeting style emerged from a Christian off shoot but the way they conduct there meetings and how anyone of any standing can contribute is what impresses me. There is a culture that is a reflecition to me of John Lennon's imagine: 'no heaven, no hell, no countries yadda yadda yadda' but that is entirely possible. The devil could turn up to a Quaker meeting and decide he'd wasted his life.
The Quakers I can see being something else entirely in a hundred years time rather than obsolete. Whilst they are sparse in Australia and a small community I don't see them at risk of the same irrelevance faced by larger pushier institutions.
Ultimately to me it is about self determination. And that is cool, I could turn up to Quaker meeting week after week and if asked what I believe could say 'I believe women are beautiful*'

* speaking of beautiful I grabbed the pamphlet that described the quaker's stance on homosexuality and lesbianism and it filled my heart with hug puppies such was it's beauty.