That special quality of Quaker silence

The part of the school where we boarded. 
My window was on the third floor third along.

I find the quality of a Quaker silence to be far superior, for a Westerner.

At least we don't have to dwell on half understood, abstract and culturally removed concepts that turn the silence into the silence of aspirational puzzlement.

Quaker silence is easy enough, isn't it?

Be quiet. Quiet yourself. Calm right down. Reflect quietly on what you have done that day. Can you hear a still, small quiet voice within? Is that your conscience? Is that little voice God talking to you? Yes it is. Probably. Reflect on the inspiration you have just had. Stand up and share it with the community. Sit down again. Listen to anyone else who may want to share a thought.

Silence again. The sun moves across the windows. The light changes. Sounds intrude from outside the hall. Someone coughs unnecessarily. There is a clear sense of time passing and you cop a feel of smooth vastness you hear the whirr and hum of celestial clockwork.

Sometimes, there comes a moment in the silence when something begins to burgeon inside. It's not an emotion. It's more. It's a welling up. You begin to brim up and overflow. And because you are sitting in stillness, you are unable to escape from this sensation. You have to sit there until it builds and builds, and, yes, finally the sensation does burst through. After that you feel immeasurably stretched.

Sometimes, in the silence, a feeling that you already had before you came in is refined and concentrates more and more until it is pure and powerful. Now it is closer to you than your skin and rides your breath softly.

Or else, as your eyes open, suddenly, the repetitive strain injury of your daily selfish neediness and anxious routine loosens right up and slowly unravels. You forget yourself entirely. Your head tilts back and through your eyes you start to absorb the simple window-light. You fill up with it; drink it down.

Once again, your mind finds the where-with-all it needs to give things perspective, to refocus on practical objectives and set a good course. You find that you are still capable of loving and forgiving. In the meeting house you experience a kind of renewal. If you are lucky, your whole body tastes almost sweet on your tongue and it won't even matter that it's nearly winter and the sky soon darkens.

Usually, almost always, you smile involuntarily as you walk back out into the world. There is a slightly wrenching, inescapable, honest joyfulness you feel as you leave. And though it happens almost every time, it still, nearly always catches everyone by surprise.

On my way home today I ate a Cadbury's fudge out of pure nostalgia. Christians do like to set up associations between sweetness and Christianity in children, don't they. Who knows, perhaps the poor state of teeth here is in fact a mark of the British people's secret devotion to God.