The Quaker Way: Keeping the Faith and Restoring a Meetinghouse

2413

By Judy O’Gorman Alvarez

The Quaker meetinghouse on the corner of Sycamore Avenue and Route 35 is undergoing a historically accurate restoration during the pandemic while its members meet via Zoom instead of in the building. Eduardo Pinzon

SHREWSBURY – On the historic corner of Shrewsbury, where history and the 21st century meet, stands the meetinghouse of the Shrewsbury Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, popularly called Quakers.

“We are a thriving and active meeting,” said Gay Nor ton Edelman, clerk of ministry and counsel. “We are small but mighty, as I like to say.”

With 20 members and probably twice that number who often attend, Edelman said they welcome visitors, reflected in their slogan “Everybody is always welcome.”

According to Edelman, historic tours – such as the Weekend in Old Monmouth in May and the Historic Four Corners Lantern Tour in December (both of which were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic) – bring in the most visitors, often resulting in an increase in membership.

Although members flock to the meetinghouse on Sunday mornings to gather and worship, you won’t find any pastors among the group. Instead, all members are considered ministers. These days, members meet via Zoom.

According to the group’s website: “We gather in silence and expectant waiting, without prearranged singing, Bible reading, prayers, or sermon. As worship proceeds, rising above individual meditation to a sense of seeking as a gathered group, there may be spoken ministry as people feel led by the Light Within to share their insights and messages.”

“We are the kind of Quakers who sit in a seeking silence – not an enforced (one), different from meditation,” explained Edelman. “If and when the spirit moves, someone may be moved to speak.”

“Sometimes there are two or three messages. If there’s a theme – we call it a Quaker sermon – but more often there are fewer or none.”

The Friends have been meeting for worship in Shrewsbur y since 1665 when a group of Friends came from Rhode Island and Long Island to establish a settlement at Shrewsbury.

The Shrewsbury Meeting was New Jersey’s first Friends Meeting and is New Jersey’s oldest rural religious congregation, the website states. The early meetings for worship took place in the homes of members. The first meetinghouse was built in 1672 and was visited that same year by George Fox, the founder of Quakerism. It was a single room wood structure located about a mile east of the current meetinghouse in what is now Little Silver.

The current Meeting- house was rebuilt in its present form in 1816. It is listed on the state and national registries of historic places. The cemetery features the names of many local settlers.

Right now the Friends have been busy restoring the meetinghouse. “We’re coming down to the home stretch of our full, flat-out historic restoration,” Edelman said. Restoration, she points out, is to ensure the work done is authentic to the year of the meetinghouse – 1816.

“We took advantage of being closed to face-to-face meetings during the pandemic to do a complete paint restoration.” The next step is getting the shutters restored.

“It’s been a slow steady progression,” she said. “It was led by Gordon Clark who died a year ago. He led the way and now others are taking up the task.”

The banner that hangs outside the Friends’ meetinghouse reads: “Love They Neighbor. No Exceptions.”

“Quakers are committed to peace,” said Edelman, “and we have many lively discussions about the issues of the day. We do our best to listen carefully and respond rather that react to one another.”

“We have many lively discussions and while we agree in principle – the value of peacemaking – there may be ways, nuances and methodologies that we may disagree about. There may be issues of the day where there’s a fair amount of discourse,” she said. “We strive to do our best to listen respectfully to one another.”

While that listening includes paying attention to the words or silence of others during a meeting, it also means being quiet with yourself.

“It’s not an easy religion,” Edelman said. “To sit in silence and not have things handed to you – you have to be strong and clear with yourself.”

This article originally appeared in the Feb. 18, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.