CONFESSIONS DURING A QUAKER MEETING:
Some reflections on religious experience

	God — I have groped to grasp Your Greatness in silence,
	& contemplate Thy Wonders with this little brain
	but often all I'm left with, hunched in this hushed room,
	the paltry pettiness of my thoughts & a sense of disdain.

	Sometimes however the striving self dissolves —
	and on hard oak benches, hallowed by a thousand quiet backs,
	& the shuffling murmurs all moments resolve,
	then and then only does silence make sense
	And Your Blessed Spirit seems  near.

	Then there's no self to shield itself, or struggle or to "own",
	The Burning Bush of Thy Glory, blazing, unconsumed,
	outshines the blustering blather of my busy, borrowed days —
	and only then is there true worship: reverence unplumed,
	a wordless "yes" that asks for nothing, nor has no more to say.

	Alas, dross that I am, this vision fades, 
	the fire dims, and the felt truth drains and pales,
	ground down again between restless millstone-selves,
	& the gristmill of the mind that mills existence into microscopic meal.

	And yet. And yet. Some kernels keep. Some grains escape the blade —
	a scattering of golden dust no milling cannot claim.
	I gather what I can of it, this little that remains sacrosanct,
	and carry it back out into the noise, and call it grace.

	Then someone clears their throat,
	comments about the Dark Sith Lords sitting in imperial capitals
	and God, politely, remains silent.


  Devani let the final line of the poem linger in the air, folding the parchment with slow,
deliberate care. She looked up, and her gaze moved from face to face around the table,
unhurried, almost searching, like she was counting who among them had actually been listening
and who had merely been waiting for the poem to stop. "Can't we worship God a hundred thousand
different ways?" Her voice was quiet, but with the steadiness of someone who suspected the
answer would be contested.

  Anya's eyebrows shot up, a dry smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. She set his teacup 
down with a sharp clink, the porcelain ringing faintly against the saucer. "Who said that there 
is actually any God to worship?" She leaned back, the chair creaking under the shift of her 
weight, and crossed her arms over her chest with the unhurried confidence of a seasoned debater. 
"Humans invent gods for their own convenience." She said it like a closing statement, not an 
opening one. "The entire concept is merely a socio-political construct."

  A quiet hush fell over the room until Carlos broke it, his fingers tracing the rim of his 
glass. He hesitated, clearing his throat gently. "Uhm, haven't you ever had an experience 
of a peace that passeth all understanding?"

  He looked directly at Anya as he said it, and something in his posture softened — shoulders
lowering an inch, jaw unclenching — the physical language of a man choosing sincerity over
sharpness even though sharpness would have been easier. "Without an experience like that,
religion might seem like nothing more than a social enterprise," Carlos went on, his voice
steadying as he found his footing. "But the roots of faith go much deeper than that. Deeper 
than any logical arguments, I think."

  Brice slumped back in his chair, shrugging his shoulders with an exaggerated sigh of utter
boredom. "Folks have been yapping about this for centuries." He tossed a hand into the air,
fingers splayed, a gesture that seemed to dismiss not just the table but several hundred years
of theology along with it. "Killing each other over dogmatic controversies, burning each other
over commas in a creed." His mouth twisted, half grimace, half grin, the expression of someone
who found the whole business more absurd than tragic.

  "To me, it all seems like an idiot's play." He spread his hands, palms up, in a gesture almost
like surrender. "Why can't we just admit there's precious little we know for certain?"

  The room fell silent again, but it was a different silence than before — heavier, more occupied.
Devani's fingers had stilled on the folded parchment. Carlos studied the tablecloth as though an
answer might be embroidered somewhere in its weave. And Anya, for the first time, didn't reach
for her tea.

> Note: This piece was partially generated with AI tools; human editing was then applied.

=====================================================================================
from POEATIONS: Explorations in meta-poetry by T Newfields
Long Summary: A poem and conversation exploring how Quaker silent worship can briefly quiet the self 
and evoke a sense of divine presence, only to be met afterward by doubt, debate, and the 
stubborn persistence of ordinary noise.
Short Summary: Thoughts about the limits of spiritual experience and the construct of religion.
Keywords: Quaker meetings, silent worship, religious experiences, doubt and faith, contemplative prayer,
divine presence, self and silence, theology in conversation, peace that passeth understanding,
grace and shame, spirituality vs. religion, Quakerism, noetic awareness, transcendent experiences, 
wordless worship

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955 - ?)
Begun: 2013 in Tokyo, Japan ☆ Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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