Mariellen Gilpin (WCTS, February, 2016)
One Sunday I worshipped with the little meeting near my hometown. I could see the little graveyard outside the window of this old, old meetinghouse, which has been there since the 1870’s. This is what I said:
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that cloud of witnesses that Paul spoke of in one of his epistles. I like to imagine that people who have prayed a lot in a particular place all their lives like to hang out there after they die, while they continue to pray there.
“I have a friend in my meeting who grew up in multiple Russian orphanages. She first came to our meetinghouse to sit with the Buddhist group who meets there on Mondays. She looked around and essentially—in my words—said to herself, ‘Who are these people who worship in this place?’ She felt the vibes, so to speak, and looked us up on the Web. She’s been worshipping with us ever since.
“She spent last summer in Russia, doing some research. She looked up the Quaker meeting in Moscow, and felt those same vibes when she first walked through the door. The Moscow Friends rent their worship space, and nobody wants to rent space to Quakers in Russia, for fear of political repercussions. But in the early 90s, the Quakers helped an organization get started in order to teach life skills and provide education to those who “graduate” out of Russian orphanages. That is the organization that rents space to the Quakers in Moscow. And my friend felt the same vibes in that rental space that she did in our meetinghouse in Illinois. I ascribe those vibes to that cloud of witnesses.
“When my nephew Josh died very suddenly in 2009, his siblings knew Josh would want a Quaker memorial, even though my family is not Quaker. They asked to hold the memorial here in your meetinghouse. I’m not entirely clear what relation one of the attenders of the memorial is to me…something like, maybe, a step great-niece in-law… who told her aunt after the memorial that she wanted to be a Quaker: ‘The meetinghouse just spoke to me,’ she said. What spoke? I think she picked up the vibes of the cloud of witnesses who have loved God in this place.”
What Canst Thou Say? 