Quarterly Meeting

Representatives from neighboring Quaker congregations get together four times a year to check in on each other and events in their home meetings. The practice, called Quarterly Meeting, has its own clerks, treasurer, and other officers, as needed.

In the past, it was a big event. The smaller meetings, in fact, would not have their own worship that Sunday — everyone would be off to wherever the Quarter was gathering. I suspect much of it was a family reunion, one filled with a holiday spirit.

Nowadays is a different matter, especially as we struggle with finding a better fit between our Monthly Meetings (the local groups that worship each week but conduct business once a month) and our much larger Yearly Meetings — in our case, New England Yearly Meeting of Friends.

These photos are from a session of Dover Quarterly Meeting that took place in the newly renovated West Epping meetinghouse.

We came from across much of New Hampshire.

It’s a classic space. Gone, though, is the wood stove, now that propane heating has been installed.

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The memorial minute falls between an obituary and a eulogy

For that matter, the memorial service falls between a liturgical rite and an event with a eulogy or two. Quaker focus is on the spiritual growth of the individual and the resulting service to others. Our candor often leads to laughter as well as tears.

Hartford

Hartford Friends returned to the site of an early Quaker meetinghouse when they revived their congregation after World War II.

 

The worship room

Mary Dyer

Mary Dyer was executed by Puritan authorities who opposed her Quaker witness. She faces Boston Common, where she was hanged in 1660.

This 1959 statue by Sylvia Shaw Judson sits on the grounds of the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

Dyer chose to be faithful to Truth in the face of persecution. Religious tolerance was not her mission, although freedom of expression was.

East Sandwich

Classic shake siding, weathered gray, is a common Cape Cod theme.

 

The Great Meetinghouse in Sandwich, Massachusetts. is an imposing structure.

 

The horse sheds stretched much further than this in both directions from the meetinghouse.

 

The interior, viewed through a window.

 

South Starksboro

South Starksboro Friends meetinghouse sits in Vermont’s Green Mountains.

Hanover

From the street, the Hanover Friends meetinghouse reflects its origins as a private residence near the Dartmouth College campus.

Friends typically arrive and leave at the back of the house, which includes new additions.

Yarmouth

The Yarmouth Quaker meetinghouse on Cape Cod is distinctive in that the traditional women’s side, on the left, was much larger than the men’s side, on the right. The reason, we’re told, is that many of the men were often out to sea.

Ferrisburg

Ferrisburg was once a vital meeting in Vermont. Today it is marked only by its burial ground.

A few of the details.

Engraved headstones were not permitted until the mid-1850s.

Mattapoisett

The 1827 Quaker meetinghouse in Mattapoisset, Massachusetts, is one of a string of Friends congregations in communities along Buzzards Bay.

 

Settle in for worship.

 

The heating system’s been updated.