My Inward Jaw Dropped

My first encounter with Friends (Quakers) was as a high school student in the early 1960s. My Mom found out that the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) had weekend retreats on issues of international relations for high school students, and I was able to attend two of them. What I remember most from those retreats is that caring, intelligent adults had listened to my thoughts and ideas as if they really mattered. I had excellent teachers in school, whom I loved, but I always felt they were looking for the “right answer”. That might not have been true, but in any case, the Quaker experience was mind and soul expanding for me.

My second encounter with Quakers was when I hitchhiked down to North Carolina to hike in the mountains during my spring break. I found myself stuck on the turnpike at a rest stop in Delaware for some hours. A nondescript blue van with a woman and two children pulled in. As they were leaving, she offered me a ride. Her name was Mary Howarth and her husband Wilf was the groundskeeper at Pendle Hill. She was taking the boys to look at Quaker schools in N.C. I became part of the family, entertained the boys while she drove, camped a night with them and then was dropped off and headed for the mountains. A week later my mother got a letter from Mary saying that her son was a good person and doing well. Wow!

Graduation was approaching, the war in Vietnam was raging, and I was beginning to feel a draft. I had by then picked up a Bible and was exploring my religious roots. I knew that Quakers were pacifists and could get Conscientious Objector status. I contacted Mary and asked if I could come visit and talk about this, hoping they might write me a letter of reference. I spent a weekend there, having a wonderful time with a bunch of other college students who were on some kind of retreat there, and talking with Mary and Wilf. They finally and respectfully told me they couldn’t write a letter for me, not knowing me and my faith well enough to do that honestly. I was impressed with that.

On Sunday at Meeting for Worship, I sat there in my bare feet, German peasant embroidered smock, brass chain and long hair. I felt very smug in the presence of all these old brown-shoed squares, doing what I thought was meditation. After meeting came the cookies and chitchat: “Bill and Emily got arrested on the Pentagon steps yesterday. John and Susan have gone down to D.C. to bail them out and help in whatever way they can. We need someone to go to their house and take in the paper and the mail.” My inward jaw dropped to the floor. I was involved in the anti-war movement for ethical reasons, and because it might make me attractive to a pretty girl. I thought these people were doing it because it was in their souls, although I might not have used that word then. I felt a strong desire to find out how that worked, but had a train to catch.

In 1971, after Jane and I were married and having each abandoned the traditions in which we were raised, we were looking for a spiritual home. I said, “You know, if we really believe all the things we say we do, we should go to Quaker Meeting.” We went to Multnomah Meeting and have stayed to this day. I continue, as much as I am able, to try to be the kind of presence to young people that those Friends were to me.

Joe Snyder is a retired country veterinarian and a member of Multnomah Monthly Meeting in Portland, Oregon (NPYM).