Meeting for Worship
It is as simple as flying a jet; you take off, you go somewhere, you land; you quiet yourself, you encounter God, you refresh and perhaps redirect your life. The complexities are familiar ones to many spiritual traditions: arriving at a stillness of body and mind, discernment, and the dimensions of community life [in the presence of the Divine.]

- Michael Birkel

Meeting for worship is the heart of Quaker spirituality. Everything else in the spiritual life flows into meeting for worship, and all of Quaker spirituality flows out of it...

Quaker meeting is as simple as it is complex. The community gathers together in a waiting, expectant frame of spirit. Worship is in silence until a participant feels led to share a message with those present. The meeting concludes when the person with responsibility for closing worship discerns that the time has drawn to an end. In many parts of the Quaker world, worshippers then shake hands with those around them.

- Michael J. Birkel, Silence and Witness: The Quaker Tradition

Students at Alexandria Friends School gather for meeting for worship twice a week (between second and third period) for twenty minutes. A ten-minute break follows. Though some students find meeting a bit strange at first, many ultimately find themselves looking forward to the time to sit quietly and gather themselves. As a distinct feature of Quaker schools, it is thought that these relatively brief periods of contemplation do much to foster the collective, communal spirit of the school, and the inner life of all its members.

As we strive to nurture the Inner Light in our students and in ourselves, it is our hope that Meeting for Worship will help us get in touch with that of God which, we believe, lies within us all.