When I first came to Fairfield, I had a bad case of the big head. I’d had several books published, still had hair, was married to a striking, intelligent woman, and was under the impression I was God’s gift to Quakerism. I rolled into here thinking how lucky you all were to have me as your pastor. So you can imagine my dismay when I attended my first monthly meeting for business, certain of my fellow Friends would be waiting with baited breath to hear my thoughts on every matter, only to learn you felt perfectly free to do something entirely different than what I had suggested.
At first, I was mystified and thought perhaps I hadn’t been heard, so went to the next monthly meeting and shared my ideas more passionately, more loudly, but Friends still seemed resistant to my suggestions, which baffled me since I was sure my ideas came straight from God through me to the meeting, who I thought would receive them with gladness and thanksgiving. Alas, that was not the case. The third monthly meeting was no better and the fourth monthly meeting I overheard someone sigh when I proposed an idea. I had excellent hearing back in those days, and it was definitely a sigh, a long, exasperated sigh. I had spent my life hearing those sighs, so knew them when I heard them.
Discouraged, I asked Sarah Lookabill why no one was listening to my suggestions. I was the pastor, after all. Sarah kindly reminded me that in a Quaker meeting, power was not vested in positions, but in people, and that while it was true I was the pastor, I hadn’t been at Fairfield long enough to establish a record of discernment. Sarah used the term “weighty Friend,” by which she meant those Friends believed to have a deep and rich interior life whose insight into events is highly valued and therefore “weightier.” It was a nice way of saying they didn’t know me from Adam, and I wasn’t going to be given power just because I was the pastor, which is consistent with our historic Quaker practice of investing people, not positions, with power.
We’ve been talking about things Quakers got just right, and this is one of them, that in Quakerism we do not have a ruling class. We do not have a chain of command where authority is exercised by those in its ranks. Early Friends noticed, as I am sure you have noticed, that just because someone has power, does not also mean they are wise.
If position does not make someone a weighty Friend, what does? Longevity in a meeting? No more than being in a long marriage means your relationship is healthy and loving. Longevity can lead to growth and wisdom, but it can also lead to stagnation and lethargy, neither of which are conducive to a rich interior life. I have known Friends of one year who are weightier than lifelong Friends.
Does belonging to a certain family make someone a weighty Friend? Is there a Quaker aristocracy, a landed gentry within Quakerism, a family whose members carry more weight than others, whose genealogy confers power and privilege. We reject that notion. To be sure, I have noticed a tendency among certain Friends to think their family’s long association with Quakerism grants them a certain weightiness or status, but I don’t know a single thoughtful Friend who believes weightiness is genetic. It is only the people in that particular family who believe their surname carries weight and prestige.
Does the ability to quote the Bible at length make someone a weighty Friend? I have met Friends who believe that to be the case, but I’ve not noticed a correlation. Far more often, I have noticed that an intense obsession with the Bible leads not to wisdom and weightiness, but to arrogance and legalism. Quoting the Bible is no indication of someone’s interior life.
In some churches, especially those where the prosperity gospel has captured the hearts and minds of so many Americans, wealth is an indication of spiritual wisdom, but not so among Friends. There has never been a correlation between wealth and weightiness, except to observe that the obsessive pursuit of wealth usually hinders our spiritual well-being. The world may hang on every word from Elon Musk, but a Quaker meeting wouldn’t.
The weighty Friends I’ve known didn’t set out to be that way. It wasn’t their goal in life to be well-regarded by their fellow Friends. What they have done, day in and day out, is cultivate the habits of weightiness. They have taught themselves to listen, to think before speaking, to educate themselves about important matters, to resist impulsivity and embrace thoughtfulness. I’ve known Quakers who wanted to be thought weighty so took on the appearance of wisdom, but they are usually a caricature of weightiness and seldom the real thing. I know a man who took up pipe-smoking, making clever remarks in between puffs of smoke, but that didn’t make him weighty. Furthermore, if someone tells you they are a weighty Friend, they aren’t. Weightiness can’t be claimed, only affirmed. In Quakerism, you can make great and grandiose claims about your gifts and abilities, but unless and until your fellow Friends observe and affirm those gifts, your observations will carry no more weight than anyone else’s, and usually less.
I’ll close by correcting a misconception often heard in Quaker meetings. We are not a democracy in which every voice carries equal weight. While everyone is free to speak, while everyone is valued, those Friends with a reputation for weightiness are especially heeded. When they speak, people listen. We do not listen because they are rich. We do not listen because they are a pastor. We do not listen because they’ve been around forever. We listen because they are thoughtful and loving, which to us is the clearest sign of God’s guiding spirit.