It is true that some people seem born with the facility to speak, but it is also true that the ability, like other abilities, is developed by practice. Most of those who speak well now, began with embarrassment, self-consciousness, and an imperfect command of words. Friends can be counted on to understand if at first your thoughts and feelings are not expressed as well as they might be. They will attend more to what you are trying to say than to how you say it. Here again the Book of Discipline gives wise counsel. "One who is timid or unaccustomed to speak should have faith that God will strengthen him to give his message."
When should we speak in the meeting for worship? Whenever we are moved to. We may be moved to speak near the beginning, midway, or towards the end. The important thing is not the time but the moving. However, as Rufus Jones once pointed out, it sometimes helps if, once we are really settled, something is said that lifts the spirit, that raises us above our worldly problems and gives impetus to our search for the indwelling divinity.
What should be spoken of in the meeting for worship? This question will be answered for us, inwardly, if we are in the spirit of the meeting, if the meeting is in God's spirit. We may speak of spiritual things. We may speak of daily affairs and events, if these are given a spiritual interpretation. We may speak of world problems, if these are seen in the light of religion. Anything that comes from the heart is proper and acceptable. We will not go wrong if we keep in mind the central purpose of the meeting for worship, and are striving to fulfill this purpose. Let your heart respond to the need of our meetings for a vital ministry. Open yourself and accept, should it come to you, the call to an inspired ministry.
Should messages come one after the other in rapid succession? No. There should be a due interval between them, a living silence in which the spirit works deep below the level of words. Messages should arise from the silence and return to it. Of course there are times when one message arises from another. Even so, there should be pauses between them during which the creative forces may operate in unexpected ways. Restraint of speech improves both the speech and the silence. Read what Thomas Kelly has to say of spoken words in his pamphlet, The Gathered Meeting.
But more frequently some words are spoken. I have in mind those meeting hours which are not dominated by a single sermon, a single twenty-minute address, well-rounded out, with all the edges tucked in so there is nothing more to say. In some of our meetings we may have too many polished examples of homiletic perfection which lead the rest to sit back and admire but which close the question considered, rather than open it. Participants are converted into spectators; active worship on the part of all drifts into passive reception of external instruction. To be sure, there are gathered meetings, which arise about a single towering mountain peak of a sermon. One kindled soul may be the agent whereby the slumbering embers within are quickened into a living flame.
But I have more particularly in mind those hours of worship in which no one person, no one speech stands out as the one that "made" the meeting, those hours wherein the personalities that take part verbally are not enhanced as individuals in the eyes of others, but are subdued and softened and lost sight of because in the language of Fox, "The Lord's power was over all." Brevity, earnestness, sincerity—and frequently a lack of polish—characterizes the best Quaker speaking. The words should rise like a shaggy crag upthrust from the surface of silence, under the pressure of river power and yearning, contrition and wonder. But on the other hand the words should not rise up like a shaggy crag. They should not break the silence, but continue it. For the Divine Life who was ministering through the medium of silence is the same Life as is now ministering through words. And when such words are truly spoken "in the Life," then when such words cease the uninterrupted silence and worship continue, for silence and words have been of one texture, one piece. Second and third speakers only continue the enhancement of the moving Presence, until a climax is reached, and the discerning head of the meeting knows when to break it.
What are we to do if some Friends are sometimes over-vocal about matters that are hardly the proper concern for a Meeting for Worship? How are we to regard those who do not always speak acceptably to us, or are overlong in their words, or who get up and repeat what we have heard them say again and again? Instead of viewing them as objects of criticism, separated from you, try to feel them as being together with you in a common life, and pray that the Creator of this life may make all expressions living expressions. Do not let your resentment build up, but increase your humility by recognizing that the faults that others display may well be your own.
How are we to manage the occasional rustlings and noises, within and without the meeting, that threatens to distract us and draw us away from worship? Here Douglas Steere has a helpful practice. Try to include these distractions in one's worship. Instead of attempting to exclude them, weave them into your efforts to practice the presence of God. Read what Douglas Steere has to say of this in A Quaker Meeting for Worship.
But again and again before I get through this far in prayer my mind has been drawn away by some distraction. Someone has come in late. Two adorable little girls who are sitting on opposite sides of their mother are almost overcome by delight in something which is much too subtle to be comprehended by the adult mind, the drafts in the coal stove need readjusting, how noisy the cars are out on the highway today, the wind howls around the corner and rattles the old pre-revolutionary glass in the window sashes. Do these rude interruptions destroy the silent prayer? Well, there was a time when they did, and there are times still when they interfere somewhat, but for the most part, I think they help. The late-comers stir me to a resolve to be more punctual myself—a fault I am all too well aware of—and I pass directly on to prayer, glad that they have come today. The little girls remind me of the undiscovered gaiety in every cell of life that these little "bon-vivants" know ever so well, and they remind me too that a meeting for worship must be made to reach these fierce-eyed nine- and ten-year-olds, and I pass on. I get up and open the draft in the coal stove. Sometimes I pray the distractions directly into the prayer—"swift, hurrying life of which these humming motors are the symbol—pass by at your will—I seek the still water that lies beneath these surface waves," or "the wind of God is always blowing but I must hoist my sail," and proceed with my prayer.
What are we to do when a meeting is unliving? Suffer it. Continue to do your part to contribute to the life. Continue to pray that God will quicken the meeting, shake it awake. Suppose you yourself are heavy with inertia and feel more dead than alive. The only way to overcome inertia is to become active. Since, in a meeting for worship, our bodies are still, the only positive action is inner-action. We have already considered several inward practices that facilitate inner-action. Engage in one or more of these with renewed determination. See your deadness as a challenge and resolve not to be overcome by it but to overcome it. Struggle against it. Persist in the act of turning your mind and heart Godwards. Kindle your expectancy. Wait before the Lord. Think of Him. Pray Him to send His life into you, and into the meeting, and into the people of the world. Should these inward practices prove of no avail, I sometimes fall back on this device. There is always in us some theme that the mind wants to think of, some fear, some desire, some problems, some situation, some prospect. Though the theme is not a fit one for a meeting for worship, I let my mind run on about it. Once the mind is well started on this topic, I switch it and transfer its momentum to one of the practices that prepare for worship.