Our Stories: Madelyn

Looking back over my spiritual journey so far, it looks like quite a kaleidoscope.

My first faith school was a Carmelite Convent, run by Italian nuns, in Tripoli Lebanon. My parents were living in the Iraqi desert, with my engineer father working for Iraq Petroleum, so I had to board at the age of 8. There I learnt to write beautifully, to embroider well, and to start learning French - sadly I also came away with a gigantic guilt burden which stayed with me for many years.

The second faith school was a CMS school in Surrey, where I was blissfully happy. Anglican missionaries were our heroes and heroines, and we were taught that it was our duty to serve. We had an excellent music education, and many happy hours were spent in the lovely Victorian chapel, with its high vaulted ceiling echoing to our anthems. A favourite time was Compline, on winter evenings, with just one hymn, a homily and quiet time.

Summer holidays were spent in Nigeria, where my father was now working. Our friends there were, almost without exception, Methodist medical missionaries who worked in the leper colonies - villages out in the bush, where leprosy sufferers who were exiled from their own villages were treated with the most up-to-date medicines available at that time. Our friends had no possessions, and lived their faith in simplicity. The highlight of the week was the church service in the adobe-type church building. This was a time of joy, with loud praise-singing, sometimes accompanied by rattles and drums.

On the Sundays when we did not go the colony, we would go to the local church which we all shared - one week Anglican, one week Roman Catholic, one week Methodist, one week Presbyterian and so on…so I had plenty of variety there.

Time nursing at St.Thomas’ Hospital was if anything back to Anglicanism, but my days were so full of work, with split duties the norm, that I cannot remember much about that time from a spiritual point of view, except for carol singing around the wards wearing our dark blue cloaks lined with pillar-box red, and our goffered high lace caps. I did attend Holy Trinity, Brompton for Bible classes.

After marrying at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton (where the ALPHA courses originated), and while we had our three boys, we attended the local Anglican church in Surrey, where they were all baptised.

This continued after our move to Kent. But it was a this point that I became unsettled with my adherence to the Anglican church. It began to seem as if the wranglings going on in the Church were not conducted in a loving way. Everything in our services seemed too repetitive and formulaic. Sermons did not inspire. There was too much busyness and not enough thinking and quiet. I did not feel in communion with my neighbours at the altar rail.

I started to look for another place to continue my journey, and discovered the Quaker Meeting at Sevenoaks. So many people say they just felt ‘at home’ in Quaker meeting, that it sounds like a truism. But there you are…I did feel instantly that I should have been there all my life.

That was over 18 years ago, and the perfect story would assume that I joined Quakers then, and here I am now.

In fact it took another good many years to extricate myself from my Anglican background, attending MfW at Sevenoaks, then Tunbridge Wells as well as local church services. Slowly but surely the deep corporate peace achieved in many Quaker meetings took hold of me, and I would have gone on attending MfW as an attender for ever…until I developed cancer.

That does make you sit up and take audit. In my case one of the questions I asked myself was “ Why am I not a fully committed member ? ” This led to me asking for guidance, and an Elder took me in hand, until I felt able to ask to be admitted as a full member.

That was just four years ago, and I am grateful to be surrounded by friends and Friends. Each offering mutual support at a time when our meeting is in a period of quiet.

I look forward to the time when we can live adventurously again, and share with others from our surrounding communities the wonderful gift of corporate silent worship, allied to loving care for one another.