ONE of the joys in my life is the privilege of living in Mevagissey. The village has been busy lately with the Shanty Festival, a weekend with much song and certainly a pint or two.

The festival ushered in the bustle of the autumn half-term. There is a buzz about the place, quite noisy, but overriding it all is a sense of fun as visitors try to relax.

After the summer season, at this point, my heart starts to yearn for the solitary windswept walks around the harbour throughout the winter months where the rhythm of life subsides to a steady level beat. I found myself wondering what it was I was looking forward to exactly.

As a Quaker, I attend a Sunday meeting where there is no programmed worship, no priest, no vicar, no specific leadership. We meet in equality and sit in silence.

At times, someone might feel led to share a few words but for the most part we worship together in stillness. It is not meditation as such, though some of us certainly do meditate. For me, it is a chance to let the hustle and bustle of life fall away. In that space I find I can encounter the divine. It is as if the silence creates a space in which an alternative to the worldly can be experienced.

This is something simple and restorative that can be shared in whether faithfully religious or not.

The meeting each Sunday is a contrast to our bustling village, but it can also be a pool of stillness for those with hectic family and work lives in our furiously-busy world.

Can you make the time to sit, be still and let life’s trials and tribulations fall away? Make time to hear the still small voice within?

Les Hereward

A Quaker