Quakers learn to listen because we worship in silence for an hour, and if you don't learn to quiet your mind, you will not ever get anything out of that silence. And then you have people speak into the silence some of whom you think are crazy or wrong and if you let yourself get triggered by those feelings, you'll lose your settled center, so you learn to listen with compassion and love rather than with judgment. It's really a crucible.

Once in meeting, someone stood up after some silence and said "this says society of Friends and no one's saying anything, I don't feel it's friendly at all!" It's an interesting situation to put yourself in a vulnerable place and not know who's going to knock at the door of your heart when you're there.

From Baltimore Yearly Meeting's new QTube Channel