Wherever my spiritual wanderings take me, I almost always end up at a Quaker Meeting House (this one, above, in Easton, N.Y.).  When I was deeply troubled as a teenager, I went to the Providence, R.I., Meeting House, and was taken in and given a safe haven. I joined the Society of Friends when I was living in N.J., and attended Meeting for a number of years. I have, in recent years, explored Christianity, Buddhism, looking for a place to land.

Recently, I have gone back to Quaker Meeting. It is the place in the world I have always been the most comfortable, and progress deeply into a beautiful silence and sense of peace and inner light. It seems to me that the Quakers, though their numbers continue to shrink as they do not evangelize or embrace technology, have the perfect philosophy for our times – peace, simplicity, good will, compassion. I went back to Meeting this morning and thought deeply about forgiveness. I see that to forgive others, you first have to forgive yourself.

I felt at home in the Meeting House. I am eager to return. I always seem to come back there.