David Shiner is the Outgoing Clerk of FWCC (Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas
My Week at Quaker House at Chautauqua
David Shiner, Friend of the Week– July 2023
I recently had the honor of representing Quakers at a place that should be of interest to Friends who don’t already know about it. The Chautauqua Institution is located in western New York, just east of the Pennsylvania border. Founded as an educational center a century and a half ago, Chautauqua now bills itself as “a community of artists, educators, thinkers, faith leaders, and friends dedicated to exploring the best in humanity.”
Chautauqua’s affiliation with Quakers is longstanding. It was home to the founding of Friends General Conference (FGC) back in 1900. There’s even a Quaker House on the Chautauqua campus. It’s the newest of the 15 denominational houses on the Chautauqua grounds, all of which teem with activity when Chautauqua is in session.
I was invited to serve as “Friend of the Week” at Quaker House for the fourth week of the nine-week 2023 Chautauqua summer season. While I looked forward with great anticipation to spending a week there, I was also a bit awed by the scope of my stated responsibilities. As Friend of the Week, I was expected to provide a spiritual presence at the Quaker House, as well as on the Chautauqua grounds more generally. My formal duties included being the featured speaker at two hourlong sessions, one on Tuesday and the other on Thursday, and representing Quakers at a Chaplain’s Lunch for representatives of every faith on Monday (as I was informed by email in advance, “In Chautauqua language, you are our ‘chaplain.’”) My other responsibilities were less tangible (“Friends of the Week help us live into the intersection of Chautauqua and Quakerism”), but I understood that my presence was regarded as integral to the Quaker House program and the Chautauqua community, and I hoped to be able to live up to that expectation.
I arrived on a Saturday. That’s a transitional day at Chautauqua, when most of the guests from the previous week depart and those who are visiting for the coming week arrive. Quaker House has a cozy and welcoming feel, and I quickly felt at home there. I was warmly greeted by Kriss Miller, who along with her husband Gary serves as Friend-in-Residence at Quaker House for the entire Chautauqua season. I was the first of the new week’s lodgers to arrive, so after our initial pleasantries I unpacked my belongings and set out for a walk around the grounds.
The Chautauqua campus is singularly attractive. Trees, flowers, and natural grasses are plentiful, and walking paths are numerous and pleasant. Some of the paths are in fact roads, but those who drive or bike through the grounds do so very slowly and carefully. The primarily Victorian buildings on the grounds are without exception appealing and functional, and various works of art are always on outdoor public display.
By the time of Meeting for Worship, which began at 9:30 AM on Sunday morning, most of the rest of the Quaker House residents had arrived. The service felt like a silent “get to know you” opportunity, and the worship was deep. After a brief period of introductions, I hurried off to the first public event of the new week, which was an interdenominational religious service. The sermon was offered by an Episcopal minister, Dr. Craig Barnes, who delivered a witty but powerful message emphasizing the “community” aspect of the faith community.
The bulk of the activities at Chautauqua take place from Monday through Friday. And what activities they were! Early morning: interdenominational worship services featuring sermons by Dr. Barnes, all of which I found to be inspirational. Late morning: lectures by individuals who are highly respected in their respective professions. Lunchtime: activities at each of the denominational houses, including Quaker House. Early afternoon: an interfaith lecture by a major figure in each speaker’s religious organization. Late afternoon: recitals by talented young musicians and open dialogues about the week’s theme. Evening: full-length world-class concerts – two by the excellent Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, another featuring the angelic harmonies of the celebrated acapella vocal group Chanticleer, and a “closer” on Friday night by rock star Melissa Etheridge.
And that’s only scratching the surface of what was available during the week. The term “embarrassment of riches” was never more aptly applied than to the events calendar at Chautauqua. In fact, the greatest challenge for any visitor is deciding on what to do at any given time, knowing you will inevitably miss an event that you would have dearly loved to attend. Your consolation, though, is that you can’t make a bad choice, because there aren’t any.
Each of the nine weeks of the Chautauqua season has its own theme. The theme for Week Four was “The State of Believing.” While not every speaker who graced the stage of the huge Amphitheatre during the week spoke directly to that theme, they all addressed related issues. On Monday Almar Latour, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, stressed the importance of a free press and of producing the type of journalism that is worthy of public trust. Tuesday’s speaker, Duke University professor Kate Bowler, talked about our country’s transition from religious traditionalism to radical individualism. On Wednesday morning, celebrated physicist Brian Greene explained the importance of a scientific worldview and the difficulties and rewards in trying to achieve it. Setti Warren, the first African American to have been popularly elected to a mayorship in Massachusetts, took the stage on Thursday to discuss what will need to happen for the American people’s faith in our political system to be restored. And on Friday, Monica Guzman of Braver Angels spoke movingly about the need for difficult conversations in order to reduce polarization in our society and the world.
I too was called to address the state of believing, but in a somewhat different way and to the much smaller audiences that gathered at Quaker House. My talk on Tuesday was billed as “My Work in the World,” that is, on what I do and how my Quaker faith has inspired it. It was evidently well received, because more than twice as many Chautaquans attended my subsequent talk, overcrowding the sizable multipurpose room at Quaker House. Most of the attendees were non-Quakers who were interested in what Friends believe and what we are doing in response to society’s ills. Their curiosity didn’t surprise me. Folks who come to Chautauqua are mostly older people who are intelligent, inquisitive, and spiritually inclined – in short, a lot like most Quakers nowadays.
Quaker House is not only a site for hosting guests and holding events. It’s also the venue for Friends’ public ministry at Chautauqua. Part of that ministry involves welcoming guests from Homeboy Industries, which is the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. The young men and women from Homeboy spend a week at Quaker House, enjoying Kriss’s and Gary’s genial and attentive hospitality while taking in all the amenities Chautauqua has to offer. In return, the Homeboys provide a great service to the Chautauqua community by bearing witness to the remarkable transformation that has taken place in their lives because of their involvement with Homeboy Industries. The relationship that has evolved between Homeboy and Quaker House has become a lovefest, a classic “win-win.”
To say that Chautauqua is worth a visit is to understate the case by several orders of magnitude. The Chautauqua experience is as enriching and fulfilling a one as can be found anywhere. Now that I’m in my 70s I find that I need to take a nap on most days, but during my week at Chautauqua I didn’t take a single nap and was never the worse for wear. There were always exciting things to do and see and thought-provoking conversations to be had, and the setting of Chautauqua in general and Quaker House in particular could not have been more perfect.
As the Chautauqua website states, “Whether it’s your first time visiting or your fiftieth, our promise is the same: Wisdom will be gleaned. Memories will be made. Life will be enriched. Positive change is your charge.” Indeed.
Thank you, Quaker House, and thank you, Chautauqua. May you continue to flourish until we meet again.