I had read about the Quakers years ago, but I only knew that they pray in silence and that they have nothing to do with oatmeal. This August, for no particular reason, I started watching a Quaker youtuber and I learned that they are open to queer people and to atheists, in fact they believe there is divinity in everyone. This got me really interested, so I looked and found a quaker group in my city and put their next meeting on my calendar.

For context, I'm Jewish. I grew up in a secular home and attended a Zionist Modern Orthodox school in a majority Catholic country. I considered myself an Atheist since very early on and took pride in debating the religious kids on biblical contradictions. As a queer kid, I didn't really have any incentives to believe in a religion that dismissed me as a sinner, but I do feel very Jewish culturally. Jewish history is indeed one of my special interests.

It has been painful to witness Israel's war crimes during the last three years, carried out in the name of my ancestors by (figuratively) my cousins. It has led me to learn more about the previous eighty and to realize how biased my education was. I have lost friends over this, "it's more complicated", "you don't live (t)here, how can you have an opinion", "you know what they do to people like you in Gaza", you name it. I simply couldn't keep holding the cognitive dissonance.

The meeting was at an old house that felt somehow familiar. I felt welcome without having the spotlight on me. I did not go with an expectation to give vocal ministry but after someone gave "there is that of God in everyone, even if some might disagree", the words "including those who disagree" came out of my mouth. After that meeting, even a few days later, I felt a sense of calm in silence that I had never felt before, but I'm still processing that ministry and I'm unsure about how to act on it. Hurt people hurt people, but where does it end?