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Elaine Emmi is what she calls "a hard rock" Quaker.
In other words, she could worship God anywhere, even on a hard rock. But she knows that kids need a place to call their spiritual home.
That's why Emmi, co-clerk at the Salt Lake Society of Friends (Quakers), is so delighted that her group bought and refurbished the old First United Methodist Church of Murray. Their previous locations at an Avenues house and then the Ladies Literary Club in downtown Salt Lake City were fine as temporary abodes, she said, but members were tired of dragging their boxes of books and pamphlets in and out every week.
The building, at 171 E. 4800 South, is "good for our children," Emmi said Saturday during an open house at the church. "It will help us have a visible presence in Utah."
Though the Quaker congregation, known as a "meeting," has only about 42 members, more than a hundred people came to the open house to help celebrate the moment. Dozens of neighbors from the nearby LDS Church as well as several representatives of Utah's Interfaith Roundtable, including the Rev. France Davis of Calvary Baptist Church, were on hand for the festivities.
The tiny church, built by the Methodists in 1914, has stained glass windows adorned with ribbons and bows. Only one window has a Christian cross on it, but it can be quickly covered by a
pull-down shade when a group of Reconstructionist Jews, who share the building, is there.
Though the Religious Society of Friends was launched by George Fox in the 17th century as a Christian sect, not all Quakers today believe in Jesus or see the Bible as the final word of God.
Fox opposed the idea of religious hierarchy, seeing a divine light in every human being. That means the Society has no set doctrines or required rituals.
Sunday worship is mostly about silence. Friends sit in a circle for at least 20 minutes until someone feels moved to speak. There are always long silences between messages.
"We really concentrate on the five 'testimonies' or principles for living: simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality," Emmi said.
And each meeting decides where it stands on issues like same-sex marriage.
More than a decade ago, the Salt Lake meeting had to decide whether to conduct a same-sex marriage. After two years of discussion, the "clearness" committee responsible for building consensus on all such questions decided in favor.
"It came down to equality," Emmi said Saturday. "How could we stand for equality and make a distinction between marriages?"
The Salt Lake meeting's decision was then circulated to other Quaker units in the region and was eventually adopted throughout the Mountain West region.
"We started the conversation," she said.
Next week, Emmi and 18-year-old Oakley Gordon will travel to Washington, D.C., as Utah's representatives to the Society of Friends' lobbying group. It is the oldest religious lobbyist in the country, with special concerns about peace and violence.
Gordon has been a Quaker just 18 months, but it has already changed the course of his life.
The Friends' ideals matched his own escalating concerns about global violence, and even helped push him into a political science major at the University of Utah.
"I like the people here," Gordon said, adding, "and the snacks after meetings."
The Quaker way seems to attract people of many religious and nonreligious backgrounds.
"I like the diversity," Emmi said. "When I look around the group, we are all very different."
But disagreeing doesn't have to be divisive, added Russ Fish, a longtime member. "We share the same ideals."
Even mixed-faith couples such as Dick and Connie Loomis feel welcome. He is the meeting's treasurer, she is an active Mormon.
"This presents no conflicts to our marriage," they both agreed.
The Society of Friends is like a family, said Emmi's co-chair, Heidi Hart.
"We occasionally have tensions we have to work out, but we are surrounded by love in the process."
Now that family finally has a home of its own.