What Do Quakers Wear?

Download the transcript and discussion questions.

Discussion Questions

1. Isabel Penraeth found that many Quakers questioned her leading to dress plain. She says, “They had explanations for why what happened for the old Quakers doesn’t happen anymore.” How might you have responded to Isabel and why?
2. “It’s very easy for all the stuff and all the material, worldly goods, to weigh you down,” says Tucker Manchanda. Whether or not you’re called to plain dress, what can you do to practice the Quaker value of simplicity in your home and life this week?

Mark Wutka

Want to do is, is live in a way in which God is speaking to us and through us and we are following where God is leading us. And I think plain speech and plain dress are supposed to be a reflection of that. They’re not things of their own. They’re not supposed to be rituals, they’re supposed to be a reflection of us wanting a pure relationship with God.

Various

Thee Quaker Podcast. Story, spirit, sound.

Georgia Sparling

I’m Georgia Sparling.

Jon Watts

I’m Jon Watts.

Georgia

And today we’re starting a theme that we’re going to carry throughout this season where we answering some of the most common questions asked about Quakers. 

Jon

Yeah that’s right. We went to Google to see what the world is asking about Quakers and one of the most popular questions is what do Quakers wear?

Georgia

Yeah, there is a big misconception that Quakers are equivalent to the Amish and that they dress like the Amish.

Jon

And I mean, there are similarities between traditional Quaker plain dress and Amish garb, but today, Quakers dress in a lot of different ways.

Georgia

Right, not many people still wear long dresses and bonnets or beards and broad-brimmed hats, but plain dress takes other forms and we’re going to hear about both today.

So what do Quakers wear? Let’s start with the early days…

I called up Max Carter, retired college professor, friend of the show, returning guest, and general expert on all things Quaker. I asked him to give me the low down on the history of plain dress.

Max Carter

As in anything Quaker, as I think you’ve probably gathered, ask five Quakers, you’ll get six different opinions on all of that.

Georgia: As you can see, we were off to a great start.

[Music]

So, Quakers began dressing plain pretty early in their history, which dates back to the 1650s. They wanted to eschew the fancy dress of mainstream society, and they took their queues largely from a couple of passages in the Bible.

Max

One is Romans 12: “Be not conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” And the Sermon on the Mount: “Don’t be anxious about what you wear, what you eat.” And as Quakers sought to live a life consistent with the teachings and example of Jesus, they settled on certain passages like that. But there was also a socioeconomic element to it. They looked around high society in England and saw all the vanity and worldliness. And as William Penn said in that first generation of Quakers, “the mere trimmings of the vain world would clothe the naked.” 

Georgia

They wore simple outfits with drab colors, though even then, not everyone was keen on plain dress.

Max

By the end of the 1600s, we have that famous expression by Margaret Fell, the mother of Quakerism, “Look at how God closed the fields of flowers in multicolored garments. And here we are dressing in plain drab. This is a silly, poor gospel.”

Georgia

Despite Margaret Fell’s protests, plain dress became uniform by the 1700s…and it also became more specific.

Max

Eventually that settled into even limitations on whether you had collars, lapels, other trimmings, cuffs, buttons?

Georgia

Buttons were vanity?

Max

Buttons were vanity! 

Georgia

All of this took on a legalistic tone.

Max

You look in the disciplines, the minutes of Friends’ meetings, and there were those Quakers who went out on committee assignments to labor with a friend who had fallen away from plainness.  

Georgia

There were quote unquote gay Quakers — those who chose not to dress plainly. 

Dress might deviate based on a person’s economic status or personal conviction. Transitioning to plain dress could also be a sign of greater devotion to Quaker life.

By the time of the American Civil War, some Quakers had begun to consider not only what their clothes looked like but where they came from and who was making them.

Max

If you dyed your clothing were those dyes made by slave labor, that was excess. And so you had John Woolman or Joseph Ruehl who wore all white, undyed wool and cotton. But it really started disappearing after the Civil War with the influx of the revival movement. 

Georgia

A number of spiritual revivals swept throughout American during the 19th century, which sparked religious fervor, new religious movements and new ways of thinking about faith.

Max

And when the revivals came in the 1870s, 80s, the plainness of Friends was seen as an outward form. You’re trying to earn your way into heaven by how you dress and what you wear. And so there was a theological component to the opposition.

And then, you had the influx of converts in these Quaker revivals who came in from the outside, who hadn’t grown up with this Quaker culture.

You know, that was the, you know, the fox got into the chicken house. So there are a variety of reasons, you know, for its disappearance. And so late 1800s, early 1900s, you see this mix of the old geezers in Quaker meeting are dressing plain, the young whippersnappers aren’t. And then it gradually faded out.

[Music]

Georgia

Plain dress may have become scarce in many communities, but it has never disappeared.

Max

I didn’t adopt the extent of plain dress that some friends have, which was essentially Amish. To me, it was collarless shirts and broad brimmed hats and plain speech. 

Georgia

Max also has a long beard and although he does not have the physique, he has been mistaken for Santa Claus on at least one occasion. And really that’s sort of part of plain dressing. A lot of people have questions. Of course, that’s why we’re doing this episode today.

[Music]

Up next, we’re going to hear how some modern-day Quakers have followed very strong leadings to dress plain, from wearing bonnets to thrifting underwear, just kidding, I haven’t talked with anyone who does that, but I did talk with people who have befuddled their friends, family, and their Quaker community by their decision to dress plain. And we’ll find out why they decided to do it anyway.

Lloyd Lee Wilson

I’m Lloyd Lee Wilson. 

Georgia

Lloyd Lee has had throat surgery which affected his vocal cords, so you’ll hear that in his voice. He currently lives in North Carolina, but back in 1969 he was a student at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That’s when he attended his first Quaker meeting.

LLoyd Lee

Once I got inside the meeting house, I was told by the voice of someone I did not believe in that this strange place full of people behaving oddly was my new spiritual home. And that voice was right.

Georgia

And that wasn’t the only thing the voice told him.

So what prompted you to wear plain dress?

Lloyd Lee

Well, I didn’t want to. I had my first real job after leaving college. For the first time I had money to buy clothes. And I enjoyed it.

Georgia

Lloyd Lee relished wearing a suit and tie every day, but while spending some time journaling, he got a message. 

Lloyd Lee

And it was given to me that I had a bad attitude about clothing. That it was being a place where I was letting pride and vanity into my life in ways that were not healthy. God told me don’t do that. And it started out very simply, it was don’t wear a tie. And then it was give away your suits and your sports jackets. And eventually it came to be give up the collars on your shirts. 

Georgia

Isabel Penraeth also felt a strong leading, or a pressure, as she describes it, to dress plain. But, for her, plain dress preceded her Quaker involvement.

Isabel

In around 2001, I had a series of religious experiences that led me to Quakerism and plain dress. I had gotten a book on Amish Plain Dress.

Georgia

Isabel had done a lot of work in theater design and she tried to convince herself that her draw to this book was strictly related to the stage.

Isabel

And I’m just, you know, feeling this pressure that there’s something I’m supposed to be doing. There’s someplace I’m supposed to be on Sunday. I went to like 16 different churches, and then, I don’t know, one day I opened that book to a page that was talking about Quaker plain dress, and I was like, I’m supposed to be a plain Quaker. Okay.

Georgia

She’d grown up in Iowa, was raised Methodist, and was a computer programmer at the time.

Isabel

And it seemed really presumptuous to just say, I’m a plain, I’m a Quaker now, right, without even meeting one as far as I knew. So I started educating myself. I went all in. 

Georgia

For Isabel, that meant a bonnet, a long simple dress like those worn by many Mennonite and Amish women and an apron.

Isabel

My spouse at the time was perplexed. He doesn’t have those kinds of experiences. If you don’t get that feeling, if you don’t have that pressure. It just sounds like I’m making it up and that it could be anything. I literally have had people say to my face that that’s not a very, you know, convincing story.

Georgia

And some of those people were Quaker. But while Isabel did eventually find a spiritual home at the Ohio Yearly Meeting, amongst other Quakers, she says her leading was often met with skepticism.

Isabel

I’d read all this Quaker stuff and what was weird to me about the old Quaker stuff, they described my spiritual experience exactly, But then when I tried to talk to other Quakers about it, they hadn’t had those experiences, and they had explanations for why what happened for the old Quakers doesn’t happen anymore.

Some of the Quakers had the story that the original Quakers were basically mentally ill and that their form of Quakerism was a sort of response to mentally stressful times.

Georgia

But plain dressing had actually helped Isabel’s mental health. She was recently diagnosed with ADHD, something she now realizes has affected her life for many years. Back in the early aughts, though, all she knew was that wearing a bonnet and traditional Quaker dress made her, in her own words, less rigid and more relaxed.

[Music] 

Isabel

In retrospect, I can see that what plain dress did for me was tamp down a lot of the problems that ADHD caused me emotionally. So having ADHD is really stressful because you’re constantly doing things to manage it and I can’t explain why plain dress solved that at all. 

I don’t have a lot of insight into what it was about plain dress that suddenly made everything okay. It created a boundary that I could rely on and use to restrict experiences I couldn’t handle. I think that’s the best way to describe it. 

Georgia

For a time, Isabel became something of a guide for others who were interested in plain dress. Although she no longer updates it, you can still go to QuakerJane.com and find her research and thoughts on dressing plain, from how to respond to husbands who don’t understand, to her perspective on head coverings, to how she dressed her then-toddler, even down to the composition of the fabric.

These days, Isabel is no longer a plain dress Quaker. A change in careers signaled a move away from bonnets and floor length dresses, but she misses it, and she still checks in with God to ask if she should go back to plain dress.

Isabel

I test. I’m like, hi God, how are we doing on that? I still have it in boxes somewhere. I have a secret hope that I get to go back to it. But I also, you know, you can’t fake it. You got to. It’s got to be what’s right and I don’t wear plain dress, but I have like two outfits that I wear and I do keep it pretty simple.

Georgia

For several Quakers I’ve spoken with, plain dress looks more like Isabel’s current wardrobe than her former one. But for Quakers outside of the northern hemisphere, it’s can be a different story.

Karla Jay

I think that the concept in other countries is almost non-existent. 

Georgia

That’s Karla Jay. Originally from Guatemala, she grew up in the States, attending a Latino meeting. She says that she and her community were aware of the history of Quakers and plain dress, but it wasn’t something that they practiced. She now works for Friends United Meeting as Global Ministries Coordinator, and she says there aren’t many plain dressing Quakers in the communities that she works with.

Karla

In other countries, resources are just so hard to acquire that I don’t think that makes it into one of the things that they consider when they purchase clothes. The conversation really is more for Europe and the United States than for someone in Kenya who, you know, they probably won’t have a lot of clothes as we do here in the United States. 

Georgia

Karla does practice a form of plain dress. 

Karla

What I consider to be now the new plain dress is how we dress when it comes to being concerned about the environment. Like I would do like secondhand shopping and I will try my best that the clothing I get it’s in a more sustainable way for the environment.

Georgia

And when did you first start doing that and why?

Karla

One of the things that I do believe is that God put the human on earth to be able to take care of it. The way we dress is one of the ways that we can take care of the earth.

Georgia

In some ways, Tucker Manchanda’s plain dress is a hybrid of Karla and Isabel. Tucker, who attends Newtown Friends Meeting in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, opts for simple outfits, often purchased secondhand, similar to Karla and like Isabel, she felt the pull toward plain dress before she was a card-carrying Quaker.

Tucker Manchanda

Even as I first started discovering direct revelation and my relationship with God and all, I was always led towards plainness. But that was so different from any other religion I knew. And that was part of what I was looking for as I was religion shopping, trying to figure out what it was, who had also heard from the same God that I had heard from. 

Georgia

Tucker grew up in a strictly atheist home but even in elementary school, she knew that she was not an atheist. In college, she began to attend worship at Newton Friends Meeting in Camden, New Jersey and she realized that she was a Quaker. She kept her leading about plain dress quiet.

Tucker

I didn’t really act on it until I ended up during the pandemic worshiping virtually with Ohio Yearly Meeting, where there were a lot of plain dressing Quakers. I saw them and I was like, wow, this is this is what I was supposed to be. Like, there are other people who have also heard this message. I’m not crazy. 

Georgia 

Among other plain Quakers, Tucker felt the permission to fully embrace plain dress, which for her has extended to the things she brings into her home.

So what does it look like when you are educating yourself about kind of where your clothing comes from or before you make a purchase? How do you go about that?

Tucker

Oh, it’s a pain. My husband hates it. He’s very patient with me. So I think, you know, the biggest thing on the first, like on the outset is just like, shopping is not a hobby for me, you know, I don’t, I will go to the mall to look at what’s for sale the same way you go to an art gallery or a museum. 

Georgia

When she does need something, Tucker aims to borrow or thrift instead of buying new.

Tucker

I still want to be mindful of the simplicity message, not just the environmental message of plain living. Because you know, the environmental message is, well, it’s thrifted, it’s not any extra waste, it’s gonna, you know, destined for landfill anyway, why not bring it into my life? And I feel like as a Quaker that’s too much distraction. You know, it’s very easy for all the stuff and all the material, worldly goods, to weigh you down.

So every time something comes through the front door, I’ve kind of got in the back of my mind of like, I have to maintain this. And that is a piece of me and a piece of my mind that is not focused, you know, that is not focused on, I don’t know, helping others, following God, doing something more worthwhile with my life than, you know, laundering the tenth pair of pants that I bring in.

Tucker doesn’t thrift everything.

Tucker

I really don’t want to thrift undergarments. I don’t want to thrift baby diapers. 

Georgia

Instead, she’ll do her research and find ethically made clothes.

Tucker

And that’s starting to look at, you know, the whole John Woolman idea of, you know, the seeds of war. You know, where are these seeds of suffering, of misery, of all the terrible, you know, sweatshops and things like that? And how can I source my things away from that?

Georgia

As it turns out, plain dress in North America in the 21st century is not so simple. Responsibly made clothing is often pricey. Thrift stores may not have the item that you need in your size. And then there is the court of public opinion. 

Lloyd Lee, who has dressed plain for more than 50 years has found that the attention he gets actually helps his spiritual walk.

Lloyd Lee

Because I dress plainly, I have a constant reminder of who I am and who I want to be, and it also keeps me from unconventionally conforming to the demands of society that are inappropriate, unneeded, or unjust. 

Georgia

I’ll let Tucker have the last word on why she chooses to continue in this leading. She begins with a quote from the Magdelena Perks’s blog:

[MUSIC]

Tucker

“…if thee is called to plain, thee must follow or face lifelong misery. The Lord does not just go away quietly once the call is given.” 

You know, I don’t fully understand why this is the message I’ve been given or why this has been part of my religious experience, but I also kind of feel like it’s not for me to understand. And so I guess anybody else who is feeling that leading, just like any other leading that you get, answer it.

[Music]

Georgia

We’re going to take a break and then we’ll hear from a few more Quakers, including a non-plain dressing Quaker and her plain dressing man. Stay tuned.

Jon  

Hello. Hi. Is that Jeff?

Jeff Hirst  

Yes, this is Jeff. 

Jon  

Hey Jeff, It’s Jon Watts, how are you?

Jeff  

Fine. How are you?

Jon  

I’m doing well. Thanks for making a little time to talk with me today. I wonder if we could just start with a with a brief introduction. 

Jeff  

Well, I live. My husband and I live in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. I guess I would say that I came into an interest in Quakerism. Through a singer songwriter. I don’t know if you’re familiar with her, but her name is Carrie Newcomer. 

Jon

Yeah, not only have I heard of her, we have an episode with her coming up. 

Jeff  

You are kidding me! Oh, my gosh. So I discovered her music first. And then I found out that she does a podcast with Parker Palmer. And I started listening to that. I listen to that every month. In the past 20, 15-20 years, I have considered myself an agnostic. But as sort of a searcher. I’ve been searching recently, and Quakerism, the values of Quakerism have attracted me. And especially as they’ve been espoused by Carrie and Parker. I just I guess, as I get older, I just want to explore my spiritual side, and the values of Quakerism that I’ve read about, you know, supporting peace and equality. And they, they’re, they’re very much aligned with my own values.

Jon  

Yeah. You wrote in your email that you had recently attended a Quaker meeting for worship on Zoom. What was that experience like for you?

Jeff  

Oh, I sat there and I watched the entire hour and I really enjoyed even the the silent worship. I that intrigues me that actually attracts me. The Presbyterian church that I grew up in was absolutely not a silent worship, silent form of worship. So this was seeing this on Zoom was quite quite an experience for me. I just I liked the concept of the light within everyone. That’s something that I’ve read about. I’m still not a very religious person. But as I said, I’m exploring my spiritual side. And although I don’t really want to pursue any denomination that worships one God, I do like the concept of people being linked to each other, their hearts and souls being linked to each other. In worship and in life in general I just I find that interesting and attractive. Oh, and I should mention that I’ve listened to every single one of your episodes.

Jon  

Oh, Oh, wonderful. I’m so so glad to hear that. Any, any favorite moments in the podcast that stood out? 

Jeff  

Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. The episode with O, I would love to know her. But she’s the kind of person that’s another reason why I’m attracted to Quakerism. And why I do hope to attend a meeting at some point. I want to meet people like that. I have very few people like that in my in my life right now. But yeah, I want to meet really good people with good open hearts and people who welcomed me as a gay person. And I just people that I’ve encountered online, and through your interviews that you’ve conducted, they just sound like the kind of people that I would love to get to know.

Jon Watts  

If you’re like Jeff, or you know, someone like him who is hungry for more connection, stories of spiritual courage, and people like O, we are making this podcast for you. And we’d like to ask for your support. This show is funded by listeners like you. We have a goal of 98 monthly supporters by the end of June. And we currently have 57. So if you want to do us a big favor, please visit QuakerPodcast.com, hit the button that says support and sign up for as little as $5 a month that would go along One way to help us keep this show running and reaching listeners like Jeff, that’s QuakerPodcast.com and click on Support.

Georgia

Welcome back.

Our journey, so far, has taken us from the history of Quaker plain dress to how some Friends practice it today. Now I’m back with Jon and he’s going to tell us about this next segment.

Jon

Yeah, so back in 2012, I was a full-time singer songwriter, writing songs and albums about my spiritual journey with Quakerism. I had written an album about this phenomenon of Early Quakers who felt led to strip off all their clothes and run through the streets of 17th century England naked. It’s a long story, but basically they said, “if it happened in the Bible, it can happen today.”

Georgia

Yeah so can we hear a little of the album.

Jon

Yeah sure! Here’s a short snippet of the title track which is called “Clothe Yourself in Righteousness”

[Music]

And when I wear plainclothes,

my intentions are simple.

My soul is on my sleeve

for you to see.

And if I have to march through the streets

like Solomon Eccles,

you’ll know that God decided

to make a sign out of me.

And that’s my public witness.

That’s my citizen’s oath.

That’s my challenge to you,

to get naked and grow.

Georgia

Love it.

Jon

Yeah that project was a whole journey, leading me and others in my community to explore spiritual issues relating to nakedness, vulnerability, and clothing. These early Friends described this sense of freedom in stripping away their worldly garments and identities and conceptions — and then clothing themselves in something more powerful, more pure, and full of love.

So, I asked myself, what does that mean for what we wear and what clothing we buy? How do other Quakers wrestle with these questions? I put it to the internet, and a bunch of Quakers wrote back about their own personal relationship with clothing, and how their Quaker faith impacts that. I compiled these short essays and published them on the album website.

Georgia

And were these all plain dressing Quakers?

Jon

No, actually it was a pretty diverse group, there were a lot of different approaches to this question and it was an interesting project. And although the website no longer exists, thanks to the magic of the Wayback Machine, I found the essays again and reached out to some of the writers, and asked them to reflect on their writing 10 years later.

Ashley Wilcox

I am in a relationship with clothing, and it is complicated. 

Jon 

That’s Ashley Wilcox. She’s a Quaker pastor in Greensboro, North Caroline and this isn’t her first time on the podcast. You might recognize Ashley from several appearances in Season 1.

Ashley

I also have all the usual guilt about how our clothing is made. That can be a handy excuse to not buy new clothes. Instead, I wear the clothes I have until they wear out and mend any holes when they appear. In addition to being short, I am curvy, which creates a whole other set of issues. Clothing that might seem perfectly modest on a woman with smaller breasts sometimes looks obscene on me. I stopped wearing shirts with writing on them long before I became a Quaker because I didn’t want to draw any more attention to my chest. And now I joke that clothes I wear to work, usually a sweater and slacks, are my Quaker plain.

Jon

So reflecting on this piece of writing 10 years later, I wonder if we could focus on the line “I have the usual guilt about how our clothing is made…” What did you mean by that? 

Ashley

My main issue with how our clothing is made is so much of it is done by child labor.

The other piece that I was not as in tune with at that point, but I am now is where clothing goes after we get rid of it. So much of it ends up in landfills. Even if we think we’re donating it, it doesn’t necessarily go to a person, it just ends up somewhere. 

And so one thing that I’ve been doing in the past year that I’ve come back to is making some of my own clothing, which solves some of these problems, not all of them, and I actually made my own wedding dress, which was really meaningful and very cheap compared to buying a wedding dress.

Jon

Yeah so I’m wondering is that related somehow to your Quaker faith?  

Ashley

Yes, so I see it being related because of the inherent worth and value of the people who were dealing with my clothing before and after I have it. I don’t want to be so invested in the system that is treating people this badly. And so you can call that the equality testimony, but it really is about caring for these people who have the same worth in the eyes of God that I do.

Jon

Next we’re going to hear from Mary Linda McKinney, who also lives in Greensboro. She shared something she wrote in an online discussion about modesty and plain-ness. 

Mary Linda McKinney

Hmm, I’m not very modest at all. I’m 46, and I’ve had three babies. My body looks like what it is, but I’m really happy with it and wear some clothes that show lots of skin. 

Jon 

Mary Linda’s partner Mark dresses in the traditional Quaker-plain.

Mary Linda

About the time I became involved with my plain dressing Quaker man, I also became comfortable wearing dresses and summer tops, which showed my cleavage, something I had never done before. He is fine with it. Although I’m sure we occasionally discombobulate people.

Lately since falling for my sincere, friendly and God-led plain man, I’ve had cause to further examine the ways in which I interact with the world. 

I’ve been considering humility and what it means to me. Give over I think, give over my ego, my selfishness, my pride, my conceit, the delight I take in my uniqueness, but also my gifts, my abilities and my joy. Give myself fully over to God. Submit myself to God allowing myself to be formed by God and used. 

I’m not called to plainess. But I am feeling that letting go of some of my attachment to how I package myself when I interact with other people, is what I should be doing. I don’t even think I really need to dress differently than I do. Only that I allow dressing to be a prayerful activity, rather than a self-ful one.

Jon

Mary Linda, thank you. I wonder, what does it feel like to read this, 10 years later?

Mary Linda

Yeah, I actually think that I have evolved since then. My relationship with my body has changed. I’ve gone through menopause since that point. I don’t think I’m as flashy as I once was, I have had some other I’ll say shifts in my relationship with clothing. And in my relationship with the divine through clothing. 

Jon

Yeah. So I want to tease out the relationship with Mark. Of course your partner is a plain dressing, plain presenting, Quaker man and you referenced that in your writing here. You said that about the time you became involved with Mark, you also became comfortable wearing dresses and summer tops. And you said that you know Mark is fine with it. But you’re, you’re sure you occasionally discombobulate people. Can you say more about that? Why would people be discombobulated by the two of you?

Mary Linda

Well, I’ll say we were totally twitterpated with one another when we started dating. And here I am wearing miniskirts and bright colors and flashy clothes. And he looks like an Amish guy. And so we would be walking around holding hands stopping to kiss and people would just look at us like, “What?”

Jon

So finally, we’ll hear from Mary Linda’s plain-dressing partner Mark Wutka. I asked him to start by describing the way he was dressed. 

Mark Wutka

So, of course I had the beard without the mustache. And then I generally just wear a denim shirt, either short sleeve or long sleeve, and then blue jeans and suspenders.

Jon

So here’s Marks’ essay from 2012.

Mark

I’m Mary Linda McKinney’s plain-man, and I never pictured myself going for Quaker plain dress. During my first School of the Spirit retreat, Lloyd Lee Wilson spoke to our class.

In his talk, he said a bit about his style of dress including his beard, which he called a tauferbard, a believers beard. And I found that giving it a name somehow gave it power for me. So when I got back to my room, I wrote in my journal that I felt led to grow such a beard and felt like there were three specific reasons why it felt right. First, as a statement of Christian pacifism. Second, as a way of making myself more conspicuous so that I couldn’t so easily blend in with the crowd. It wasn’t that I wanted to show off and say, Hey, look at me, but that I wanted to be aware that people were watching me so that I would be more aware of my behavior, sort of a spiritual discipline. And third, I wanted to invite people into spiritual discussions. 

By my second School of the Spirit retreat, the beard had grown out enough that I had shaved off the mustache and had a tauferbard going. At that point, I was still dressing the way I always had: t-shirts and jeans or Dockers and a golf shirt. Mike Green, one of the core teachers remarked that pretty soon I’d be wearing white shirts and black pants, and I felt strongly that I would not. Within two months, however, I felt inclined to go to plain dress and began dressing in white shirts and black pants with suspenders. I felt that it helped me be more of the person I wanted to be and that it felt comfortable and right. One person on my School the Spirit support committee remarked that it seemed like my exterior matched my interior. 

Jon

Yeah. Thank you, Mark. I love the last part of that piece about your exterior matching your interior. What do you think that Friend meant when he said that to you?

Mark

I think, especially then, and it’s true now, my internal Quaker is sort of an old fashioned internal Quaker, you know, I get a lot out of reading old journals and things like that. And I tend to be sort of basic in my understanding of Quakerism. It’s just trying to follow the leading of the Spirit. And so I feel like that what they were saying is that, that my outward dress was reflecting the kind of life I was trying to lead inwardly. 

Jon

For those who might not be familiar with Quaker theology, what is our tendency toward exploring plain-ness? Why is that important to Friends?

Mark

I think overall, it has to do with our religious experience of God, that because it’s a direct thing. And what we want to do is, is live in a way in which God is speaking to us and through us and we are following where God is leading us. And religiously, that’s a very plain thing. It’s not a lot of ritual, a lot of complication. It’s just doing what God is asking us to do. And I think plain speech and plain dress are supposed to be a reflection of that they’re not things of their own. They’re not supposed to be rituals, they’re supposed to be a reflection of us wanting a pure relationship with God.

Georgia

Thank you for listening and thank you to all our guests who took the time to share their stories about plain dress with us. 

We would love to hear your thoughts on plain dress. Leave a comment over at our website QuakerPodcast.com. While you’re there, you can also find a transcript of this episode with discussion questions.

Today’s episode was reported and produced by me, Georgia Sparling, and Jon Watts.

Jon also wrote and performed the music.

Studio D mixed the episode and your moment of Quaker Zen was read by Grace Gonglewski. 

Thee Quaker Podcast is a part of Thee Quaker Project, a Quaker media organization whose focus is on lifting up voices of spiritual courage and giving Quakers a platform in 21st century media.

If you want to support our work, please consider becoming a monthly supporter. Every contribution expands our capacity to tell Quaker stories in a fresh way and makes this project more sustainable!

Visit QuakerPodcast.com for more information.

And now for Your Moment of Quaker Zen.

Grace Gonglewski

Patricia Loring, 1996, Listening Spirituality, Volume 1: Prayer that does not issue in deeds of love becomes a form of narcissism or an athletic exercise. Activity that does not take time to find its source in grounding prayer, worship, and divine leading becomes dry, exhausting, and exasperating — or an exercise in power.

If you’d like to sign up for daily or weekly Quaker wisdom to accompany you on your spiritual path, just go to DailyQuaker.com. That’s DailyQuaker.com.

We’ll be back in two weeks with our next episode.

Recorded and edited by Georgia Sparling and Jon Watts.

Original music and sound design by Jon Watts (Listen to more of Jon’s music here.)

Supported by listeners like you (thank you!!)

Images from Trisha Goyer and Macrovector / Freepik

Referenced in this episode:

• QuakerJane.com